Category: G. O. O. D.

Prepping for Missionaries and Other Long-Term Foreign Worker, by Mission Mobilizer

The position of the Missionary or Long-term foreign worker is a bit unique, and certainly cannot be assumed to be similar either to a non-American prepper in his native home or to short-term traveler overseas. Those who travel overseas in the short term, need only to make sure that they are back home before any kind of crash and they can implement all of their plans as normally as they would have had they been at work when things began to go wrong. Those overseas for longer periods of time, stretching into years rather than days or weeks must plan …


Letter Re: A Folding Kayak as a Survival Vehicle

Jim, I have used a kayak for a couple years now and find it indispensable. Three years ago my grandfather gave me the very nice gift of a brand new Old Time kayak (a dark green fishing model). He want for me to have something to remember him by as he was on his way out of this life. But I digress. This kayak has been on numerous fishing trips and river excisions, including a week long float on the Current River. It has never failed me and I have been extremely impressed with it. My dad grew up spending …


Two Letters Re: A Folding Kayak as a Survival Vehicle

Jim, Today’s submission on Kayaks as survival vehicles is good but the statement, “Often in a hard shell boat the majority of your effort is spent simply paddling, trying to keep the boat upright!” isn’t really accurate. It might be true of some sporty river kayaks but certainly not of modern hard-shell sea kayaks. A number of years ago I spent three days kayaking among several islands in Puget sound. It was a guided trip and except for one time on a placid river, it was my only time in a kayak.  I found our tandem kayaks remarkably stable in …


A Folding Kayak as a Survival Vehicle, by Jann B.

The vehicle I am about to describe does not often come immediately to mind when one thinks of a survival vehicle to be of use during troubled times but bear with me.  The vehicle I have in mind requires no fuel, and no mechanical upkeep. Additionally it offers significant stealth mode and is totally silent. If one is in or near an urban setting such as the San Francisco Bay area or Manhattan or Seattle then this survival vehicle will grant one the power to disappear from the crazed urban crowd scene almost immediately.  No, I’m not talking about some …


Letter Re: Lessons from the Road

JWR, I’d like to add just a couple points to the excellent “Lessons from the Road” article by R.W.. One key item that I feel is important is to involve everyone in the planning of your escape route. If you are the primary driver, and end up incapacitated, it is essential one of your other fellow travelers be able to take up the mantle and get the BOV to the BOL. In families, route planning can be a great way to get everyone involved and on-board with the preparations process. It also allows everyone to contribute and point out things …


Lessons from the Road, by R.W.

Statistically, driving is one of the most dangerous activities in most of our lives.  Limited supplies, new or dramatically changed surroundings, minimal physical protection and exposure to observation make moving by vehicle the most dangerous phase of many survival plans.     There has been a great deal of focus on the best ‘Bug out Vehicle’ and proper vehicle gear to use in a survival situation.  Often overlooked are techniques and skills, many of which are completely different than the driving skills we use in our daily driving, necessary for a vehicular bug-out.  Whether you are driving a 5 ton military …


Letter Re: AR-7 Type .22 LR Survival Rifles

The debate on firearms manufacturers and caliber are endless, so each person must in the final assessment decide what works for them and theirs, having over 50 years of shooting, gunsmithing experience, and having taught firearms safety, I would like to offer a insight on a wonderful .22 rimfire rifle that is available from Henry Arms Company.  It is called the U.S. Survival Rifle .22. (A very appropriate name, for current conditions in this world).   I first owned a variant of this little rifle back in the 1980s when it was called the AR-7 and enjoyed the unique shooting and storage …


The Will to Act: Your Ultimate Bug-out Kit by R.B.

