KLR650 Camping Trip

I suppose since I write about bug vehicles and bug out locations, I could call a recent motorcycle trip to North Carolina and Tennessee work - or at least research.  But truth is that a short getaway trip to the mountains, camping off my KLR650 was really more of a great way to unwind after a few long weeks of  finishing up the revisions and final details of my latest book - the novel that will be released in July.

I've written about the Kawasaki KLR650 here before, and I'm sure many readers have either owned one or know somebody that does.  It's not a motorcycle that excels at any one thing, but rather one that does everything well enough.  For this trip, that meant everything from surviving the truck traffic on the interstate at 75 mph, to negotiating twisty pavement in the mountains, such as the infamous "Tail of the Dragon" stretch of North Carolina's Highway 129.  But most importantly, it meant the freedom to explore off-road on gravel forest service roads and beyond.

I went alone on this ride so I wouldn't have to do much scheduling or planning, and besides,  I needed time to myself anyway.  Mainly, I wanted to revisit some of my favorite areas in the regions, such as the Joyce-Kilmer and Citico Creek wilderness areas, where I've embarked upon many a solo backpacking trip in times past.  Hiking this time was limited, but with the KLR I was able to get to some nice, secluded campsite with the bike and all my gear, some of them places few four-wheeled vehicles could reach.

As anyone who's visited this area knows, the driving (and especially motorcycle riding) is spectacular.  Going in the off-season and during the week makes it easy to avoid the crowds.  One of the most scenic roads is the Cherohala Skyway, which runs through some of the wildest areas of the southern Appalachians, from  Tellico Plains, TN to Robbinsville, NC.

This is a view out into the Citico Creek Wilderness Area, which is described on p. 158 of my book: Bug Out: The Complete Plan for Escaping a Catastrophic Disaster Before It's Too Late.  A black bear encounter I had one dark night deep in the middle of this wilderness reminds me to choose campsites carefully and take all the precautions to keep a clean camp when in these mountains.  This a place where you can seriously disappear if you have a need to, especially if you don't mind bushwhacking into the rhododendron thickets in the deep ravines along the drainages.

But as nice as the paved mountain roads like the Cherohala Skyway are, the KLR really comes into its own and proves its worth on the endless miles of gravel forest service roads that lead off the beaten path.

Exploring them leads to all kinds of great places, like this fantastic stream.  One thing these mountains are not short of is water, so carrying a lot of it is not necessary as long as you have a means to purify it.

It's hard to leave a place like this and ride back home, but after this little escape I'm now planning a longer motorcycle trek out West to some of my favorite hang-outs there, like New Mexico's Gila National Forest.  I have no doubt that the trusty KLR will get me there and back.

Bug Out Regions: Appalachian Mountain Corridor

Much of my new bug out book deals with specific bug out locations, which is information that I found missing in other survival and prepardness books and is the reason I decided to write this one.  Since my plan was to cover the lower 48 states in as much detail as was reasonable in a 300-page book, I had to first divide the country into distinct regions based on climate, terrain and types of ecosystems found there.  This led to eight distinct regions, each of which has a chapter devoted to it in the book. 

Here on Bug Out Survival, I will be expanding on the details included in the book for specific bug out locations, and eventually will get around to posting photos and narratives from my many trips into some of my favorites.  For those who have not seen the book yet, I want to give some previews on what to expect in the descriptions of each of these regions.  Each regional chapter begins with an overview of the region to give you an idea of what to expect there.  Here's an example in the overview of The Appalachian Mountain Corridor:  

The Appalachian Mountains form the backbone of the eastern United States, dividing the drainages of the Atlantic Ocean to the east from those of the Mississippi River to the west and Hudson Bay to the north. This 1500-mile-long mountain range provides a corridor of rugged wilderness areas stretching from central Alabama and northern Georgia to Maine and the Canadian island of Newfoundland. The Appalachians as a whole are made up of many smaller mountain ranges linked together, including the Blue Ridge Mountains, Smokey Mountains, Allegheny Mountains, and many others. The mountain corridor averages 100 to 300 miles wide, with individual peaks averaging 3000 feet in elevation. The highest peak in the range and in all the eastern United States is 6684-foot Mount Mitchell in North Carolina. 

