Category: Retreat Locales

Five Preparedness Lessons Learned, by Allen C.

I was speaking with a friend recently who mentioned he still has a generator in the box taking up space in his garage.  It has been there for ten years.  He did not know what to do during the Y2K panic so he spent money to make himself feel better.  I am not knocking the value of a good generator.  I have used mine for almost twenty years.  However, purchasing a generator he did not know how to use without at least buying some gasoline to go with it was a waste of money.  It has been said the humans …


Letter Re: Grub and Gear–Lessons Learned from an Alaskan Trapper

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James, Going through some old gear last month, I found my food supply lists and notes from 1976-79. I thought the old list might be of interest and the lessons I learned during the first three years in the remote Alaska bush may be helpful to a few of your readers. I do not recommend Alaska for a TEOTWAWKI retreat but the lessons I learned the hard way may be helpful to any one in a cold climate. I grew up in California listing to stories from my grandfather about Alaska and the Yukon. When I graduated from high school …


Developing Our Family’s Survival Strategy, by FBP

We started prepping about 18 months ago. I have felt like a chicken with its head cut off, going wildly in all directions. I’ve learned a lot about a lot, some by research, but have learned most from doing. Being prior military (I served six years in the Army Captain, and as a civilian, I was a financial planner), I started identifying mission statements and initiating plans, backwards (aka backwards planning) in order to get them accomplished on time. The first mission: “How do we survive hyperinflation?” My readings led me to believe that the best protection is to plan …


Know Thy Neighbor, by “The Old Salt” in Virginia

In reading “Preparedness Beginnings” by Two Dogs it struck me that I had been missing a vital part of basic preparedness . . . I was doing it naturally, but I realized how many post I had read that left it out or put it as “I will need to do this when . . . “.  My title tells the story, but let me digress a little and put some background to it: Like “Two Dogs”, who is a retired Marine Corp Officer, I’m a retired Naval Officer who drug his family around the country through nine moves in …


Letter Re: Preparedness for Living on a Chesapeake Bay Island

Mr. Rawles, I am just now (pretty late in the game, I know) becoming aware of the impending collapse and have begun reading your blog regularly (it is the first thing I read in the mornings now). I realize now that I must prepare as much as I can and have a question about my current location. I live on an isolated (no bridges, ferry and airplane transport only) Island in the Chesapeake Bay. It is somewhat densely populated for its size, but everyone knows each other and most residents hunt and fish and have their own boats. Many residents …


Letter Re: Viability of a Well-Stocked Suburban Retreat?

Good Morning! Thank you for the info you provide for all of us in your web site. I live in the Kansas City Area in a beautiful suburb which is one of the nicest cities in the country. till doing okay in the depression too. My work is secure and I do well and I own my own twp-story with basement frame home and have been making it a retreat for the past five years. I have no debt and am 60 days ahead with my mortgage and insurance and utilities. Am I absolutely crazy to try to stay here …


Preparedness Beginnings, by “Two Dogs”

I am a retired Marine Corps officer and Naval Aviator (jets and helicopters), commercial airplane and helicopter pilot, and most recently, an aircraft operations manager for a Federal agency. I graduated from numerous military schools, including the U.S. Army Airborne (“jump”) School, U.S. Navy Divers School, Army helicopter, and Navy advanced jet schools. In addition, I have attended military “survival” courses whose primary focus was generally short-term survival off the land, escape from capture, and recovery from remote areas.  Like most Marine officers, I attended The Basic School, an 8-month school (only five during the Vietnam era – my case), …


Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security–Learn from My Mistakes, by B.B.

In the summer of 1995 I decided to build an underground multipurpose survival shelter. I purchased the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearney and went to work. If you want to know about shelters and what it will be like living in one, then purchase his book. My brother helped me for a while with the construction, but I did the majority of the work alone and it took me two years to complete the project. Let me say up front that I’m an amateur who used a brilliant book to build a shelter. Along the way …


City Data as a Retreat Locale Search Tool

SurvivalBlog Readers: Are you trying to find small towns to evaluate for potential relocation? I’ve been wrestling with the process and have found it tedious at best. There is a web site, however, that can be a valuable resource: City Data. If you follow this link you will come to a page that has the states listed. Click on the state you are interested in Idaho, for example. This link takes you to a list of cities with a population over 6,000. There is a link at the top of the page that lists towns and villages with a population …


Community Disaster Recovery–Asking the Right People the Right Questions

I was pleased to see this post over at the Mountain Steps blog: A letter to our county commissioner about emergency preparation for hyperinflation. It is commendable to make such inquiries, but it is essential to ask detailed questions. Especially when contacting elected officials, vague, general questions tend to elicit vague, general answers, and hence most likely no action will be taken. It is also essential that you do some research first, to direct your inquiry letter or phone call to the right individuals. Flunkies don’t create or change policy, they just implement it. You need to direct your letter …


Letter Re: A Multiple Family Retreat — Lessons Learned The Hard Way

Dear Mr. Rawles: I have been following several good reader contributions including “Bug Out At the Last Minute” arguments versus those who consider “Early Relocation” and most recently “A Multiple Family Retreat—Lessons Learned the Hard Way” in regards to the most expeditious and efficient way to set up a self-sufficient retreat. While I understand that some folks are just simply unable to make a full time commitment in setting up a retreat, I also know that there are many—while there are still the comforts of life available (television, readily available food and gasoline)—that are unwilling to make the sacrifice necessary …


Six Letters Re: Self-Sufficiency in England? Take the Gap

Hello Mr. Rawles, Thank you for taking the time to reply to my previous e-mail. I must confess your original post on your blog and your reply left me feeling somewhat bothered and a little defensive. I have been mulling this over all day and deep down I know the reason why, it’s because you are absolutely 100% right. My wife who makes my world go round could not leave her family, my son who has special needs is receiving very specialist care locally, my community, friends and neighbours who have worked this land for generations rely on me for …


Self-Sufficiency in England? Take the Gap

One of my readers sent me this news item from southwestern England: Announcing the Release of ‘Can Totnes and District Feed Itself?’. That got me thinking. Perhaps they can feed themselves. But if things fall apart, how can they feed the Golden Horde from Bristol, Bournemouth, Plymouth, Poole, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Bath, Exeter, Swindon, Torbay, and the other cities of southern England? And let’s not forget greater London. Most of those city dwellers will want to head for “the countryside”, but how many urban refugees can the small towns absorb? Parenthetically, I’ll mention that the Rawles family name originated from southwest …


Letter Re: Some Details on the High Altitude EMP Threat

Mr. Rawles, Within our Christian survivalist group in Washington State, we use your novel Patriots, as a primer for friends. Keep up the great job you do. Please consider the following statement with your readers. I believe that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack by satellite can happen to the U.S. without any notice at all, and many nations already have the satellites in order to produce the end result. This is not meant to scare, but just an observation on how our great country can be taken back to the 1800s technology and a Third World country economic level, in …


Letter Re: The Utility of Horses and Horse Theft Prevention in Hard Times

Hi Jim, I read your blog every day as I am preparing my family for the likely collapse. Thanks for the info.We are looking for the ideal spot for our retreat and have found many possible places all in the Pacific Northwest (wooded, very private and off of main roads, creeks, etc.) Here is our dilemma: We have four horses and want to grow our own hay to feed them. How does one find a property that is remote and hidden but still with enough flat, fertile land to grow hay (5-10 acres per horse!)? Our horses are all small …