This article was originally published by J. G. Martinez D at The Organic Prepper
I have mentioned in several opportunities what I could have done better, given the chance. Here some of my afterthoughts about it. As good as your plan may be, you may have to leave it all behind. You must plan to be mobile.
Some of these preparedness plans may not work as well as we would expect. No matter how wonderful your retreat is, there may come a time when you have to leave. And you must plan for that, too.
A walled retreat may not work in the long-term
Building a large fortress could seem a very attractive idea. Stocking and piling food and other goodies is, for sure, an even better idea. But, unless the kinds of event you are preparing for be something like a zombie attack, or a deadly, fast, pandemic…it is not going to work very good. Because you will find knocking at your door desperate people that, after the first weeks, will be desperate enough for trying whatever they could figure out to take over the compound.
And I say this because I saw it happen. I made one acquaintance, a nice fellow, judo practitioner, combat shooter (back in 2006-07 you could still buy a gun and ammunition for home defense and sport shooting), with a nice, large, wonderful cattle hacienda (larger than a farm indeed, about 1200 acres, maybe more). He was pro-guns, had studied in the States, and generally, his mindset was not that of the average Venezuelan regarding self-sufficiency. His house there was surrounded by a tall wall. Bullet holes all over the upper edge indicated how many times he had to shoot to warn trespassers.
Food in a large pantry and a small wind/solar arrangement to power some HAM / UHF equipment for the security team of the hacienda was as well in place. And of course, a small pool, and a large water tank with over 25.000 liters. There is a lot of rain there, so this was not exactly a concern. However, the huge drought in 2008 taught us a lot of lessons about this.
The judoka farmer, had this little problem: his cattle losses were so high (and this was way before Uncle Nicolas) that even before the collapse, he had to sell his land at a loss, his wonderful big house in the suburbia, leaving just a small flat in the city.
I know, he could just have shot the guys. But obviously, those who think like this have not the slightest idea about how things are there. Shooting someone, even if this person is obviously trespassing and with intentions to do harm, is seen as plain murder…even if you are defending your own life. The reasons? Easy. Authorities are so…deviated, so to speak, that unless you have enough financial means to pay some… “contributions”, the shooter won’t leave prison. Ever. The only shooters I have seen that are still in prison because of the right reasons are a couple of drug addicts (father and son) who shot dead a family father in the middle of a drunk fight for a parking space in front of a liquor store. Cold blood, in front of his small kids. They locked them up and threw the key. One of my friends was there.
He is now in some place in the States (or Italy, I truly don’t know), I lost his track, but I wish him the best. He is a nice, kind fellow.
He took care of his compound for many years, just to get ahead of many of us, and regardless, he had to migrate (or bugout?) before things got worse. He had to leave it all behind.
This is why I suggest an RV
Why do I suggest to prepare an RV, camper or some means of off-grid sheltering?
Fitting the RV with low consumption devices is now much easier. Good LEDs are available, warm and cozy, and investing in those wonderful Nickel Iron batteries seems to be a great deal to me. These are heavy, expensive, but they are low maintenance and will last for a lifetime. The consumables needed for keeping the batteries running, if I remember well, have a long life shelf under proper storage conditions, and that can be found in a shack built in the plot itself. This is something that, provided that you need more specific information I could write a much more technical article, so just ask for it, please.
There are a lot of interesting apparatuses for heating in the winter (I know now how harsh winter must feel)
Another interesting addition, especially for those who can weld, is a small, portable, welding machine and an air compressor. These are widely used by off-roaders when need to weld some chassis or some other part, and they don’t draw too much power. Air compressor will allow you to use a good variety of power tools, and they are much safer to use under the rain than electric tools. Those of us who have been in the open country to cut a fallen tree under the rain with a machete know what we talk about.
Solar panels? I will take two of those big ones, please. Hey, wait, make it three. Of course, a low tech filtering design for rainwater collection is a need. And I would add a high quality, compact, high capacity water filtering system. No pressure. Gravity will be enough. You can’t afford the risk of a leakage in the middle of nowhere, and losing your drinking water.
Being mobile would have made things easier.