The Appalachian Mountains are within easy reach of many of the biggest population centers of the nation yet contain extensive tracts of protected wild lands in a variety of national forests and parks throughout their length, including some of the largest virgin forests remaining in the East. The Appalachians create their own weather and are much wetter than much of the surrounding low country around them (as well as the more arid western mountains). This rainfall allows for a lush and diverse ecosystem and the resultant dense forests make it easy to disappear in virtually any valley or on any ridge. A wide variety of edible plants flourish in these mountains, as do healthy populations of deer and other game animals.

Unlike the Gulf Coast Southeast and the Islands and Lowlands of the East Coast discussed in the previous two chapters, the Appalachian Mountain Corridor offers many areas of wild country that can be considered true wilderness and in many cases can only be accessed by rugged foot trails. Boats are of limited use here, except on a few of the rivers and larger man-made lakes. One of America’s longest hiking trails, the 2178-mile Appalachian Trail, runs almost the entire length of the corridor and makes it possible to walk from northern Georgia to Maine almost entirely in the wilderness or  semi-wilderness of the mountains.

In the Appalachian Mountain Corridor Bug-Out Essentials section, I've included a more detailed discussion of weather and climate, land and resources, edible plants, hunting and fishing, wildlife hazards, and recommended equipment. 

Here's the excerpt from the last category, recommended equipment:

The wildest parts of Appalachia can only be accessed on foot. You’ll need good boots and a bug-out backpack as described in Chapter Two, as well as warm, waterproof clothing and sleeping gear. Cold rain that lasts for days on end is common in these mountains, and in the winter, deep snow and even blizzards can catch the unprepared off-guard. It is essential here to have good shelter and a reliable way to make fire. Hunting equipment should include a .22 survival rifle for shooting elusive squirrels and small birds in thick cover, as well as a larger-caliber handgun or rifle that can take deer and double as bear protection. The .357 magnum is a good choice as a minimum caliber for eastern black bear. There are also other transportation alternatives besides hiking in this region, if you’d rather not walk or need to carry more supplies and equipment. Many parts of the various state and national forests in Appalachia can be accessed by four-wheel-drive vehicles, dualpurpose motorcycles, ATVs, mountain bikes, or on horseback.

If you live in the Appalachian Mountain Region, I would love to hear about your experiences in the wild areas there.  Living in Mississippi, this area has been a frequent destination of mine when I want to get away to the mountains for some rugged backpacking.  I can reach some of the best areas of North Carolina and Tennessee in a day's drive.  One of my favorite areas is the Citico Creek Wilderness Area, which I will  post about in more detail in the near future. 

Sub-tropical South Florida

I had a great, but too-short getaway to south Florida last weekend, where as I mentioned in my last post, I was headed to attend a get together of Wharram catamaran enthusiasts in Islamorada, way down in the Keys. I've posted some photos from the rendezvous and more about the boats over on my Element II blog, where I'm documenting the construction of my own Wharram Tiki 26 - which will be my ultimate go-anywhere bug-out boat. On that page you will also find a link to a slideshow with many more photos from this rendezvous.

In this post, I just wanted to share a few photos from the unique environment that is sub-tropical south Florida.  I never get tired of exploring this area, despite the hassle of driving down the peninsula in high-speed, nearly bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate.  Although I describe several good bug-out locations in the state in my new bug-out book, I pity the millions who would be trapped in bottleneck of congestion trying to get out of south Florida in a true SHTF scenario.  Hurricane evacuations are bad enough.

