I wouldn't want it to be farther than I could reasonably expect to walk because you never know. A few days max. Any more than that and the logistics starts to become a nightmare.

 

Plus the less time it takes to get there, the less chance of someone else being there. I would agree a few days max

 

112m
1 hour by air
2.5 hours by car now
1-2 days by bike
4-5 days by foot with lbe
8 nights, walking at night only

Differant ways to think about it.

 

Yeah well I can get to genuinely remote areas within 100 miles of the house in any direction which is similar to your BO location distance wise.

I'd say East I would generally not do because I'm just West of a decent sized city, so if I was gonna hoof it out I'd have to hoof it through the middle of town.

West would be my last choice other than east because I don't really have Friendlys more than say a days hike West of Me.

North and South of me I have some Friendlys like maybe 2-3 days hike out that I could link up with and have better odds than going solo.

 

Mine is a little over 300 miles away right now, but we are moving there later this year or next at latest. And for the time being if I had to walk (which is on a last resort, have a bicycle buggy) I have several stopping locations planned out along the route with other like minded friends and family that would allow ample rest.

 

Mine is a little over 300 miles away right now, but we are moving there later this year or next at latest.

Not to sound like a broken record....but....
If you have BOL you haven't moved to yet...but PLAN to.....
You best be spending every waking moment preparing your land for your inevitable arrival.

Don't expect to just Bug Out to your BOL and be ready to rock. You'll starve to death.

I moved 2 years ago and am still getting prepped...full time.

Doginit

 

If you have to go by foot, you can always use sense about travel time. Most people are not going to be able to march 16 miles a day. Either age, condition, or weather may come into play. Yes, many differing senarios can be developed through thought, with some time.

Traveling to the BOL is a measure, to land at a supposed secure zone. What if your LZ has already been raided? Travel could become permanent. Then one would have to determine where to turn and how far may that destination may be.

Traveling to a BOL should not be more than three days march. You may think you have prepped enough items, but you may need stay close enough to a point of future commerse. Even the mountainmen needed to come to an outpost once in awhile. If not just for human contact.

 

My BOl is on family owned acreage (260) about 2/3 of it forested, My section will soon have finished earth- contact home.(Interior work needs completed) So danger of being over-run unlikely, unless the can get past a clan of independent hillbilly's

 

Doginit:

I haven't moved yet we are finishing house been a process over several years of vacation time. The land is already being tended by some of my relatives(we went in together to buy it) My cousin and her hubby who lived in the area took the existing house on the property and moved in right away. My uncle built a hunting cabin (A-frame) later that summer. We have built a earth-contact home(need to finish drywall) that is on grid but does have solar panels and wood-furnace. and will get wind-power after we move in. the Land has two wells and a large pond. One more family member right now has as platform set up in the woods that he puts his base tent up on when he comes down. So I guess what I am saying is I wish I could have moved when we bought five years ago but we will be there before winter or by spring 2012 at latest.

 

It is different for everyone...multiple options would be best in my opinion, based on what the situation is.

My plan?
A. Bug In
B. 1st BOL, a farm a half-dozen miles away (family-owned)
C. 2nd BOL, a very good BOL owned by a friend about 60 miles away
D. 3rd BOL, a rural acreage owned by family, about 60 miles in the opposite direction of option C
E. 4th BOL, a chunk of land about 40 miles away in the middle of nowhere, owned by friend's family...in a different direction from all other options


I figure if things are so bad that I need option F, I'll just give up!


As a side note, I am in the process of buying a couple of acres about 80 or so miles away. Also of note, options A-D have homes/buildings already.


Hope that helps!

 

50 miles, but the guys in the Patriots book had several hundred miles...too far and way too risky.

I'll only bug out if I absolutely have to!

 

i think you should be a days walk from a major populated area, or your just in somebody's else's back yard. besides i don't want to hear all the screaming from the cities.

 

I see a lot of people mentioning locations that are "on a friend's land" or "with a friend".

Nothing will test the bonds of a friendship like a true SHTF scenario.

 

Ideally, the distance should be 0. When you need your BOL, you'll need everything to be up and running, and you can only do that if you've either been living there, or visiting it every weekend.
And living there means it's less likely to have been disturbed in your presence by unwanted intruders.

But that's not what you're looking for, so I'll try to answer it your way.
I'd say 50 miles. You should be able to cover that in an hour or so by car, or a couple of days by bike and trailer. The distance will be more painful and the amount of supplies you can pack to get there will be much less if you have to get there on foot, so I wouldn't want to have to bug out much further than that.

 

How far is too far?

How far can you walk with what you can carry on your back?

What if you are sick or injured?

What if you can't use the roads and have to walk over rough terrain?

What if you have to deal with fallout (nuclear or volcano)?

What if it is snowing or raining real hard or it is very hot - how far can you walk per day in that kind of weather?

What if you are being pursued?

What about the weakest member of your family - how far can they walk?

I live at my BOL. I have a back injury that often makes walking any real distance (more than a mile or two) a painful experience. I also have family members who can't always walk very far.

How far? I hope that I never have to walk from my work to home, but I figure that the situation may make it such that I would only make 10 miles per day, which would mean 3 days travel on foot.