This said, if we could have afforded the RV I had my eye on, we could have sold the city house, and bought some plot in a much larger city, as an investment for the future. Confiscation of an empty plot is much harder: people are lazy and wants an already built house. (wink). And this is the main reason for the need of an RV as the main home. It is much more practical and will provide shelter while building a stone and masonry main house.
By parking in my folks plot, our cats would have been able to feed themselves, too (a part of whatever money I can get around here is for them, twice monthly). Our expenses would have been much less, as well. The best part is that we could have been together, as a family. My friends could have known our children, and their small lads and ours could have been best friends in those years, so important for the good memories that will be a necessity later in life.
Put aside some money
Another necessity, now that we mention that, is going to be some financial resources, enough for renting a plot, perhaps even buying it later. With our main home sold, enough money in the bank would have been available, just in case. It would have been much less hard with that, and those 8 months we were separated as a family would not exist as a sad memory.
A good home, in our instance, is now a large investment standing still, unproductive and under the jeopardy of seizure. We are not living in it, and it is consuming money. We can’t sell it. This is what happens in a collapse.
A much wiser investment would have been the RV, a good condition one. With one-third of the money we could have arrived safely to our destiny, and so we would have some reserves, for some things like a dentist for the kid, some medicines I need, and other stuff.
This would have made migrating easier, too.
By traveling in an RV, we could have convinced to some local authorities that we are not the negative kind of migrants, but instead, the kind of those who are not dangerous, nor a burden or a heavy load to anyone. With it, you could rent a plot, buy a truckload of blocks, build (or contract some to do so) a good, tall wall, make a steel gate installed, and you will be set in a blink. A place to cook, shower, and rest, all of it within the reach of a poor migrant’s pocket.
After that, you will have time to look for a decent way to make some cash. As I write this, renting prices are increasing in this part of the city, because of the huge amount of new migrants arriving. Flat owners deny the properties to some people that get 6 persons in an apartment designed for 2 or 3 at the most (although some of them are smart, and get coordinated with people who works at night shifts). I have heard about 10 persons living in a 2 bedroom apartment.
I am thinking seriously in exchanging my busted SUV for an RV in Venezuela, and coming back, but it seems there is not even one able to resist such travel. Perhaps I could sell it in cash and make it sent here. If we can make that deal and buy an RV here, I will let you know. It would be a great advance on our lifestyle, indeed. I would need the migration paperwork for driving, but it would not be too much of a problem. I would love to find some of the truck camper varieties, the kind you can detach off the truck platform and install on their own legs, and use the truck. Fitting the truck with an air suspension to increase lift, the truck would be a normal ride in the city and an off-road setup just in case. It would have been useful for me a couple of times in Venezuela, in some roadblocks generated by accidents or other causes.
In conclusion
I hope you find usefulness in our ideas (I usually ask my wife what we could have done in retrospective), and I truly hope you never have to use it.
Thanks for your comments, and your donations to keep this flowing.
You are a wonderful, and supportive community. I will see you soon again.
God bless you, people!
Jose
***
About the Author
Jose is an upper middle class professional. He is a former worker of the oil state company with a Bachelor’s degree from one of the best national Universities. He has a small 4 members family, plus two cats and a dog. An old but in good shape SUV, a good 150 square meters house in a nice neighborhood, in a small but (formerly) prosperous city with two middle size malls. Jose is a prepper and shares his eyewitness accounts and survival stories from the collapse of his beloved Venezuela. Thanks to your help Jose has gotten his family out of Venezuela. They are currently setting up a new life in another country. paypal.me/JoseM151
Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to The Organic Prepper and the following bio.
Daisy is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting, homeschooling blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, and the pursuit of liberty on her websites, The Organic Prepper and DaisyLuther.com She is the author of 4 books and the co-founder of Preppers University, where she teaches intensive preparedness courses in a live online classroom setting. You can follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter,.
Sometimes the best defense for a SHTF event, is to use the 3 second lead you have over every one else to get the hell out of the way or at least put 12 inches of good cover between you and the threat BECAUSE you grasp the situational awareness. Never under estimate the value of that situational awareness, but never take for granted a CORRECT ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION of that situation to make the right choice FIRST.
I’ve said it time and time again in here. Be prepared to go mobile.