But if one had a seaworthy small boat, such as the one I took with me on this trip, there are vast expanses of shallow, remote backwaters to bug-out to, many of them fringed by great mangrove forests, where it would be easy to hide out and easy to forage for fish, crabs, oysters and other seafood:

Many of these waters in the Florida Keys are so shallow that you often run aground even in a kayak, but if there is any sunlight at all, you can pick your way through because it's easy to see the bottom in the crystal clear waters there:

Most of the smaller mangrove-covered islands in the Keys and Florida Bay are nearly impenetrable, like this one in the photo below, but among these tangles of roots, you can find small pocket beaches, often completely hidden from view of anyone passing by on the open water.  I have spent weeks at a time camped in such places during my longer kayak trips that took me through the area. 

Inland from the mangrove-fringed coastal areas, the Everglades is  full of hidden, freshwater creeks like this one.  Some of these appear impassable, even in a canoe, but you can often push or cut your way through the thicker areas, and go for days, like my friend Ernest Herndon and I did when we spent some ten days canoeing the 'glades on my first trip there. 

Nowhere else in North America will you find the exotic plant species that are common in the Everglades and much of south Florida.  An example is the strangler fig, shown below - a tree that is common in the jungles of Latin America, where it is known as the "mata-palo" (tree-killer).  It grows around and eventually strangles the host tree. 

Of course, my favorite south Florida exotic is the coconut palm, which is not native to the area but is now firmly established and can be found in the wild in many places.  I've often climbed these to get the drinking nuts while camped on the remote beaches of Cape Sable, at the southern tip of the peninsula.  They are also common throughout the Keys.

The Everglades is a paradise for reptiles and amphibians.  Anyone who is not squeamish about eating snakes, lizards, turtles and the like would have no trouble finding food here.

Of course 'gators are everywhere in the 'glades - more plentiful in the freshwater areas, but also in the brackish and salt water of the mangrove fringes, where they share habitat with the American crocodile, which is making a big comeback in south Florida. Another big reptile that is doing well, but does not belong in this ecosystem is the Burmese python, which has now populated much of south Florida.  I looked, but didn't see any on this trip.

The 'gators alone are so plentiful that one could easily survive by hunting the small ones.  Alligator meat is good, too.  I used to stop in every chance I got to get a 'gator-tail po-boy at a little restaurant in Louisiana down near the Honey Island Swamp. 

On another note, I noticed that down along the Tamiami Trail (U.S. 41), where there are many small Miccosukee Indian settlements, large gated fences with "Keep Out" signs have been erected since last time I passed that way.  I also noticed this sign at one such village - apparently Bush is to blame for whatever's wrong here as well.  I didn't know he was British, however....

Swamp Time

I've been running short on time for getting out in the woods and for posting here lately, with all the work I've had to do getting started on the new book I'll be writing this summer, as well as finalizing details with my editor on Bug Out, which is now out of my hands and in the process of being printed.  I did manage to spend some quality swamp time yesterday, however, poking around an old oxbow lake off the Pearl River with my camera.  There's no doubt that some of the best bug-out hideaways to be found in Mississippi are located in these river bottom swamps.  Here's a few shots from yesterday:

These lakes with standing tupelo and cypress are full of fish and other aquatic wildlife, like this young gator who never bothered to leave his perch on a partially-submerged log the whole time I watched and photographed him. Where there are babies, there's got to be a big mama around somewhere, but I didn't see her.  This little guy is about three feet long.

Swamps like these are magical places - cool and shady even in the middle of the day.  I love camping in these places too, especially when traveling by canoe.  I hope it won't be long before I can take a few days off to do that again. 

Which Bug-Out Region Do You Live In?

The feasibility of any bug out plan depends a lot on your starting point.  Obviously, some regions of the country have more to offer than others in terms of places to go.  But every part of the Lower 48 has its share of potential bug out locations.  The map below shows eight major regions as I've divided them for the purposes of my book: Bug Out: The Complete Plan for Escaping a Catastrophic Disaster Before It's Too Late.

