Back from anoth­er daunt­ing busi­ness trip to the west coast last week, I did some­thing I don’t nor­mal­ly do these days.  I did­n’t bring with me any of my trav­el preps or trav­el EDC . What?  You ask.  After both you and Prep­per­Jim have been writ­ing about the impor­tance of bring­ing some preps on your busi­ness trav­el?  Yes.  In some ways this was an exper­i­ment, and in anoth­er cat­e­go­ry, I was try­ing to light­en my load since it was a large roller suit­case.

Pri­mar­i­ly, it was an exper­i­ment.  It was an exper­i­ment in fear.  It was­n’t too many years ago that I would trav­el with­out any EDC, and I had no preps at all.  It was­n’t too many years ago I was­n’t pay­ing atten­tion to the econ­o­my , pol­i­tics, etc.  I want­ed to test some of my own fear on this busi­ness trip.  How did it work out?  Well, I’m back, unscathed, with no major dis­as­ter, with the excep­tion of the stock mar­ket decline last week, giv­ing me the fear of eco­nom­ic decline.  In truth, all week long, in the back of my mind I had the tin­gling feel­ing that I should have brought with my my trav­el EDC.  It again has changed and expand­ed upon, which I will out­line in anoth­er post, how­ev­er, it is my safe­ty net when trav­el­ing, and as it seems, gives me men­tal solace while trav­el­ing.

So, what does that have to do with my secret fears.  Well, in many ways, my lit­tle exper­i­ment spawned some thought around what some of my fears as a prep­per (or human being) in gen­er­al are.  They are a lit­tle extreme, but in the back of my mind not unlike­ly.

So here are a list of my fears while trav­el­ing:

1.   EMP .  Yes, an EMP.  But not nec­es­sar­i­ly “just” an EMP.  It seems I am death­ly afraid of an EMP that is not iso­lat­ed to a small area, but an EMP that may be det­o­nat­ed above the Unit­ed States while I am in the air, in a plane, going my work des­ti­na­tion.  It is a cer­tain death from 35,000 feet in the air.  No amount of preps are going to save you (me) in the event of an EMP while I am in the air.

I would much rather be on the ground in famil­iar or unfa­mil­iar ter­ri­to­ry dur­ing an EMP than in the air.  As far fetched as some peo­ple think it is, it is close to the top of my fear list.

2.   Earth­quake.  A real fear for me, since I spend some time in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia pret­ty con­sis­tent­ly.  I have been in a cou­ple of “light” earth­quakes out there that have made the TV and Radio.  In both cas­es they hap­pened at night/very ear­ly morn­ing.  I slept through both.  Both were on the news the next day, and both were in the 4.0 range.  How­ev­er, I am fear­ful of a much larg­er earth­quake while on the west coast where it par­a­lyzes ground and air trans­porta­tion to get­ting home and not hav­ing ade­quate preps with me while on the road, and hav­ing to depend on gov­ern­ment in an urban and sub­ur­ban envi­ron­ment.

3.   Eco­nom­ic Col­lapse.  Yes, eco­nom­ic col­lapse, while trav­el­ing.  I always try to keep an ade­quate amount of cash on my per­son while trav­el­ing.  How­ev­er, if the banks close, if the ATMs are not work­ing, if the cred­it cards are not work­ing, it may be near to impos­si­ble to get home in the short term.  While it did­n’t hap­pen this past week, I watched the finan­cial news eager­ly won­der­ing what might hap­pen while on the road, won­der­ing if I should car­ry extra cash in an enve­lope which might be enough to buy an emer­gency plane or bus tick­et at the air­port if nec­es­sary to get me home.  Maybe bring with me a sev­er­al of those sil­ver coins that I have recent­ly acquired to sell in a pinch.  Note, how­ev­er, there will be added weight.  Sigh…

4.   Riot.  Dete­ri­o­ra­tion of rule of law is a huge con­sid­er­a­tion.  When I trav­el it is gen­er­al­ly to a city.  After look­ing at what is hap­pen­ing in Lon­don with the riots over the past cou­ple of weeks, there is uncer­tain spec­u­la­tion that this is com­ing to a city near you soon if our coun­try’s job and finan­cial sit­u­a­tion does not improve…  I am not lim­it­ing riots to cities how­ev­er, but gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, this is where they hap­pen, and get report­ed on first.  Not sure I want to wake up to a riot out­side my hotel while trav­el­ing.

5.   Being Strand­ed.  A few weeks ago, when I was on the west coast, I drove to Las Vegas for the week­end.  Not to gam­ble mind you, but to vis­it two long time friends that coin­ci­den­tal­ly live in the Las Vegas area.  Dur­ing my dri­ve through the desert to vis­it my two old friends, you pass many exits that seem­ing­ly go to nowhere… You pass the exit to Death Val­ley, etc.  I look down at the ther­mome­ter on the car and see 105 degrees, etc.  What if some­thing were to hap­pen, back to my EMP argu­ment, if the car stops run­ning, many or all of them stop run­ning and you are stuck in the desert.  I usu­al­ly bring with me sev­er­al large bot­tles of water in the trunk when I dri­ve from LA to Las Vegas (I do this about once a year), but being from the north­east, my only sur­vival train­ing for the desert is watch­ing Dual Sur­vivor with Cody Lundin , co-host­ing.  This is only one exam­ple of being strand­ed, how­ev­er.

6.   No Com­mu­ni­ca­tion.  Based on some of the above, com­mu­ni­ca­tion may be cut off.  Not being able to know if my fam­i­ly and friends are okay, or let them know if I am okay is a real fear.

7.   Injury.  Injury while trav­el­ing dur­ing a man made or nat­ur­al dis­as­ter and hav­ing to depend on med­ical care ser­vices that are already strained with many peo­ple wait­ing for med­ical ser­vices, is not my idea of fun.  And again, while I trav­el to cities, most­ly, this is a real pos­si­bil­i­ty…

Those are my main fears while trav­el­ing… Are they found­ed?  I think so.  I think they are all real­is­tic, per­son­al­ly.  I thought about them a lot while trav­el­ing in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia last week.  I prob­a­bly will not be trav­el­ing with­out my trav­el EDC again any­time soon.  While it may not be per­fect, it is cer­tain­ly a lit­tle piece of mind, whether or not I may ever need it.