Think of the place you call “Home”, you're going to have to narrow it down a bit by adding in distance. Why? Because if you live in Florida but consider ‘home’ to be a place in Oregon this distance is too much for what we are talking about here. Let’s then figure out how far away you are from home on a regular basis. Most people live within 20 miles of where they work and for the most part we do not travel further than 20 miles from the house on a regular basis. Of course everyone is different and you might not fit into the average. I know I don’t, I’m 60+ miles from home at work five days a week. Let’s use the 20 miles as a base line.
When we do the planning for this we are going to want to do this on the “cheap”; sure the internet is full of list of items you “need” to get home and you can spend hours filling a pack with things you “need”. What do we really need to get home? Remember we are talking about getting home not fighting of the zombie hordes or restarting society from scratch. For almost all of us this means the worst case scenario is something has happened and we got to walk home. Think about this for a moment, you are going to have to put one foot in front of the other till you reach your doorstep.
For most of us this is not going to happen, we can call friends or family to pick us up, take a cab, ride a bus or find some other means of transportation. Yet there is a chance each of us could face this situation, be it from a natural or manmade emergency, so let’s plan for the worst and hope for a easier solution. When was the last time you walked three miles, five miles, ten miles or the twenty miles we are going to use for this? Let’s all be honest with ourselves, you do not have to tell anyone else, we haven’t walked that far in a long time or maybe we have never walked that far!
On average most people walk about 3 miles an hour, if we have to cover 20 miles that’s…… let me find the calculator……. I would take us roughly 6 hours of steady walking to make the 20 miles! Odds are we are not going to able to walk for 6 hours straight. This means we have to plan for the worst case scenario. 20 miles = 2 days of walking. “WHAT? It would not take me that long!”. I can hear you yelling at me already. Remember worst case, anything else is a good day. If we divide the walk up into two days, to allow for obstacles or other delays we only have to walk for roughly three hours both days. This gives us plenty of time to deal with anything coming up, does not really tax us physically and gives our family a longer time frame before they begin to worry. If we tell our loved ones 2 days and we make it home in 1 they have not even started to really worry and we are home already, win – win!!!!
What do we “NEED” to get home with? Remember we are focused on getting ourselves home and nothing else. First thing we need is something to put our items in. Almost all of us have an old backpack, knapsack, bag from a store, gym bag or some other container we can put stuff in. If you ride a bus, train or vanpool to work you can find a container and store these items at work. The idea is to find something you already have and repurpose the item.
Once we have a container then we need to go through the closet and find our old pair of shoes or boots we tossed in the back. Old sneakers with the holes in them or work boots we left in the garage are great for this! What we want is something we can wear which is already ‘broke in’ Those dress shoes or especially high heels you wear everyday are not made for walking this far in!!! If you cannot walk due to poor footwear, you are not going to get home.
Go back to the closet, this time look for the old jacket or hoodie you do not wear anymore. Try to find something which will keep the weather at bay and help keep you warm. If you live in an area where it snows find something appropriate to the climate (I suggest moving hahaha). While you’re in there also find some old pants to roll up and put in the bag. Before you roll the pants up put a tee shirt, underwear and some thick socks on top of the pants and roll them all up together. You now have a change of clothes in case your normal work attire is high heels, knee length skirt and blouse. Remember these clothes need to be loose, comfortable and durable. Now is not the time to be fashionable!
Now let’s break out some Ziploc bags, I love these things! In one toss a few dollars and a couple dollars in change. The amount of money to put in the bag? Twenty dollars or so; enough money to buy lunch and most definitely enough to buy a few bottles of water. In another bag toss in a lighter or two. In another put your old driver’s license or another form of picture ID along with a copy of your medical insurance card. If you want throw all of these items into one bag and put these in your get home bag. The reasons for these items? You want to be able to start a fire if you need to, buy things if you cannot use your credit or debit card and be able to check into a hospital if need be. Writing important numbers down on a piece of paper or card and putting this with your ID is also a good idea. Find an old flashlight, put some batteries in a Ziploc and toss those in the bag.
For most of us these items are going to be enough to help get us home and not weight us down as we try to get home. If you live somewhere there are no stores for miles you are going to want to modify what you pack into the bag. For us city and suburban dwellers we are still going to have access to things we need along the way. This means we do not need to carry five gallons of water with us but we do need some change to buy a bottle of water before we set off.
To earn some bonus points and if you got room, toss an MRE or camping meal into the bag. Maybe a poncho, Leatherman tool or a knife and if you really want to like yourself later some paracord. Just remember you are going to carry what you pack so do not go overboard!!!!! Of course we can upgrade our pack later, heck you can go all “lightweight super hiker” if you want when you have the money. For right now we are just trying to put something together which will help us tomorrow.
Please keep in mind what the purpose of this bag is, to get you home! Of course we can add things to the bag. There are tons of things we could add, water filters, fishing gear, compass and all sorts of other items. If you “need” these items to cover the distance you have to travel then do so. We do not want to add anything we do not need and if you pack a lot of stuff you realize you do not need later, dump the stuff or give it to someone else who might need it during a situation. Our goal is to get home and nothing else!
As Always,
Stay Safe!!!
All top considerations! Very well written!
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