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The most important qualification for a bug-out location is that you have to be able to get there. I could live rather well on the Big Island of Hawaii, but if North Korea invades, there aren't going to be any more tourist flights and my little motorboat won't make it that far.
You need water that doesn't come out of a faucet, which eliminates and awful lot of places.
Warmish weather would be a plus so you don't freeze to death.
Wildlife is only a plus for a few months at best because when fish and game laws disappear, the game is going to be quickly wiped put.
Build a matrix that suits you skills and knowledge. Each item will have a sometime large secondary list associated with it depending on your needs and locations. Some assumptions are not being in a city, being able to get there with what you have, working/wood tools for your location, what you don't have you can get within a day (24hrs) or better yet a 1/2 day (12hrs), and it's defensible. By defensible... I mean secure from theft, critters and potential bad guys, not an organized group... although if you can, great!
For me I start with the big three that could kill a person... climate, water, food.
1)Warm is better than cold
2)Immediate potable water for drinking and irrigation is better than salt water or traveling to get water
3)Immediate EASY access to something to eat is better than growing food or hunting
Then it's sustaining ones self with shelter, arable land, and natural resources
4) Hard built shelters are better than tents, tarps and canvas
5) Fertile flat land is better than rocky hills and dense forests
6) Natural resources are better than hauling resources in (Natural resources is a complex list). Basics like wood or coal for a fire, game, timber, etc.
Then ancillary items and this depends on your location.
7) Weapons and tools for cultivating, fishing, hunting, trapping, netting etc. (not personal carry items)
8) Things to cook with
9) Livestock including horses for transportation if necessary
10) Fuel and or solar
Build a matrix that suits you skills and knowledge. Each item will have a sometime large secondary list associated with it depending on your needs and locations. Some assumptions are not being in a city, being able to get there with what you have, working/wood tools for your location, what you don't have you can get within a day (24hrs) or better yet a 1/2 day (12hrs), and it's defensible. By defensible... I mean secure from theft, critters and potential bad guys, not an organized group... although if you can, great!
For me I start with the big three that could kill a person... climate, water, food.
1)Warm is better than cold
2)Immediate potable water for drinking and irrigation is better than salt water or traveling to get water
3)Immediate EASY access to something to eat is better than growing food or hunting
Then it's sustaining ones self with shelter, arable land, and natural resources
4) Hard built shelters are better than tents, tarps and canvas
5) Fertile flat land is better than rocky hills and dense forests
6) Natural resources are better than hauling resources in (Natural resources is a complex list). Basics like wood or coal for a fire, game, timber, etc.
Then ancillary items and this depends on your location.
7) Weapons and tools for cultivating, fishing, hunting, trapping, netting etc. (not personal carry items)
8) Things to cook with
9) Livestock including horses for transportation if necessary
10) Fuel and or solar
This post illustrates why financial preparation must precede everything else. The people who live at their retreat have their resources at hand. However, this course is only available to the financially secure.
The notion of bugging out seems contrary to survival to me...let's see, Things are bad so I'll wonder about through the myriad of other desperate people who may see me as lunch. Only to make it to my hideout, which may or may not already be occupied by someone else, and even if not...you are in foreign territory...even if you visit regularly.
Now, how fresh is your stockpile? How secure is your camp? What are you going to do to provide when provisions run out?
Are you going to farm? that will attract attention eventually, plus, while you're farming, who is providing security?
Are you using a noisy fuel thirsty tractor or a noisy, food/water thirsty mule or horse?
Are those already there or must you tote them to your location? Attract attention much?
How are you planning on getting to your secret location without detection? How will you work the land and provide undetected?
Do you really think you're the ONLY one who is picking the same "ideal" place?
Why not prep in place and learn to be the grey man?
It seems like this is all a fantasy...then again, the thread was started by someone who supposedly wants to prep but has believed all of the climate change BS...so there's that!
Take a ride down Route 5 from Downtown Buffalo, over the Skyway, along the lake to Old Lake Shore Road, follow that until it returns to Route 5 at the roundabout in Irving, and follow Route 5 south through Silver Creek, Dunkirk, and Barcelona to the PA border. There are thousands of year round residences "literally" built on the lake -- and most are not multimillion dollar palaces but houses that well heeled but not necessarily wealthy people can afford. You find the same thing around Chautauqua Lake, the Finger Lakes, Oneida Lake, etc. People like to live near water, whether it's in Florida or New York. Living along lake shores can be as perilous as living along sea coasts in eras when water levels are rising and weather is becoming more extreme.
FTR, Buffalo and the eastern shore of Lake Erie is vulnerable to sieches because of the lake's shallowness and the persistence of winds from the southwest (even in winter). The 22 foot sieche wave in 1844 overtopped the breakwater that protected the Buffalo harbor and killed 78 people as well as pushed so much lake ice up the Niagara River that an ice dam stopped the flow of water over Niagara Falls. In 2008, a sieche of between 12 and 16 feet flooded parts of Buffalo despite the protective breakwalls.
