It’s no secret that I recommend having a good tent or a tarp along with outdoor sleeping gear. These aren’t meant to be where you live out your days in a without rule of law situation. In fact, in all of my books, I mention that quality of life matters, even in a disastrous situation.
While it’s important to have camping gear ready at any moment in case you have to flee temporarily, what’s better is having somewhere secluded yet developed to go and live. This can be your cabin, farm, or a retreat location. As Tom Petty famously sang: “You don’t have to live like a refugee…”
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Romans 12:18
Recently, I taught a class segment for a preparedness group at their private retreat location. While I was there, I got a full tour of the property and its development. I’m not giving out any names or locations, to protect their OPSEC.
When this group first secured a retreat site, it was largely undeveloped and they stayed in tents and pop-up trailers. In very short order, they made the collective decision to upgrade the site for quality of life and I’ll just touch on some of the ideas, without doxing the site or their full plans.
First, it already had a defensible perimeter. It’s back off the road with woods between them and the only road. While there is a driveway, it’s on a far corner and from the road, all you can see is a gate. That’s the first step to avoiding trouble – don’t look like a giant resort area that’s well stocked. Stay small, stay secluded.
The living area they have upgraded to converted CONEX’s as residences, which is a pretty common project now in many parts of the country. The neat thing is they’re doing all the work themselves. They are upgrading to all solar power with generator backup, which will enable them to charge radios, run heaters/AC, and generally improve their quality of life.
They have communal storage buildings, which enables them to pre-stage things, rather than hoping to bring enough in one trip and not having anyone steal it on the way. It also ensures that their supplies stay dry and secure.
All of these things are under heavy forest canopy cover, so that even drones would be unlikely to see any of it. The solar array will obviously be visible from the air, but it is not visible from the ROAD, where most of the problems will come from.
Speaking of observing the road, while the site sits off the road and is heavily wooded, you can clearly see the road because there is a couple hundred yards of clear cut from the edge of the property to the only road. Not only does this enable a concealed OP to watch the road for refugees and bandits, it also ensures that that no one can sneak onto the property from the road without being seen.
This group is building ponds that will be stocked with fish for food and they are establishing small growing plots in the wooded areas to feed themselves.
I don’t share these ideas to dox their plans, but perhaps to motivate you to improve your bug out site. You can still have a pretty decent quality of life if you put in the work today.
Everyone always wants to talk about the guns and firearms training, but improving your bug out location or retreat site is far more important to your longevity, it’s just not as much fun. There is however, satisfaction in seeing the results. The entire group was proud of their retreat and happy to show it off. Best of all, the buidling project devleoped teamwork and a sense of ownership among the members.
If you don’t already know exactly where you are going should it all fall apart (and it looks like it’s going to), you need to figure that out right now. You cannot just wander the wasteland like Mad Max. Develop a plan, and then develop that site.
It’s far better to have a site ready and fully stocked than trying to fill your vehicles with all your gear while your hungry neighbors watch, seeing what all you have and weighing the risk of trying to take it from you. If you already have a location set up, you can just slide into your vehicle and vanish one night with no packing.
Whatever your plans, incorporate quality of life. Things like fresh food, an on-site library of books, and some sort of workshop to occupy your mind and time will all improve the quality of life. Security concerns must be intertwined into all of this and the less you have to leave your site for, the safer you will be.
As far secure camping, I will be hosting my first Fieldcraft class at Veteran’s Camp Ponderosa in Montana May 3-5 and it is filling up fast. Register here by clicking on Training Courses. I will be scheduling more throughout the year.
There are also spot still available in NC Scout’s February Scout and Recce courses in North Carolina. Click the link to register.
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Hey, get smart on amorphous solar panels. When doing your site visits and people have concerns about opening up tree canopies for solar use, they can opt for amorphous solar panels. This allows folks to charge their systems with indirect lighting instead of line of sight. Plus they charge great on cloudy days.
Also, I put together a portable 13amp solar package if you need some ideas. I run one of my shoot houses with it. It’s been running for two years straight with no amp loss.
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Great stuff, thanks.
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I’ve been looking at available plots of land within a one tank-of-gas drive from the house. One such property is a remote 10 acre wooded plot with a cell phone tower on it.
The price is attractive, probably because of the tower. Thinking about it, I can’t decide whether this is a plus or a minus. It’s a giant feature that can be seen for miles. Is that something of an attractive nuisance? Or is it something that just blends into the modern skyline? I imagine the cell reception is quite good, for as long as that is viable.
What are your opinions on this scenario? Good or bad.
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I’ve been looking at available plots of land within a one tank-of-gas drive from the house. One such property is a remote 10 acre wooded plot with a cell phone tower on it.
The price is attractive, probably because of the tower. Thinking about it, I can’t decide whether this is a plus or a minus. It’s a giant feature that can be seen for miles. Is that something of an attractive nuisance? Or is it something that just blends into the modern skyline? I imagine the cell reception is quite good, for as long as that is viable.
What are your opinions on this scenario? Good or bad.
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This blog always makes me think. That’s why I enjoy it.
There is a property available about a tank of gas away from the house, remote, undeveloped, heavily-wooded, but it has a cell phone tower on it.
I dismissed it, but I’m wondering if a tower like that is really a positive or negative? Assuming cell phone reception isn’t an issue, is a large tower an attention-grabbing flag, or are these things so ubiquitous in modern life that it blends into the background?
Could go either way, I’m just interested in other peoples opinions.
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They’re ubiquitous, unless someone wants the back up batteries in the small building next to the tower.
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Could also be a place to hide your own antennas. You’d get great range and no one would ever notice it.
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That’s a great point that I didn’t consider.
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Retreat Selection: Water, Soil, and Obscurity
The most important consideration in choosing a retreat location is the availability of water, then it’s soil, and then it’s obscurity. Wells are now expensive drill. If there is not an existing well, I would avoid it unless there is year round surface water source. Surface water that could be a spring, creek, or shallow cistern, is best kind of water as no pumping is required.
Any water that requires pumping could may not be accessible if there is a lack of power, of if the mechanical or electrical operated pump fails. It is not only needed for personal daily consumption, but also need in large enough quantity to irrigate a large garden. The third most important consideration is soil quality. Is there enough soil that is at least 6 inches deep, and that is not primarily clay, or sand and rock? 5,000 to 10,000 square feet of light and loamy soil is needed to grow a large garden. Once your long term storage food is depleted, a garden will be needed. The cost to bring in good soil is now prohibitive, and it take years of hard work to make enough soil to feed one person. Been there, done that, out of necessity.
Another important consideration that is usually overlooked, is the ability to pump, or otherwise deliver enough water to a large garden. If the location has a surface water source that is located higher in elevation than where the garden will be installed, then it can be gravity fed. If near a creek or river with enough drop in elevation, then a ram pump can be used.
For most situations, a solar powered water pump is the most reliable. For a garden located near a well head, the Shurflow 9325 is an economical choice that be installed by the owner if the static level is no deeper than 200 feet. For surface water, I recommend the Dankoff Slow Pump that capable of pumping water as high as 450 feet, or delivering up to 3,000 gallons per day to a nearby location using between 40 to 250 watts of solar power. These pumps do not need batteries to operate.
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