Welcome to PorcFest, a weeklong camping festival billed as a libertarian utopia of sorts in the mountains of New Hampshire. Run by the Free State Project, the annual festival attracts 1,500 people from across the nation, who started trickling in Sunday.

Called "porcupines," the animal that serves as a logo for libertarians, they come to share ideas and be among others who dream of a small government society where taxes are limited, trade is free and people are allowed to eat, imbibe and inhale whatever they please. The festival, officially called the Porcupine Freedom Festival, offers a glimpse into the kind of libertarian paradise Free State Project leaders hope to one day create statewide.

"I always kind of keep an eye out for jobs in New Hampshire," said Kyle O'Donnell, a 26-year-old PorcFest attendee who knits socks for a living in Raleigh, North Carolina. "Hopefully, one day in the future I can join the rest of them here as we assemble, like, a critical mass of libertarians to affect state policy."

This year's PorcFest comes at a key moment for the Free State Project, a plan devised in the early 2000s to persuade 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire en masse. New Hampshire was chosen, in part, because of its "Live Free or Die" motto and the relative ease of getting elected to office: The state's citizen legislature has 424 seats. In February, the movement earned its 20,000th "signer," the threshold that is supposed to trigger a mass move within five years.