 

Too many unanswered questions in the OP that would make a difference on distance. First what are you bugging out of? If you are leaving a large populated area and have to cross the city or whatever that might take a large amount of time.
What type of terrain would you be crossing to reach your BOL? If it is open country travel might not be too bad, but you might want to limit exposure. Time of year is another thing that comes into play here. If it is summer and you have open roads then travel might not be too bad. Middle of the winter and bad weather conditions will cause problems. What are you planning on taking with you? If by vehicle you can pack a good bit, but if on foot and have a large distance to cover you will be limited what you can take.
How much fuel will you be able to get your hands on? If you are traveling a distance that takes half a tank of fuel, and you start with a full tank, don't be surprised if you end up walking due to conditions.


IF I have to head to my BOL by foot, it will take about a week of heavy travel. For this I have set several stashes of supplies along the route.

 

Been in my BOL for 8 years. Kudos to an earlier poster that said if you have one, you'd better be there getting it ready, learning the land etc. It's a huge task that's never done and has more layers than a Vidalia onion.
Personally, I am concerned about the number of folks that plan to BO but have no L, will 'live off the land' or worse, see themselves as a John Rambo or even Chuckie Manson that will make their own way on other's resources. The perception that everyone in the country is looking to feed wanderers huge farm fresh meals, whistling while they milk cows and driving endlessly on quaint old farm tractors just ain't so. If we have serious times ahead (as so many say), each and everyone of us needs to figure out how to lay low, the fellow above with multiple BOL options is best off. Thinking you are going to great Aunt Maggie's farm where you played as a kid will work if you invest your time there, do an appreciable share of the current work, share the current costs and pre-position what you'd like to have in your BOL.
Seems like the ideal BOL is never far enough away from the teeming masses and not reachable if S is HTF.

 

this thread is from 2011, idk if the OP will answer back lol

 

Maybe not but it is still a good thread for others.

 

Even though it is an old thread I found it helpful. Lots to think about. The more I read on this site the less I feel I know and am prepared.

 

Mines roughly 6 hours away by car, definitely a few days walk haha but I'm constantly thinking of closer options. But, my plan involves more of a nomadic approach than to a specific location. If I had the money for a better location, things would be different. But knowledge on how to survive is much easier

 

Corect me if I misunderstand but that sounds more like being a refugee than having a specific plan.

 

To an extent, yeah I guess so, haha But I have no intention of going to some "Camp" or pleading with people for supplies. My main BOL is a small house that used to be my Grandmas that my uncle owns that my family uses at will, traveling, etc. But I do have a couple other places here in southeastern, Ohio I could go to as well. Refugee could be used I guess, but it's not the best. My plan calls for me to rely more on skills and knowledge than gear. Being short on cash, thats the best shot I have. But I've also grown up, hunting, trapping, skinning, living in a lean to catch only what you eat camping trips with my dad and uncles, so as long as I practice what I've learned, for me personally, using the land is my best shot. By that, I do not mean to rely solely on the land, I'm by no means a bad ass indian whatever you wanna call it, but I intend on using my gear and skills supplemented with nature. So I wouldnt consider myself a refugee, but others might

 

That's the way I think. Too many people are depending on their 'stash'. What happens when that stash runs out, and it will if it's long-term. Depending on the nature of the circumstances, people really should know how to survive as if they didn't have any stock-pile at all. I try to keep in mind that there are circumstances where we can lose everything that we have stored. What happens if your stores are lost to a natural disaster, or if they are stolen? Not really advocating heading to the forest to live off the land as a first choice....but we all should at least know what wild edibles are in our area, how to prepare and preserve them, and how to hunt and preserve the meat. Just in case.

 

Exactly. I'd rather spend money learning a SKILL I need that will last a lifetime than a piece of Gear that could break down in a who knows how long. That said, I too plan on having and using a great deal of gear. But why use a limited amount of things when I could use a limitless source? At the very least, it'll make my supplies last longer.

 

It's amazing how many wild edibles are all around us, in our yards, under our feet. Wild medicines too. Sometimes the skills we need to know, skills that our ancestors had, are just too much to learn all at once, so we should at the very least have books that we can refer to to learn. It's actually kind of scary the way we have lost the knowledge that kept our pioneer fore-fathers alive. We don't even have to go as far back as the pioneers, just go as far as the depression...wild edibles kept many people alive and healthy.

 

My statement is always along these lines:

Your BOL needs to be far enough away that your local worst case scenario will not affect it, but close enough that you can get to it, injured and on foot, during the worst season and weather of the year, in the conditions of that worst case scenario, traveling under cover and at night, in the time the supplies of your BOL alone (no caches) provides you.

Hope that is helpful.

 

Sure. No one else even mentioned the real purpose of BOL. Of course your requirements are contradictory (in U.S. at least). Any BOL closer than 200 miles from a significant city (and separated by natural obstacles) would not comply with your first requirement, and if it complies, then it wont comply with the second. To make matters worse, many scenarios would not permit walking more than 1-10 miles (depending on initial location).

 

That is the the $60,000, how far? Realistically I plan on 10-12 miles max per 24 hr period, I would prefer to be at least 100-150 miles from where I am at which is 25 miles north of Detroit. My problem is that because of the weather I would rather be at least 400-500 miles further south...

 

I am sorry, but 100 miles north would not help you. 500 miles south might not (going thru Ohio).

 

That is why I moved out ahead of time. But I STILL face the same general problems, except now they are related to be able to get home, rather than bugging out.