Section One The Bug-Out Bag is an icon of the preparedness movement. The principle is well known and agreed upon: we may indeed have to pack-up and take flight to a more orderly, less hostile environment, intelligently. This would be either in anticipation of a great upheaval of social order or in its aftermath. How we will face the situation and deal with it is our part to play. Bug-out is an emergency measure, supplying us with a three-day margin for action: decisive action, evasive action, survivalist action or other salutary maneuvering. You must make an informed plan for your …


TEOTWAWKI Planning From the Perspective of a Former SF Operator, by SAV

When starting the process of preparation for TEOTWAWKI we must first plan for the most likely scenario that will cause the survival situation you are prepping for. When contemplating the TEOTWAWKI scenarios, one is confronted by a plethora of daunting challenges and theories from Magnetic pole reversal, getting hit by a rouge asteroid (don’t worry about this one Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis will save us) to solar flares knocking out technology, and the list continues.  My fear is that the end will not come from a major event but from a minor event that triggers a chain reaction of …


Bicycles for Bug Out Drayage, by Light Dragoon

There have been plenty of essays written on the art of “Bugging Out”, many of them concerning the various vehicles which the authors are fond of for every specific condition which one might face.  In particular, there are several good essays on the use of bicycles as “bug out” vehicles.  This note is going to be a bit different, for I’m not going to even consider the use of a bike as a mode of personal transportation, but rather as a “mule” for transporting one’s kit instead. There are plenty of bike options out there, and plenty of experts more …


How to Survive the Cities During TEOTWAWKI, by Lara W.

Get out of the cities. Most would agree this is a key rule of survival during the end of the world as we know it.  After all, millions of people reside in cities around the globe. Supply store shelves can become bare in mere minutes, water can become rapidly contaminated by overwhelmed sewage systems, and riots can outnumber and overtake law enforcement. The urban environment also renders certain wilderness survival tactics unsafe, such as cooking over a fire. Cities are vulnerable to uncontrollable fires. They make prime nuclear targets. Disease spreads among city dwellers at an astounding rate. There are …


Practical Tips on a Cross-Country Move, by P.J.G.T.

We are moving from the East coast to the Northern Rocky Mountains, and here I sit in a Midwestern state at my cousin’s house waiting for a part for our car to be shipped in. So, I thought I’d take this opportunity to put down on paper the best answer I have come up with to a question I had before the move: How do we move our family across country with limited funds, lots of stored supplies and more than a handful of tools? My husband and I are walking a fine line to make this move the best …


Letter Re: The Thinning of The Horde by Matt B.

Dear Survivalbloggers: I just finished re-reading JWR’s novel “Patriots“. Anyone who has read it knows that in Chapter 21 a number was given on the percentage of the population that perished during the Crunch. This has allowed me to open my mind. There will undoubtedly be a Golden Horde, but as you will read, it will quickly and overtime diminish considerably.   This last semester I took a human geography course which I found especially relevant to the way that a ‘Horde’ would move. In the course I have learned that in a typical East Coast suburb, there are about …


How to Pack Storage Totes For Evacuation, by C.Y.

One way to pack emergency supplies is in plastic storage totes, which are available inexpensively at department stores. Many stores have 18 liter volume totes, between five and ten dollars per tote. They also have smaller sizes, which may be more convenient. The smaller sizes may be easier to pack in the car.) [JWR Adds: For strength, the opaque Rubbermaid brand totes are preferred over the more brittle transparent totes. I also recommend taking some detailed measurements and doing some test fitting of bins in your vehicle(s), for the most efficient packing arrangement.] There are two general categories of action …


Product Review: Mainstay Emergency Rations and Water by Michael Z. Williamson

It’s a good idea to have an emergency food supply in one’s bug out bag, but it needs to be something that doesn’t decay, leak or spoil, and has a good shelf life in possibly extreme conditions.  Enter the Mainstay rations.  They’re made by Survivor Industries and packed in what feels like a heavy mylar-lined foil, rated for five years, and can withstands temperatures of -40° F to 300°F (-40°C to 149°C).  They meet USCG and DoD standards for packaging.  They’re in convenient 400 calorie bars, each constituting a meal, which make management easy, and eliminate trying to break them …