Stay quiet Be smart
I don’t have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you
Two steps and three seconds. Exactly my point.
Get yourself a four season tent that have the ground cover built into them. RV’s are big often unmanageable unless driving on paved roads. Get four wheelers or heavy duty bicycles to carry your packs and other items. You get out in the desert without the right necessities and you’ll last no longer than those pilgrims who traveled in a covered wagon.
Before SHTF when food is readily available, we are called “preppers”. People might see us as a little off but relatively harmless. After SHTF when there are more hungry mouths than food, we change into “hoarders”. We don’t have to change ourselves or the way we live. People are angry with their government and its leaders. The leaders claim that there is more food available but the “hoarders” won’t share. Some of the anger is shifted from the leaders to us. Bugging out may be the smart move but it means leaving a lot of badly needed supplies. It’ll depend on how I’m feeling when it happens.
Hence,
Eradicate the leaders, divide up what they have hoarded
(And did nothing for)
Then start over from scratch
Extra food? Shit no! I lost all mine in the same unfortunate boating accident where I lost my firearms.
For that matter, why the hell would anyone ever know how much food I store? Or other supplies? My own wife and kids don’t have even the slightest idea of how much we have.
As for everyone else, I will observe that the greatest part of being a talkative learnedly big mouth like me is that people naturally assume you can’t keep a secret, so therefore you don’t have any. So they don’t try to pry them out of you
The author may be right that there are times when it is better in the short run to abandon ship. His RV sounds like a nice lifeboat too. I certainly respect his opinion since he has lived in SHTF conditions. I have to think, though, that if times are so desperate that people will seize your castle and stash, won’t more desperate people want to hijack your nice comfy RV? If you abandon that too, and are on foot, won’t more desperate people want your nice boots and everything in your backpack. At some point of your choosing, you will have to be prepared psychologically to stand your ground or else I don’t see much other future than a slow, hungry, naked, mangy death in the great outdoors.
Yea, makes me want to just die at home.
Menzo, I’m going back to the BOL at the endo of this month. Once I get there, depending on how things go, it may be for good. There won’t be any abandoning my home. I’ve sacrificed too much blood, sweat, and tears and spent too many years building up my supplies. If it comes to it, I’ll die right there at home. The only running I’ll be doing is from the city to the BOL. After that, no more running.
The author is a fraud writing bs fake stories and begging for money at the end of every one of his articles.
New name,
Son
Of Sasquach!
It’s a terrible idea. If land, cattle, and food are attractive enough for looters to take a 1200 acre ranch, your RV full of that stuff is just as big a target. And, once your gas runs out, well…
I mean it just sounds like you can’t win to loose. WTF is someone supposed to do in a given situation? I really don’t know – I guess if it gets that bad, well, save one large, high caliber round for my mouth and call her a day…take out as many of the idiots as you can first though. “Blaze of Glory” they call it yet?
That’s right cc. I’m not going to run away anywhere as there is nowhere to go. I’ll fight until I’m killed or they quit.
Agreed! Kill a shitload of interlopers and leave their bodies strewn about, perhaps folks will come to the wise conclusion.
Sad we have to think this way, but shit’s getting crazy out there in 2018. .
Menzo, same here. The BOL and the family close by is the ONLY place for me to go. I”’ just make my stand right there.
that’s what im talking about never leave your post if thay want it thay will pay a high price for it rvs are nit bullet/bomb proof my fox hole is
The LAST thing i would do is bug out! And surely not in a nice RV which would draw unwanted attention right out of the gate.
Those in cities and crowded urban areas should bug out, well before collapse has set in. If they don’t, they’re hosed.
Bugging out is very dangerous after the “every man for himself” mindset has taken over the population. The roads and towns will be clogged with desperate people. Who in their right mind would willfully drive into that?
And god forbid, what if your RV breaks down, which they are prone to doing? You are screwed and very vulnerable.
I would rather go with the fortress plan with a shitload of firepower and take my chances.
Bugout is sn absolute LAST resort. The only way i would entertain it? Is if 500,000 screaming Chinese were marching down I-75 toward Atlanta destroying everything in their path.
“…that is why I suggest an RV”
That is why I suggest a passport.