There is some crossover between the regions shown here, but the illustrator has done a pretty good job of placing the demarcation lines approximately the way I have divided the bug out locations described in the book.  Note the page numbers that will correspond to the beginning of each regional chapter.  The first four chapters are on general information and planning, including gear and methods of transportation.

My reasoning for these divisions is that these specific regions offer distinct variations in terrain, climate and plant and animal communities.  Again, there is some crossover in some areas, but anyone familiar with all these areas of the U.S. will see how survival skills and gear can be different from one region to the next.  Natural hazards including everything from weather to dangerous wildlife vary according to these regions, as do resources such as the availability or lack or water, edible plants and game animals.  It is this variation that made working on this book such an interesting project for me over the past several months, not to mention the real time I've spent out there backpacking, canoeing and kayaking in all of these regions at various times during the past 25 years.  Writing each chapter made me reminiscence about past trips and long to load up a canoe or backpack and go again. 

My home base is in the Gulf Coast region, and I stay here because of family ties as well as my love of the water - both the rivers and the Gulf itself.  I'm lucky to have a large number of bug out options close by because I live in one of the least populated states east of the Mississippi River.  Those of us living in small towns or rural areas are the least likely to need to bug out to begin with, but each region on the above map has its share of densely populated cities where the residents would do well to have a working knowledge of where to go if the SHTF and they have to get out.  Keep in mind that the vast majority of the populations of those cities are not going to have this knowledge and most will not even try to leave, but will instead wait for outside help that may or may not come.  Out here in the small towns and rural areas of America, most of us would pull together in such a situation and help each other out, as has been proven time and time again when the big Gulf hurricanes have hit the nearby coast.  In the aftermath of Katrina, the media covered the chaos and violence going down in New Orleans, while people along the even harder hit Mississippi Coast quietly rolled up their sleeves and went to work digging out of the rubble and rebuilding.

So it's obvious that where you live has a lot to do with how you should formulate your survival plans and can be a big factor in your chances of success or at least the degree of difficulty you would face.  But one thing we are blessed with here in the U.S. is plenty of undeveloped and uninhabited lands.  It may not seem so when you're driving past mile after mile of strip malls and suburban sprawl, but compared to so many other countries in the world there is a lot of unused land here - both public and private.  Have you explored all the potential bug out locations near you?  What if you travel a lot for your job or for pleasure?  Do you know where the big uninhabited areas are in other regions you frequent?  If not, you should think about it.  I hope that this kind of information detailed in my new book will be of use not only for bug out planning, but to encourage readers to get out and explore the great wild places available their own region and other parts of the country.  

Anyone Willing to Demonstrate Skills/Retreat Location Planning for a TV Show?

I've done several interviews over the phone lately, both with print journalists and television producers working on stories related to survivalist in general and SHTF prepping - both from the bugging-out and bugging-in perspective.  There's an unprecedented interest in these subjects, as readers here obviously know.

One of the more interesting phone calls I got was from a producer in California who is working on a show for one of the major cable television channels.  (These people find me through the hard work of the publicist at Ulysses Press - thanks Karma!  That's one of the benefits of having a book published through an outfit that really knows what they're doing when it comes to marketing and publicity.)

Back to this specific show:  this particular producer is interesting in going on location with a film crew to see how a skilled and knowledgeable group of preppers selects a location to bug-out (or bug-in) to, and would to interview said survivalists for the purpose of showing this interesting and growing segment of current American culture.  Anyone participating in the project will remain anonymous and any retreat/hide-out  locations will not be revealed on the show in a way that will compromise security.  Naturally, many of the prospects he has spoken with are hesitant, but I think it would be interesting as well as informative to less knowledgeable viewers.  I was assured that anyone portrayed on this show will not be cast in any negative light or made-out to be weirdo survivalist freaks.  That's not the point of this at all - unlike something the typical news media producer might attempt.

