Travel in Difficult Times

First, I should point out that I have no real qualifications to be writing any of these essays. They are just my thoughts, edited as I learn more or receive feedback explaining why some of my ideas are unworkable. The way I work these ideas out is by imagining a scenario, then writing down my possible responses to each scenario. Then I attempt to put myself in the shoes of my adversary and try to determine what my adversary’s response should be to my actions. This goes on and on until I am satisfied that I have done all I can to counter problems. As I imagine my adversarial position, I try to do so with only the information they might glean from their point of view. I try also to decide how much luck is required on their part to happen upon a weakness by chance.

A case in point is travel when things go very wrong in the world. In the hours before Hurricane Rita hit Houston, the Interstate highways were jammed with stalled vehicles. I consider Interstates a poor choice for emergency travel. If you can get through, think of how wild predators watch the water holes, waiting for dinner to arrive. Interstate highways could be seen as a post-apocalyptic watering hole. I think Farm-to-Market roads or state highways would be my preferred method of vehicle travel. US highways would be my second choice because of the greater likelihood of a whole lot of people using them as alternatives to the clogged Interstates. County roads, unless you are very familiar with them, are a poor choice due to the frequency with which they simply dead-end in someone’s front yard near the county line.

Even the farm roads might be clogged when first getting out of town. Within an urban area, I would think roads that don’t head directly away from the center of town will present less potential for congestion and I would consider using these to get between minor radial roads that will get me through neighborhoods. I expect the bad neighborhoods are only going to get worse, so they should be avoided at all costs.

All of these roads should be scoped out and driven before you need them. During WW-II, England removed all the road signs. This made it virtually impossible for a stranger to find his way around without announcing he doesn’t belong by asking directions. My get out of town maps in in the form of turn-by-turn directions. I list the roads to turn on, but I also list the distance between each turn and the direction (both compass and relative) of each turn. It makes for a surprisingly compact set of directions and is not entirely dependent upon signage that might be remove by locals or changed by hijackers.

This is just a guess, but perhaps the safest travel time in urban areas would be the early morning hours when the miscreants are sleeping off their previous evening’s plunder.

Once out of the urban area, you are going to want to change your travel mode. You need to spend as much time looking and listening as you do travelling whether on foot or in a vehicle. Hijackers have an advantage in that they can pick the spot of ambush and stay hidden until you wander into the trap. Any spot that concentrates travelers is a potential trap. This includes bridges, narrow road cuts, areas where travel off the road is tougher because of terrain or heavy forest. Regardless of how carefully you plan, you will have to pass some of these spots. If you have done your homework and driven the route before the disaster, you will already know where they are and perhaps have them noted on your travel map. Along with this, you should have noted some place where you could park or rest your group while a few of you approach to a vantage point so you can spend some time carefully watching everything in the area and listening for sounds of humans. Keep in mind that if someone knowledgeable has set up an ambush, they will know the best places to scout from and will be watching for you there too. If you are able to, try to send a scout on foot around the potential ambush site to the downwind side where they might better hear people or smell smoke.

This is probably a good place to discuss smoke. Smoking is something you need to quit at least while travelling. There is always a debris trail that can be followed and experienced hunters are always going to come at you from downwind. Cigarette smoke is distinctive even at a distance when you are in the woods. Cooking is something you should only do if you absolutely have to. Any cooking involves fire of some sort. If you have to cook something over a fire, do so in the grey hours of early morning or just at dusk. The flames and the light they bounce off trees are not as easily spotted in the tricky light and smoke is also harder to spot. Do put the fire out very completely as soon as the cooking is done because again, smoke travels a long way in the wild. Never remain in the vicinity of your fires even if you have put them out. Someone might have spotted you making coffee at dusk and is just waiting for you to sleep. After you finish your meal, go a little further in the dark and make a cold camp.

Small towns might quickly organize in times of trouble and might put up barricades to prevent people passing through town. For the traveler, this may mean miles of unexpected detours and detours can be another form of choke point for ambush. I would avoid towns if at all possible.

A good map is a fine thing to have. Mine is a “Roads of Texas” atlas published by Texas A&M University. In rural areas, it shows railroad tracks, high tension power lines and pipeline paths. GPS is a great thing as long as the government allows you to use it. At any moment, they can encrypt the data and either make it less accurate or do away with it altogether.

If you are travelling on foot, the roads may be a liability to you. You are far more likely to run into other travelers on the road and that means, you are also more likely to run into predators. An accurate, detailed map will show lots of alternative landmarks you can follow to get to your destination. Rivers meander a whole lot and are not likely going where you want to be going, but if they are, a good canoe can carry a couple of people along with a quarter ton of cargo. If you are afoot, rivers will be a generally bad idea. They tend to be swampy in the eastern half of Texas and even if you simply travel parallel to a river there are lots of tributaries which will have to be crossed. High tension power lines travel clear-cut areas and are probably going to be very sparsely traveled. Pipelines travel narrower clear-cut areas, but they have the possible advantage of being able to shinny across the pipes where they cross muddy ravines. In either case, travel along the edge of the clear cut, pausing often just to listen and watch. There should be no talking (even whispering) while traveling afoot. You should always be thinking about the nearest cover in case something goes wrong. You should never camp within sight of the path you are traveling, but you should camp close enough that you can keep an eye on anyone coming along after you.

That’s another good point. Don’t just watch where you are going. Watch where you have been. From time to time, when your path takes a turn where you would be unseen by a follower, meander off to the side and wait a good while and see if someone comes looking for you. You might even want to double back on your trail by a parallel path to do this from time to time or have one of your scouts do it.

I don’t see railroad tracks as terribly useful to walking travelers. They do travel relatively straight lines and have good bridges over ravines and rivers, but the spacing of the ties makes walking on them tortuous. Sometime when you aren’t busy, walk along a railroad track for a hundred yards or so. If you haven’t broken your ankle by then, you are likely to be so worn out from the relentless spacing of the ties, that you remove that path from the possibilities.

I’m not sure there is a best time of day or night to travel in these situations. Perhaps someone will point out the pros and cons of various times to me.

Food and water are going to be an enormous problem for travelers afoot. Water purifiers and drinking filters should both probably be packed along with some containers for water as Texas seems to have less surface water every year. I doubt anyone can carry more than a week’s worth of food over rugged terrain, so figure on scavenging somewhere. If you are vegan, then you are probably out of luck since you are not going to find enough protein to subsist while focusing on traveling with a low profile. My suggestion here is get some snares and learn how to use them. Carry a bow and arrow (and learn how to use them), since any gunshots are going to make your presence known to the entire area. If you have to fire a shot for game or other reasons, make it a single shot. It will still alert people to your presence, but it is very difficult to ascertain direction when there is only one shot. Any silent system for bagging game will help if you learn to use it and learn to hunt.

There are a lot of resources online for making a silencer (more accurately a suppresser) for a .22 rifle. They can be very effective although accuracy will suffer. The mere possession of an unlicensed suppressor is a big-time felony and can get you put away until long after the SHTF.

Travel plans should be discussed with your group in advance, at least in general if you are properly concerned about Operational Security (OpSec). Things like how your group is going to react if attacked. There needs to be a specific chain of command because right or wrong, one decision beats an argument in the midst of a crisis. You also want to be on the same page about what to do about refugees and destitute people you meet along the way. Some of the needy people might be young children. Some of these young children might be the bait in a trap. My thinking is approach with caution and try to do the Christian thing.