Whether it is a strategic move or a forced evacuation, how to get your family and gear to your Bug-Out Location should be decided beforehand.
As seen in the pictures above, you have quite a few options for getting your family to safety. All have pro’s and con’s.
Hiking is discussed on this page. But here are links if you would like to jump ahead to other transportation sections:
Hiking with a Backpack
(Often suggested but rarely a good choice as evacuation transportation)
Most, if not almost all, disaster novels have the hero hiking to safety. Even disaster-preparedness groups like CERT have everyone hiking with backpacks to disaster scenes. And while a person on foot has maximum mobility in the short term, hiking all the way to your Bug-Out Location (BOL) rarely makes sense. Here are some reasons:
- You can only carry a very limited amount of supplies on your back. And unless you routinely hike with a heavy backpack, you will probably end up discarding almost everything in order to lighten the load after a surprisingly short time.
- It is physically demanding at time when you should be trying to save your energy.
- It is very slow way to get away – it will take all day to cover 20-25 miles with a backpack. That means that your Bug-Out Location, 100 miles away, will take at a minimum of 4 days to reach on foot.
- You can’t hike all day. A major portion of the each day will be taken up by setting up camp and foraging for food and water. Food and especially water are very heavy and there is no way to carry more than a couple of days worth with you. That means you will need to forage for enough food and water every day to get you to your BOL. For example, the food rations in most emergency kits assume that each person will only need 1200 calories and 1 liter of water daily – that is what is known as lifeboat rations. That is nowhere close to what is needed if you are hiking!
How much food and water is really needed when you are hiking with a heavy backpack? Data shows that soldiers in top physical shape typically have to consume 3,000-10,000 calories daily when marching with their combat backpacks. And the water needed? Between 6-10 liters per day for each hiker.
- Any injury, even as simple as a sprained ankle, can totally stop your progress for hours or even days if you are hiking. Carrying a heavy backpack may be out of the question.
- Older family members, children and pets will not be able to handle 20-25 miles for one day – let alone several days in a row – assuming that they can hike in the first place.
Occasionally, the premise of the story will provide a reason for not using automobiles but then they ignore all other transportation modes also. For instance, horses might only be viable for those who live on or near a ranch but almost everyone already has (or can easily get) a bicycle or three-wheeler. Those alternatives will usually allow you to carry significantly more supplies while at the same time expending far less energy and covering more ground in the same period of time than hiking.