Being more of a lone wolf who tends to do my own thing on my own time, I'm not part of any network or group of preppers, even of the bug-out variety.  But the producer of this show is very much interested in bringing me in on it as well, if we can find an interesting place with a few good folks who don't mind showing what they've done to prep.  It doesn't matter where you're located, so long as it's in the U.S. Lower 48.

So if any of you reading this are not afraid of the camera and would like to share some knowledge with larger segment of the broader public, please contact me and let me know what you've got.  I feel like this is a worthwhile project and if I didn't believe knowledge was for sharing, I wouldn't be writing here at all.

Go to the contact page or just email me directly.

A Few Photos from Homochitto National Forest

As I mentioned in my last post, I was heading over to the Homochitto National Forest on Saturday to spend the day hiking.  It was a perfect day to do so, with the high only in the low forties and the sky overcast and gray - which meant we had it all to ourselves and didn't see anyone else on the trails in several hours of walking.

This part of southwest Mississippi has a lot of surprises, mainly the fact that it is so hilly when so much of the state is relatively flat.  Hiking in the Homochitto is series of ups and downs, making it a great workout.  The woods are also different than most parts of Mississippi, in that throughout most of this 189,000-acre national forest, there is an open feeling of spaciousness that encourages off-trail bushwhacking.

Below: Ernest Herndon pauses on a ridge overlooking one of the many deep hollows alongside the trail we hiked.

These areas of hollows usually have more hardwoods, but this national forest does not have the extensive swampy hardwood bottoms found in most parts of Mississippi.

Many of the hollows have small streams, so finding water is never a problem here. 

As clear as it looks, it still should be treated before drinking, of course.  But exploring these small streams among the clay banks, you can sometimes find the springs that are the source as well, and these are safe to drink from as is.

The higher parts of the Homochitto have vast areas of open pine forests as shown below.  It's the kind of place that beckons to be explored by taking a compass heading and just hiking cross-country. 

But if you're more inclined to explore by vehicle, whether four-wheel drive, ATV, dual-sport motorcycle, or mountain bike, the Homochitto, like most national forests, also contains a network of hundreds of miles of lonely, unpaved forest service roads like this:

We were walking fast and talking most of the time as well, so looking for wildlife was not a priority, but even so we walked right up on a young whitetail doe that didn't seem particularly alarmed to see us.  Deer tracks were evident everywhere, especially in the wet bottom areas along the creeks.  The Homochitto offers good hunting for deer, turkey, squirrel and rabbit.  There are also populations of wild hogs, a few black bear and plenty of big eastern diamondback rattlesnakes.

Looking Forward to a Day in the Woods

I've been spending far too much time at a desk lately, wrapping up the final revisions of my book, writing a couple of magazine articles, posting here, editing photos and doing online research. Today I'm breaking free to hike a few miles in the Homochitto National Forest, Mississippi's second largest tract of U.S. Forest Service land, at roughly 190,000 acres.

Below: The Homochitto National Forest covers a big chunk of southwest Mississippi between the Mississippi River (at the left of this image) and the town of Bude (at the right of this image along Hwy. 84).

The Homochitto contains a mix of pine and hardwoods, in a region of surprisingly rugged sandy hills and deep ravines, where countless clear streams wind their way to the river for which the forest is named. Though it contains no federally-designated wilderness areas, and is cut by forest service roads and areas of clear-cuts and new pine plantations, there are still many isolated hollows tucked away in this corner of southwest Mississippi. You can walk for miles in many areas and hear nothing but the sound of the wind in the pines, and that's exactly what I need about now. I'm meeting my friend and long-time camping buddy Ernest Herndon there today, to hike one of the mountain bike trails that loop through the forest in the Clear Springs Lake vicinity. Ernest lives closer to the Homochitto than I do - this big tract of federally land practically his backyard.

