Chapter Six: Life Beyond Your Bug Out Bag

So, disaster has struck and the apocalypse has happened. You’ve grabbed your bug out bag (which you put a lot of time and effort into preparing) and you escaped to safety. You made your own shelter and even your own tools. However, it’s been a few days, you’ve eaten through your food supply and your water has almost run out. It doesn’t look like life will be returning to normal for the foreseeable future, so what do you do?

Bug out bags are brilliant for enabling you to survive for a matter of days, but there’s only so long that they can last. Eventually your supplies will come to an end and you’ll have to make some sort of other arrangements.

What does a bug out bag not cover you for, and more importantly, what can you do to survive in life beyond your bug out bag?

A decent bug out bag will last for three or four days comfortably – any more and you’re lucky – so it won’t be enough for you to live off in the long-term. This means that you’ll have to find some sort of more permanent shelter and steady, reliable food source to have any real hope of surviving.

If you can, then sit down and talk to a friend or relative who lives in a different area – preferably as far away as possible! This will be your ‘disaster buddy’, who can take you in and give you a place to stay if you’re hit with an emergency. Of course, it should go both ways, and you should be willing to take them in if trouble goes their way instead.

A disaster buddy is a great back up plan to have, so that you’ll have somewhere safe to go while you try to get back on your feet. Hopefully, your bug out bag will be just big enough to last for your entire journey!

However, this might not be something that you’re interested in; even if it is, there’s always a chance that your plans won’t go as expected and you’ll never get the help of your disaster buddy. As such, you ought to have a ‘Plan B’, so that you survive – with or without your disaster buddy.

As we discussed before, food and water are the most important things to secure.

Thanks to the supply of plastic tarps in your bug out bag, you’ll be able to fashion a simple water collecting device. However, you should probably get some skills under your belt which will allow you to collect water much more effectively. Instead of just waiting for rain to fall, collect seawater then brush up on your high school science to find out how you can use evaporation to separate the water from all the salt contained within. This is actually a really easy thing to do – there are loads of tutorials online if you get stuck – and the best part is that you end up with both drinkable water and salt to season your food!

On the subject of food, be prepared that in the long-term you might have to set up some sort of farm to grow plants and animals for you to eat. You’ll find that growing a few herbs in a vegetable patch like you do at the moment is a little different from growing all your own vegetables to feed yourself and your family. It’s best to start reading up now on the best types of fruit and veg to grow, and the tips and tricks that you’ll need to cultivate them successfully. That way, once you’re in that situation you can step right into it without having to worry about trial and error as much.

In addition, it may come to the point where you need to breed certain animals to give you enough meat to eat. To a certain extent this depends on the type of disaster (certain emergencies may wipe out some species but not others), but you could breed anything from rabbits to cattle to fish. It doesn’t really matter what meat it is, as long as you have enough to survive, then that’s the most important thing.

With this in mind, plan ahead. Now’s the time that you should start to become familiar with farming techniques, humane killing methods and meat storage. Even if you’ve never farmed or killed an animal before, you’ll need to know the best ways of doing so, as it will become your way of life. Of course, refrigeration probably won’t be an option, so you’ll need to learn some other ways to keep meat fresh and edible for longer.

As alien as this might seem, these are all the sorts of things that cavemen had to do thousands of years ago. If they worked for them, there’s no reason why you can’t survive on the same methods – it will be a bit of a culture shock, but that’s all.

Next come shelter and housing. Your sleeping bag and plastic tarps won’t be enough to keep you warm and dry forever. Sooner or later you will need to seek permanent shelter, and if something ready-made isn’t available nearby, you’ll have to build something yourself. This means chopping wood, hammering nails, sanding surfaces and shaping a roof. These skills aren’t difficult, so you don’t have to be a builder or carpenter to get them right. However, take a course or read a few books now – it might save you a few sore fingers once the time for building comes!

As for clothing, can you make your own? You might have your sewing kit in your bug out bag, but do you even know how to mend or darn rips and tears? Once you’ve worn through your socks and ripped your shirts, you won’t exactly have a whole wardrobe of clothes waiting in reserve. You don’t have to be Dolce or Gabbana, but if you have at least a basic understanding of knitting, sewing and altering clothing, then you’ll be able to fashion garments for you to wear for the rest of your life. Don’t forget that you won’t have electric sewing machines, so you’d better get practising by hand!

I’ve just mentioned that you won’t have electric sewing machines – well, it’s pretty likely that you won’t have electric anything. If this disaster situation is serious or lasts for any more than a few weeks, you might want to think about alternative sources of energy. Instead of relying on coal, gas or oil powered devices, turn your attention to renewable energy sources such as hydroelectricity or solar power.

Once again, these are plans that you can put into motion now. If you do have a specific location which you intend to head for, then install solar panels or a wind machine there. Everything will already be in place for when you need to use it, which will save you months’ worth of time and energy. You won’t be able to store any sort of power in your bug out bag, so if you want any sort of power after the apocalypse, you’ll have to get creative and use what nature gives you!

There are hundreds of techniques, tips and tricks that you could familiarize yourself with now, but it won’t be until you actually find yourself in the situation of fending for yourself that you really learn how to survive. There will be a lot of trial and error as you discover what really works for you, but by prepping now you’ll have a head start on any other survivors.

These are all essential skills that you will need to learn if you want to stand any chance of surviving life beyond your bug out bag. Learning now could end up saving your life, but even if the apocalypse never comes, at least you’ll still have some awesome new skills to impress your friends!