I am a channel flipper and that has really served me well. I often land on documentaries because I love the stories of people's lives. So how could I resist the story of Gwen Roland and her companion Calvin Voisin? They "dropped out" in the 1970s to live on a houseboat in the Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana . They built their home (a houseboat after their original house flooded) out of primarily salvaged materials. They grew their own food (supplemented by fish they caught.) They lived a mostly solitary existence but had friends in the Basin that would visit from time to time. One of these friends, the photographer C.C. Lockwood, took some of the most stunning photographs of them for National Geographic magazine. Gwen then wrote an article about her experience for Mother Earth News and then a book called Atchafalaya Houseboat, My Life in a Louisiana Swamp . The documentary, also called Atchafalaya Houseboat, is not to be missed. If you dream of a sustainable, off-the-beaten path life, the story of Gwen and Calvin will surely inspire you.