i think the bug in/bug out decision is likely to be made for you. well me anyway.

some people on the forum are lucky enough to live in remote areas of the country or have dozens (or hundreds) of acres at their disposal. i think these people are obviously planning to bug in regardless of what happens and i'd say their chances are great.

not me. i live in an urban area that is about a 1 hour drive from three major US cities. add another hour of driving and you can add 2 more major cities. if there is a strategic nuke strike on these targets, I am practically forced to bug in initially until fallout settles. After that, I have to consider that if I bug out, I'm going to be racing against millions of other refugees. roadways will likely be useless and it wouldnt be practical to think I could walk to an area where life is still going on normally. in this situation, i'm bugging in and riding it out to the very likely bitter end. I understand one well placed molotoff cocktail will take out all my fortifications but I'd have to take my chances, possibly retreating and taking over another secure location if possible. if i can team up with like minded (and like armed) friends i have, my odds increase quite a bit.

on the other hand, if SHTF is localized or regionalized flooding/wildfires/earthquake bugging out is nearly my only choice and it would be very reasonable to think I could get to an area not being affected and ride it out there. if thats an alpha site I bought years ago or a motel 6 in the next state over, thats going to depend on your prior preparations.

prior prepartions is the last thing that I think will make the decision for alot of people in similar situations to me. not that we didn't want to prepare, but lets face it, preparing isnt free. a well equipped bug out vehicle with supplies and a well equipped basement/buried shipping box/bomb shelter or what-have-you....well we're talking about several thousand dollars. frankly if you decided to equip your home first and a BOV second, and the SHTF before you ever got around to your BOV, you're not going to want to abandon that generator/water tank/ammo stockpile/etc that you so carefully built up for years.

its going to come down to keeping your wits about you, analyzing the situation, analyzing your options and resources, and making the best of a bad situation. prior preparations aren't a guaranteed thing unless you walk around with 90 mres and an ar-15 strapped to your back 24/7 and i've never met a person that looks like that.

frankly if you decided to equip your home first and a BOV second, and the SHTF before you ever got around to your BOV, you're not going to want to abandon that generator/water tank/ammo stockpile/etc that you so carefully built up for years

This is why you need to prioritize your prepping. You're right, you don't want to abandon the generator/food/ammo/water. On the other hand, it's not a great idea to start stocking up on the generator/food/ammo in a place that you think is going to have to be abandoned relatively quickly. If you're in a position like that I would spend the money and time trying to develop contacts/places that you could store supplies away from cities. Obviously land would be best, but that is out of the range of many of us. So I would look for friends or storage units or similar outside of town. There are pros and cons to each, of course. Anything is better than nothing. Make your preps around what you think is most likely. If you think you're screwed in the city, make your preps around bugging out, and set up caches and supplies in a more fortuitous situation.

The decision to bug in or hit the bricks is going to be determined by what befalls us.
Natural disaster vs economic collapse vs armageddon vs UN
They are all going to require different reactions from each of us.

Those of us with alternate AOs also need to remember that your preferred bug out site might be in as bad or even worse shape then where you are. If thats the case don't be surprised to find that your people there will need to come to you.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. You might need to head in a entirely new direction. Consider your options ahead of time.

When I bought my place, I bought it to be a refuge. I am in a very rural area in northern MI. Less than 10,000 people in the whole county. I am working though with others within 30 or so miles to stock up here (mostly). We plan for the others to bug out to my location. We have just recently started making these plans. Many chickens, rabbits, lots of wild game in the area, well for water, pole barn to be finished this spring. 10 acres of land (surrounded by many acres that nobody ever visits). Work only a few miles away. What would be your advice for the next step. We were going to start working on fortifications (more fencing, fox holes, etc.) next, but I would like to know what you think. Thanks

I also enjoyed these two stories. One is The bug out, and the other is Lights Out. http://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Current.pdf
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=172494

Being new to this type of stuff, I really learned alot from these stories.

