This is a thought that hit me this week­end as I was surf­ing the Web for sur­vival top­ics so I could learn some­thing new.  I was look­ing up Bug Out Loca­tions , and it hit me that, we (I) dis­cuss prep­ping your pri­ma­ry home with preps pri­mar­i­ly for Bug­ging In .  But I start­ed giv­ing more thought to how prepped a Bug Out Loca­tion should be in the event you have to Bug Out at any par­tic­u­lar time of year.  For instance, If you live where I do in the North­east­ern region of the Unit­ed States, we clear­ly have four dis­tinct sea­sons.  There­fore if I have to bug out in Novem­ber, it is going to be hard for me to grow veg­eta­bles until spring.   It may be hard for me to pro­cure any live­stock as well because I do not have a barn, coupe, or shel­ter for any ani­mals, so I bet­ter have a freez­er full of pro­tein or pro­teins stored of the canned, jarred, dehy­drat­ed, or freeze dried type.  If I bug out in Novem­ber, for instance, I have a min­i­mum of six months (includ­ing the month of Novem­ber) before I can plant any vegetables/crops.  That is a long time.  It will be at least nine to 10 months before I have any har­vest at all.  An even longer time.  It might also be spring before I (you) could start to build a shel­ter and food stor­age for any live­stock you may pro­cure.

So, that said, “How stocked should a bug out loca­tion be if you have to bug out?”  I am think­ing, that based on a per per­son basis, you should have a “min­i­mum” of one year to 18 months of food stor­age at your bug out  loca­tion per per­son.  Why up to 18 months?  Well, what if you have a poor grow­ing sea­son?  What if you can­not pro­cure more than a cou­ple of cows, goats, chick­ens, etc.  Pro­tein will be at a min­i­mum, so your food stor­age may be what you are liv­ing on for that extend­ed peri­od of time.  Espe­cial­ly if you are not sea­soned at skills such as hunt­ing or fish­ing .

This isn’t lim­it­ed to food either.  I think that you should cache extra cloth­ing for all sea­sons, med­ical sup­plies , oil, gaso­line (sta­bi­lized), tools (a cou­ple of chain­saws, a redun­dant tool­box, and oth­er tools), plow for the gar­den , a cou­ple of bicy­cles for organ­ic trans­porta­tion, lamps (oil, can­dle or oth­er), guns, ammu­ni­tion (espe­cial­ly for hunt­ing), fish­ing gear , generator(s) , solar pan­els, deep cycle bat­ter­ies, invert­er (s), radios, cell phones & sim cards, walkie talkies, bat­ter­ies, etc. at your bug out loca­tion.  I know it sounds like a lot, and I know it is going to be expen­sive.  Redun­dan­cy is.  But the more I think about it, the more detail and items come to mind.

it is a lot to think about.  There are a lot of skills to acquire and learn.  The more I think about it, the more I think that I am more an arm­chair prep­per and arm­chair sur­vival­ist than not.  I am clear­ly ahead of many oth­ers, but still in my infan­cy and learn­ing.

What have I learned?   Prep­ping is not enough, there needs to be a much big­ger plan…  And, this post sort of when awry a bit with what instead of how much.  This also begs the ques­tion, should you have a bug out loca­tion with your net­work of prep­pers or go it alone with your fam­i­ly?  I thing the for­mer for me.  A den­tist, doc­tor, expe­ri­enced OPSEC guy, car­pen­ter, etc, are all assets to a group.

Please com­ment if you are a sea­soned prep­per and self suf­fi­cient home­stead­er.  I would like to know what you think and what your thoughts are on the above.