The unreality of a bug-out location

A few months ago, I read an interesting piece on The Organic Prepper on the subject and importance of a bug-out location. Ideally, this is the fully pre-furnished remote location every good prepper is supposed to have up his sleeve for the inevitable time they’ll be departing the urban dystopia.

The scene is always set for the prepper to arrive on his remote doorstep, battered but alive from his apocalyptic journey, and slip effortlessly into a self-sufficient lifestyle and live happily ever after. Or something like that.

The ideal Bug-Out Location, the article tells us, should have the following:

• Isolation from major population centers

• Shelter

• At least one-quarter acre of land with excellent soil (for gardening); more land, if possible, to raise livestock

• A natural water source

• A nearby wood source (forest, etc.)

There’s so much to unpack in this article that I almost don’t know where to start; but frankly, all I can see is a recipe for disaster if people actually try to follow these recommendations.

The article makes it sound like an isolated shack in the woods is all you need to survive a bleep-hit-the-fan scenario, and everyone is already pre-equipped with the knowledge to grow a garden, protect it from deer or other pests, preserve the harvest, and, I dunno, live happily ever after.

But there is more – so much more – to self-sufficiency than a bug-out location.

If you’re fleeing a genuine natural disaster (hurricane, wildfire, etc.), then either the evacuation is temporary, or your home is gone. There is no middle ground. If the former, then you can go home as soon as the danger is over, clean up the mess, and resume your life. If the latter, you’ll have to start over, hopefully with the assistance of friends, relatives, insurance companies, and contractors.

I’ve had friends fleeing wildfires. In one case, some friends had the time to temporarily relocate their livestock to a safe location and literally move everything out of their home lock, stock, and barrel. Thankfully the fire missed them, so they took the opportunity to give their empty house a good scrubbing, then moved everything back in.

In the other case, the fire erupted so fast there was no time to do anything but flee, and our friends lost everything but the clothes on their backs. Their home was burned, much of the infrastructure for their farm was gone, and the only reason their livestock survived is because the husband was able to dash in among the flames and release the horses and cattle to a more distant pasture. Friends and neighbors rallied around to aid them, and they’re slowly getting back on their feet.

But these are not the situations preppers talk about when they describe bug-out locations. Instead, they set up the scene for fleeing the apocalyptic bleep-hit-the-fan scenario in which cities abruptly become unlivable. This is the setup for which they urge bug-out locations.

But a bug-out location, to be an effective, long-term, and self-sufficient option, has to be so much more than a shack in the woods with a creek running nearby.

First of all, even with all the skill in the world, it will take – at minimum – three months for the refugee’s garden to start producing food. (This assumes they were able to plant the garden in a timely fashion and protect it from pests during the growing season.) But what will they eat until their garden is ready? What if they arrived at their bug-out location in the fall or winter (or even in mid-summer), when gardening isn’t possible? Do they have sufficient food storage already in place at their remote location to tide them over?

Besides, most people do not leave urban areas possessing the full knowledge and skills necessary to become self-sufficient immediately. Speaking from experience, it takes years of trial and error. To assume you can arrive, panting and dirty, on the doorstep of your bug-out location, remove the backpack from your aching back, and know what to do next is asking a lot.

Additionally, unless the prepper is willing to adopt a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (in which case they’re going to need access to a heck of a lot more than one-quarter acre of property), they’re going to need a lot of tools. These must either be pre-located at the bug-out location, or brought with them (and trust me, these tools won’t fit in a backpack). The list of tools is formidable and includes everything from gardening implements to a pressure canner. Unless the “bugged-out” prepper has access to the tools necessary to live self-sufficiently, he’s going to fail.

This is why these kinds of unrealistic “armchair prepper” articles that makes me despair. We’ve been involved in the homesteading movement for decades, and we’re still learning, still failing, still trying new things. To give someone false hope that they can waltz – tra la la – onto a raw piece of land with a ramshackle shack and transform it into a thriving self-sufficient homestead within a matter of weeks is criminally misleading.

You’re not going to your bug-out location for a two-week vacation (in which case you’re going to your vacation home). Instead, you’re going to your bug-out location to survive an apocalyptic situation.

This is not meant to discourage anyone from purchasing land and developing it into a homestead. Quite the contrary: if this is your dream, I urge you to follow through with all possible speed. But it should be a lifestyle, not a place you think will be ready for you in the bleep hits the fan.