Growing up in a rural setting though does have its advantages.

momilitia1 wrote:When I bought my place, I bought it to be a refuge. I am in a very rural area in northern MI. Less than 10,000 people in the whole county. I am working though with others within 30 or so miles to stock up here (mostly). We plan for the others to bug out to my location. We have just recently started making these plans. Many chickens, rabbits, lots of wild game in the area, well for water, pole barn to be finished this spring. 10 acres of land (surrounded by many acres that nobody ever visits). Work only a few miles away. What would be your advice for the next step. We were going to start working on fortifications (more fencing, fox holes, etc.) next, but I would like to know what you think. Thanks

Plant wild edibles. Many people couldn't recognize a wild onion if it bit them so That would be an area I would spend some time on.

I wouldn't bother with the foxholes at this time. Instead work on how to funnel people into the direction you wish them to go. Namely your field of fire.

Thanks, that is a good tip. The land naturally pushes you to a certain central line. That is easier than digging too.

John Stillwater- Thanks for a great post, this may be one of our best. Bug in, Bug out- that is the 2nd decision to be made, the 1st being to get ready. My team and I are behind the eight ball, but were working on it. Getting ready we have found to be on the difficult side. Time being the biggest issue, then expense. All three of us work 6-7 days a week and were all making less than we have in the past doing the same job and working even harder.
I never got into the Y2K stuff in fact, I was single and stupid at the time and accutally shut the power off to my house when the the clock hit 12AM to freak out the people I had over.. Let me get back on subject..sorry A.D.D.... I do really feel that we can't get ready as fast as I hoped. We have ecxcellet BOBs that we could servive off for about a week. Then comes longer term preps, and more decisions have to be made. My question and concern are what is more important to do next... I have a feeling that we will get (for example) A,B,C,D,E,F,G done.. but not relize that there was an B2 in the list- that we never thought of- and now were screwed. is there a SOP for Bugin in and SOP to Bug to location. I know that some of the sop is personal and location sepf'c but the basic must be the same. Thanks SHTIFmilitia Members!

What to do next? A damned good question. And you're right, only you can answer it. Here are some guidelines and thinking points:
What do you want to do? What is your eventual goal? Obviously, just living for a week out of a BOB is not going to cut it. As I mention above, even if you BO you've got to have some place to go to, there are very few people who could live off the land on the move. But either way, look at what you want to be able to do:
Live off of the land for X days.
Live off stores for X days.
Live sustainably (hopefully indefinitely.)

Something I would suggest is checklists. They'd be different for each activity, of course. BI list would look like "Lock doors/board windows/fill bathtub with water/put the cat out/pull out candles/hang NBC gear on wall hooks/etc." The BO list would have such gems as "Boots/BOBs/Clothes/Spare clothes/batteries/water/food/etc." Checklists can easily be made in MS Word (and I think OpenOffice too) and you can print them out and put them in a hard plastic sheet protector. Use a Dry Erase marker to check them off while practicing. Which brings me to my next point:

You can practice. A great idea I saw (and hope to do sometime in the next few months) is to role-play. Tell a friend the next time you have 2 days off (or if you have every weekend off, book 3-4 in a row) and have him stop by unannounced at a random time during one of those weekends. He shows up, knocks on your door, you open it and he says "Riots in the city - 5 minutes to get out of the house". Or "Epidemic is coming, 20 minutes to batten down." Whatever scenario you want. Make sure your friend randomizes the time so you don't know how long you'll have to prepare, but keeps it reasonable. The idea is to simulate real life - you may only get 5 minutes warning to get out of the house.

Then, when the time's up, look back. If you're bugging in, ask yourself if you feel prepared for anything after 20 minutes. If you're bugging out, make sure you're crossing the threshold at 4:59. Then look at your pack and everything you brought, and ask yourself if you feel comfortable and confident with what you have on you.

John, that's why I have tow hideaway up in the hills at one mile and three miles away from hom, also have a one hundred feet tunnel from under the house going into the woods.

One 25 gallons propane tank and two 5 gallons of gas under the house and all that I have to do is to drop the flare into a two inch metal pipe in my living room, they will take over my home but they will keep nothing... not even their lives.

Have a outer property fence and a wire fence ten feen away from the home and all the way around it, wont even go into the booby traps in the inner fence that there will be.