Moreover, warming temperatures will make it more likely that Lake Erie will remain unfrozen for longer or for the entire winter. This will increase lake effect snow, but also make shoreline areas more prone to icing and ice damage. Remember the 4 day lake effect snow storm that dropped 7 feet of snow South Buffalo and the Southtowns several years ago? These people didn't live right on the lake but they were in life-threatening circumstances for days. More recently, in February 2020, Hoover Beach between Woodlawn and Athols Springs got "iced" by a winter storm roaring over the unfrozen lake waters. Here's drone footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhAA8mYBqrE
You're cherry picking information.
Yes living on hoover beach is the most flood prone area on all of lake Erie. They haven't replaced the seawall and houses are built 20 ft from the lake. I know my coworker lived there and I hear about his house flooding or being damaged by storms. This is an outlier. It's a strip of land about 1/2 mile long and 100 yards deep of houses literally built on the windward shore of lake Erie. If you live even right there but on the other side of 5 (1/4 mile distance) you're 100% totally fine no concern. So to write off an entire geographic area worried about lake storm surge is short sighted..
The notion of bugging out seems contrary to survival to me...let's see, Things are bad so I'll wonder about through the myriad of other desperate people who may see me as lunch. Only to make it to my hideout, which may or may not already be occupied by someone else, and even if not...you are in foreign territory...even if you visit regularly.
Now, how fresh is your stockpile? How secure is your camp? What are you going to do to provide when provisions run out?
Are you going to farm? that will attract attention eventually, plus, while you're farming, who is providing security?
Are you using a noisy fuel thirsty tractor or a noisy, food/water thirsty mule or horse?
Are those already there or must you tote them to your location? Attract attention much?
How are you planning on getting to your secret location without detection? How will you work the land and provide undetected?
Do you really think you're the ONLY one who is picking the same "ideal" place?
Why not prep in place and learn to be the grey man?
It seems like this is all a fantasy...then again, the thread was started by someone who supposedly wants to prep but has believed all of the climate change BS...so there's that!
Totally agree.
The Ideal scenario, you have strategically re-located and live there in your safe haven year round.
2nd best scenario, you have a bug out property you own that is fully stocked and staged that you have means to reach no matter what the scenario is.
Everything else, leaving your house is almost certain suicide.
"Bugging out" to go find some random place to live off the land is just madness for 99.9% of people.
Personally i'm not buying a 2nd property Because I'm putting my money towards permeant fulltime relocation. If anything happens before then I will be bugging in at my current location trying to ride it out as best I can.
The notion of bugging out seems contrary to survival to me...let's see, Things are bad so I'll wonder about through the myriad of other desperate people who may see me as lunch. Only to make it to my hideout, which may or may not already be occupied by someone else, and even if not...you are in foreign territory...even if you visit regularly.
Now, how fresh is your stockpile? How secure is your camp? What are you going to do to provide when provisions run out?
Are you going to farm? that will attract attention eventually, plus, while you're farming, who is providing security?
Are you using a noisy fuel thirsty tractor or a noisy, food/water thirsty mule or horse?
Are those already there or must you tote them to your location? Attract attention much?
How are you planning on getting to your secret location without detection? How will you work the land and provide undetected?
Do you really think you're the ONLY one who is picking the same "ideal" place?
Why not prep in place and learn to be the grey man?
It seems like this is all a fantasy...then again, the thread was started by someone who supposedly wants to prep but has believed all of the climate change BS...so there's that!
Bugging out isn't the same notion for everyone, nor should it be evaluated as a single idea. For instance... I have a condo on the beach and acreage in 'cattle country', the two separated by less than 50 miles. One is for fun and the other is ... well, home. Home is = my bug out. I've been there for over 40 years. Most people from the city think they hear banjo music when they get out my way. I'm good with that. I can still shoot my Barret and not worry about the round going beyond my neighbors fence line.
I usta have a bug out location/cabin on a mountain ridge in Tennessee. Isolation, invisibility, and difficult terrain has more disadvantages than advantages.
Bugging out isn't the same notion for everyone, nor should it be evaluated as a single idea. For instance... I have a condo on the beach and acreage in 'cattle country', the two separated by less than 50 miles. One is for fun and the other is ... well, home. Home is = my bug out. I've been there for over 40 years. Most people from the city think they hear banjo music when they get out my way. I'm good with that. I can still shoot my Barret and not worry about the round going beyond my neighbors fence line.
I usta have a bug out location/cabin on a mountain ridge in Tennessee. Isolation, invisibility, and difficult terrain has more disadvantages than advantages.
So technically you're bugging in, which is what I suggested as the main plan.
i am now, but there was a time when the plan was different for different reasons. Major factor... I'm older.
Your older wisdom helped you have a better plan.
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