Below: A closer view of the Clear Springs Lake area.  This part of the national forest is full of deep ravines and the trails here are a favorite with mountain bikers because of the steep climbs and winding descents through thick forest.

This is a good time to go hiking there. It's been raining for two days, so there won't likely be any mountain bikers attempting the muddy trails, and deer season just closed with the end of January, so it's unlikely we'll see anyone. I'm taking my camera gear, so I'll post some photos of what it's like on the ground there sometime after I get back. The Homochitto National Forest is one of the bug-out locations described in my new book (in Chapter Five - The Gulf Coast Southeast Region), as it is rich with game, well-watered, and big enough to have some good hideouts, especially if you bushwhack off trail.  But regardless of its potential as a BOL, like most wild places it's a great place to go to restore one's sanity after too much time at the keyboard.

Finding Bug Out Locations in Populated Areas Using Google Earth

A Google Earth view of a section of the Pearl River in rural Lawrence County, Mississippi:

Locating good bug-out locations is a large part of my upcoming book and of what I'll be discussing on this site. I see a lot of conversations on various survival forums that convey a hopeless feeling on this subject, and I think a lot of these folks don't get out enough and really look to see what's out there.  I'll be posting a lot here on the importance of such advance scouting, but there is a lot you can explore from the comfort of your own home, thanks to today's technology. 

Bug-out locations range from big national forest wilderness areas where you can travel for days on foot without crossing so much as a dirt road to small, forgotten corners of wildland scattered all over rural and semi-rural America.  In populated areas, you have to know where to look, but in most parts of the country there are neglected and little-used lands, whether private or owned by the state or federal government.  Where I live in Mississippi, as in much of the South, rivers and streams are the key to finding such places. 

Many of these rivers are too small for navigation by commercial traffic, but are just right for John boats, canoes, sea kayaks and similar small boats.  And though they flow through settled countryside dotted with small towns, farms and houses, most all of these rivers have long stretches of deserted woodlands.  I've spent weeks paddling such rivers, often going days at a time without seeing anyone except the occasional fisherman under a bridge or in a boat.  Landowners that have big tracts of property along some of these rivers usually only visit the parts of their property that they can drive to, and here in the South that's often not much as so much of the river bottom land is swampy. These days, even most hunters do little walking off the beaten path, preferring instead to ride to a deer stand on an ATV and sit in one spot all day.

But despite this, human use along rivers varies along the stream's course and it's hard to know what to expect if you don't know the river intimately. From your perspective on such a river in a small boat, looks can often be deceiving and you may think you're in a remote stretch of river only to come around a bend and find a house or camp on the bank.  Sometimes while camping along such rivers I've discovered ATV tracks on isolated sandbars and moved on to more inaccessible spots to keep from being surprised in the night.  This is where advance planning using tools like Google Earth can be invaluable.  In the example here, I'll show you what to look for along a river like this that gets some fishing boat traffic along its main course and passes through settled land with a few private roads going down to the river banks.  The Google Earth image at the top of the page shows a broad swath of the river and surrounding countryside from more than 40,000 feet.  If we zoom in closer, then start following the river downstream from the nearest highway bridge, we can look for places of interest, like this one below.

Note that even though there are roads and patches of open pasture not too far from the river, most of the banks are heavily wooded.  This is mostly southern hardwood bottomland forest - oak, sycamore, beech, cypress and tupelo gum.  The broad patches of white are fine sandbars that make great campsites for recreational camping, but are too exposed for a bug-out situation.  What caught my eye here during a Google "fly over" is the large oxbow lake you see in the middle of the image, the one inside the biggest loop in the river, that appears dark and is shrouded by green forest all around. 

If we look closer, you can see that within the loop of the oxbow lake there is an island of heavily-wooded high ground.  This is surrounded by the dead lake and you can see other sloughs and wet areas in the forest between the two loops of the main river, showing that no vehicles or ATVs can reach this area.  The dead lake itself is not open to easy access to the river by boat, except perhaps in times of flood when much of this area would be inundated.