_
B from CA, I recently (finally) got around to getting my passport. I can’t believe I put it off so long. NOW I have more options available to me during certain SHTF events.
It was surprisingly quick and easy!
I decided early on in my preparations that I would bug in at just about all costs. Although, about a year ago I started positioning supplies at an alternate secure location. As things deteriorate I hope to be able to position even more supplies there in case I have to retreat to a fallback position.
Sounds good, Justice. The more options the better.
_
Mac, there is a huge fraud being perpetrated against the American public regarding Venezuela! There is NO crisis there as being reported by American corporate media! The fact of the matter is, Venezuela had decided that they didn’t want to use the U.S. fractional currency anymore and ever since that decision, the stories have mounted about a crisis there with the buildup that American military involvement may be needed!
Sounds like several countries in the middle east, doesn’t it!
I think that the social bargain has failed the entire base of that pyramid, already, where all the castes of people are shown, because it’s always been a Ponzi scheme. Never any other way. The ground floor of that pyramid, also known as the Mudsill Class, has always been the downline, a day late and a dollar short, by design.
If the farmer, here and now, doesn’t think very highly of you, in this country, he’s going to treat you like a hungry Venezuelan.
A middle class still exists in your country. You’re basically telling an indigent or financial failure, that he may have to wander.
“Cause I’m the wanderer, yes I’m the wanderer, I roam around around around.”
Rover, Wanderer, Nomad, Vagabond
Call me what you will…
A well outfitted boat is even better than an RV.
Ladies and germs, anytime you hear the heads of central banks using words like, well,
DEPRESSION, take heed. Something ain’t far off.
Aljamo, you just described Bill Clinton, LOL!
A camper?!? It seems that being the Gray man would be a more prudent way to operate when SHTF. Driving around BFE in a camper with all your stuff in it…I would think your asking to be relieved of all your stuff by a bad guy(s). Campers are kinda high profile after all.
Hope the folks down south are getting the help they need. Looks like a big response in getting under way.
rednek101
Packaging all of your stuff in a neat container that is indefensible doesn’t seem like a good idea. Using one to get to a destination is one thing. Using it as the destination, moveable or not is another.
Kevin2
I can’t see a family doing this alone. However, if you have a caravan of like minded people capable of self defense, it might be a good alternative. IMHO
Leave it behind?
If i cant have it
NOBODY can, and i will make sure of that.
When the bug out plan becomes the save your ass and leave right now plan.
Talk about streamlining.
It’s amazing how I provided some truth regarding this article – truth that the Govt doesn’t want out and it was never posted here!
Repeat history and don’t ask for sympathy from me………
Nailbanger, same here. I spent too many years and too much money getting what I have stockpiled now. The BOL is the only place I have to go to. The ones who will need to run away are whatever scumbags come to attack us once we’ve wasted some of them.
Great idea: to run around in a camper getting +/- 10 mpg when fuel is either not available or is priced at 1gal of booze for 1gal of fuel. Instead of a camper, maybe a tanker towing a trailer full of booze ??
Pick a nice remoteish spot for your cache, leave all the crap at home, or burn it as you walk out the door, your not coming back. your cache is the center of your AO. boots, ruck and a rifle. optics are a must, spotting scope, situational awareness is life. a really bad attitude is helpful, just think of your home and vehicles smouldering, which is better than letting some low rent bottom feeder crap on your couch. or having to think about the Orgy as they root thru your stuff. burn your high dollar Jeep it will just get you killed. Be the reason Antifa fears to go into the woods.
RVs are big and slow and non-defensible at 10 MPG.. If you and your RV get to your BOL before the SHTF then fine, otherwise be prepared to lose it to someone with less scruples and more firepower. If that happens be prepared to blow it up with them in it because you won’t be getting it back, assuming you survive the taking.
Although I can come up with variables supporting an RV, I agree with others that it is not a great choice unless you get out early and get it to a BoL. No arguments with the need to be mobile, just don’t paint a target on yourself. I have 4 large crates of gear and a 4WD SUV ready to go – water filters, tent and tarps, rain gear, twig stoves, machetes, silver coins, etc. I can add food and guns and a gas can and blend in or get off the beaten path.
The FSA are welcome at my BOL, free dog food, free delivery.