It takes time to develop a piece of land into something that will provide your physical needs. My advice: Get started NOW.

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Don and I discussed this subject, and he wrote the following:

It’s possible, when you read the above, you said to yourself, “Gee, Patrice is being a bit harsh.”

Well, let me tell you that compared to my take on the article in question, Patrice is being far too kind. I’ll begin with the general tenor of the article she references.

The author seems to suggest that everything you need to do for developing and maintaining a successful “bug-out” is outlined in his 1,800-word essay. Aside from this being impossible (considering all the permutations involved in locating, purchasing, constructing and maintaining a viable “shelter” in the wild), the author glosses over so many vital concerns as to make the piece worse than useless, moving it solidly into the “dangerous to deadly” category.

Here’s a few of his knuckle busters:

• “In this review, we will assist you in choosing a perfect bug-out location where you will have totally secure retreats and enjoy your stay there.”

There is no such thing as either perfection or total security in any bug-out location, especially if you don’t live there full time. I don’t care how crafty you are in purchasing the land or how stealthily you sneak in one 2×4 at a time to build your “shelter” or how far out into the wilderness you go. Someone local – logger, hiker, moonshiner, weed grower, forester – will soon know you are there and will just as quickly spread the word to others. Never doubt the power of the country grapevine. I suppose it’s possible you might set up your shelter inside of a hollow log or under a rock pile and get away with being unnoticed for a while, but hollow logs are hard to heat safely and rock piles are there for a reason, often related to unstable slopes above you.

• “[Your bug-out] has to be located quite far from your main house, as you want to be able to escape from your area when any type of emergency starts. Thus, usually, such constructions are located in very remote areas, but the distance from your residence is not the main characteristic.”

Aside from the fact that the author contradicts himself in adjacent sentences, the distance between your residence and your bug-out should be a short as possible based on the reasonable disasters you anticipate. If your main concern is a tsunami, having a prepared retreat inland above the anticipated high water levels is smart. If your fears are at the other end of the spectrum – such as nuclear winter or a planet-killing asteroid strike – your best bet is to make sure that you’ll be accepted into God’s house (which actually is a good and inexpensive strategy regardless of whatever other plans you make). But assuming your earthly concerns are somewhere in between, you want your established bug-out to be located where that you can get to safely and quickly, if for no other reason than that you can check up on it regularly and do such stocking and maintenance as needed to make sure it will be ready for your use. Realistically, the best-case scenario is to live full-time in your bug-out location.

• “A long distance from your home to the bug-out location is important for your safety.” and “That is why the distance from your permanent residence should not be too long and too short as well.”

Before I go off on the author too much for the above sentences, he does provide specific distances based on travel methods and potential calamities. For example:

• “Using a vehicle – from 50 to maximum of 100 miles” and “Bear in mind that there can be no opportunity to use gas stations. It means that the shelter should be no further than one tank of gas away.“

The main criteria for this distance to your perfect bug-out seems to be your mileage. (Professional hint: try to find a vehicle which can go at least 100 miles on a tank of gas; might want to avoid an EV.)

• “Walking to location – from 25 to maximum 50 miles”

First off, if you live in a major city, you won’t even find yourself out of the suburbs at 50 miles. Additionally, what exactly do you think the other refugees are going to do to you and your large and heavy back pack as you limp by on your blistered feet?

• “If you want to hide from nuclear war or tsunami – 100 miles”

Just stop. Please stop.

I thought I’d go farther in reviewing this article, but I have other more important things to do (Sunday nap).

Just understand that there is nothing in the “expert” article under review that will keep you safe. Absolutely nothing.

If you’re rightly concerned about living in the cities during these increasingly troubling times, here is the best advice I can give you:

Get out of there now. Sell out and move to the country. Buy a fixer upper and fix it. Build a garden and raise livestock. Learn to preserve food. Learn a new set of skills. Meet, listen to, and become neighborly with the locals. Find a local job or make one. Attend a church. Join a fraternal organization. Stop and smell the roses. Exercise and learn about your area with long backwoods drives and boots on the ground. Homeschool if you’ve got kids.

I can’t promise you that you’ll have the perfect bug-out, since perfection is a goal and not a destination, but at least you travel time will be nil.

And if you plan right, you can take tsunamis off you list of concerns.