This is the kind of place you could drag a small boat, especially a canoe, into the backwater off the river and set up a concealed bug-out camp in the inaccessible forest of the island or most anywhere along the dead lake shore. You would have a few hundred acres of prime hunting and good access to fishing, with little chance of being detected. These woods are full of deer, wild hog, squirrel, wild turkey, rabbits and other game. The river is alive with catfish, bass, bream, turtles and alligator. And this is just one of many such places along the 400-mile course of this one river in one southern state.

Here's an idea of what the woods and dead lakes along this river look like on the ground:

BOL Overview: The Henry Mountains

The Henry Mountain Range:  A little-visited potential Bug Out Location in Utah.

The Henry Mountains of south-central Utah are one of the most remote and little-visited ranges in the Lower 48 states. This high range rises to peaks of over 11,000 feet in a vast tract of BLM land north of Lake Powell and west of Canyonlands National Park. In the satellite image below, you can see the high elevation areas of the range as forested slopes that stand out in stark contrast to the surrounding desert and canyonlands:

In this Google Earth image of the Henry Mountain Range, you can clearly see the forested higher elevation areas standing out in contrast to the surrounding desert canyonlands.

These remote mountains offer water and abundant game, including a free-range herd of over 500 bison, not to mention plenty of mule deer, pronghorn antelope and smaller game. With two million acres of BLM land here that few recreational outdoors enthusiasts use, the Henry Mountain Range could offer superb bug-out hideaways in the rugged folds of its isolated slopes and valleys.

This zoomed-in view shows the convoluted valleys and ridges of this mostly roadless wilderness.

The Henry Mountain Range
Location: South of Hanksville, Utah, west of Highway 95 and Hwy. 276.
Further Resources: 

Hiking & Exploring Utah's Henry Mountains and Robbers Roost
Utah Atlas & Gazetteer
                   

BOL (Bug Out Location)

A "bug-out location" (BOL) can be anything from a carefully-prepared private retreat on land that you own to uninhabited wilderness land owned by the state or federal government.  For most urban and suburban people who do not own such property in the country, public lands or remote private lands with absentee owners are the only option.  This is not the dismal situation that it seems.  The United States is blessed with public lands, with a whopping 30 percent of the entire nation's land area, or nearly 650 million acres, owned by the federal government. 

Bug-out locations make up a large part of my book, which divides the Lower 48 States into eight major regions:  The Gulf Coast Southeast, The East Coast, the Appalachian Corridor, The North Woods, The Midwest and Heartland, The Rocky Mountain Corridor, The Southwest, and The West Coast.  In each of these regions I describe many specific examples of good bug-out locations, including swamps, river drainages, barrier islands, mountain ranges and deserts, depending on the region.  Most of these locations are on public land of some type, including national and state forests, national and state parks, national and state wildlife refuges, national wild and scenic river corridors, U.S. Army Corps. of Engineer's land, and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. 

Some regions of the U.S., especially in the West and parts of the far north and in the Appalachians, have huge tracts of national forests and designated wilderness areas that you can choose from as bug-out locations, many of which are accessible only on foot or horseback.  Other more densely populated regions such as the Southeast and East Coast, are more limited in the availability of big wilderness, but still have large unihabited areas along the course of rivers and the shores of bays, marshes and barrier islands.  In many of these areas where public land holdings are smaller, there are still large areas of uninhabited land owned by corporations such as timber companies or by individuals who live elsewhere.  Some of the best bug-out locations, are in fact in just such places that few outside the immediate area even know about and that little has been written about to promote visiting for outdoor recreation.  Many such places are described in my book and will be the subject of posts in this blog. 

Finding a good bug-out location is a matter of exploring potential areas near your current location, beginning with tools such as maps and Google Earth and then on the ground by actually getting out there.  Advance planning and scouting will also be a big part of this blog.