We can be almost anywhere on earth within 24 hours using the various forms of modern transportation. Automobiles have greatly increased the amount of area we can cover in our daily lives, but what happens if we can’t use our vehicles anymore? The average human being can walk around 3 mph and can cover about 20 to 30 miles in a day. This of course varies by an individual’s fitness level and many other factors such as the terrain’s roughness/steepness, the weather, and the amount of load carried. Just think of it this way: it will take 2 to 3 days to walk the same distance that you can cover today by hopping in your car and driving an hour on a major highway. It will take a day to walk the same distance you can drive today in one hour, on a back road. The purpose of this article is to get you thinking about how quickly you can cover large distances today and how to come up with a plan to deal with getting there if modern transportation resources are not available.
Why can’t I travel?
You may be asking why can’t I drive, I store plenty of gas? That may be true at least for a short period of time, but I want to discuss long-term options. The two most obvious events that would limit our abilities to get around are an EMP/CME or total financial collapse. A few other events that I can think of that could put us in this situation are: Cyber-attack causing our fuel infrastructure to be down for months, localized natural disasters, the Marxist regime in DC doesn’t agree with state governments and decides to cut us off, or a supply chain breakdown that makes critical components unavailable.
Why do I need to travel?
I’m sure I’m not alone, but I think nothing about hopping in my vehicle and driving 20-30 minutes to go fishing or to forage plants. In a grid-down scenario the four main reasons that we need to travel are to: collect food (hunt, fish, and forage- including medicinal plants), collect firewood, collect water if the utilities go offline, and to get healthcare treatment. If you are lucky enough to live within walking distance of where you hunt, fish, forage and collect firewood this may not apply, but think about hauling home the heavy loads such as that deer you shot or the firewood you collected. If that ability suddenly ended tomorrow, what would you do? The longer this grid-down scenario goes, the fish and game closest to you will become depleted, so you will have to travel farther to hunt them.Continue reading“Life Without Modern Transportation, by C.J.”


