Do you have a place to bug out to? C5's recent post summed up pretty well the dangers of bugging out without a plan. Your group could become the Donner party if you're not careful.

I do agree a group is good. Maybe come up with a set of radios to communicate with them in an emergency. And encourage them to have a month of food handy.

I'll reference C5's ultimate BOB and survival gun post as a better place to discuss the pro-cons of the theory, too.

In the woods with the goal of more than just a trip here to there, absolute bare minimum numbers because it is very, very easy to strip an area of resources quickly. You may be expecting some kind of massive die-off of humanity spurring your evac or you may be in an area where you can't walk for not hitting game and edibles in excess. I assume foraging and fishing are part of the plan as well.

If you do opt for more, I would worry less about firearms training and skills and more about whether they're going to pick hemlock and recognize an active burrow hole from one that hasn't been used in days, weeks or seasons, and my partner requirements would be more about good woods knees and ankles than the contents of their bag.

I consider a small group and big group bigger than yours. For a household with a decent yard, maybe even nearby woods and fishing, I'd try to get 1-3 families with a total of maybe 5-8 able-bodied adults and teens, maybe even 1-3 seniors in there. I would for sure want a dog that barked at strangers and bears and coyotes and other dogs, but not every time the wind blows.
-1-2 on watch/patrol if that's needed
-Seniors or 1-2 with kids, kids can pluck bugs off garden and find acorns and haul weeds to chickens or goats; laundry, cooking, cleaning, canning, water filtration/purification if necessary, youth education
-1-2 down with illness or injury
-1-2 garden, checking traps, fishing, wood collection, foraging, mucking, home repair, livestock rotation
It gives the ability to:
-Consolidate wash/laundry water
-Optimize land use to most productive vegetation
-Optimize short-ripeness seasons both in collection and processing
-Provide backup
-Keep night watch to 1-2 hours each (if needed)
-Consolidate heating and cooking fuels
-Rotate duties
-Small enough number for fast communication
-Large enough numbers to make you think about whether you as an individual, trio or quartet can take us out

A bigger group and bigger land would be my ideal, with 3-5 families and a total of 6-15 adults, maybe even 20. Ideally, I'd see it as a couple of houses and maybe an RV or trailer or insulated garage/shed for added sleeping at each, spread out some but able to observe each location.
-Much larger pool for watches
-Better optimization of food crops to soil and moisture and sun
-More hands available for short ripeness harvests of garden and wild edibles
-More specialization, but more minds available as well
-More difficult communication and more strife, but also more backup and a better chance that my mother and nephew are not alone with somebody who suddenly snaps or some thief or murderer wanders up
-Even better water and fuel conservation
-Backup locations if a household burns down (even if just insulated trapper camp tents or sod walls)
-Even larger group to suggest that the small thieves and trouble makers find somewhere else to be, and less chance that confrontation leaves somebody stranded on their own should it become necessary to remove a threat to the area and community

If you don't have them, you might want to check out Thayer's foraging books. He gives a pretty good account of "good" harvests and the time and yields involved.

The optimal number of people in your survival group is...FIVE THOUSAND.

I suppose you are going to want an explanation for that, out of left field, answer.

I'm going old school survivalist at the moment, quoting Mel Tappan on Survival. Even modern Permies and Transition Town folks would agree to that number along with the cantankerous, bigoted, spoiled, privileged, alcoholic, fat bastard, survivalist that Mel was . The magic 5 thousand, necessary for localised sustainable survivability. I'll leave it to you to lookup the Why part. http://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/Tappan%20on%20Survival.pdf

The C5 post these folks are referring to is http://internationalpreppersnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4740
I like that its being repeated. I think its the most important post I have made since joining IPN and if it gets spread around and re posted here and there, that would make me a happy bugout camper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

this is a simple answer if your asking about optimal survival, however, your throwing a six month old into the mix so I tell you now, things would have to be pretty desperate to bug out with a child under six years.

optimal number is 4....spec ops work off four men ASU's (active service units).....its a small enough unit to go undiscovered for long periods of time, enough firepower to cover whilst you extract, two can sleep whilst two guard during the day (because your only moving at night if you have any sense) and most importantly ....EVERYONE KNOWS THERE PLACE!!!

5,000 is far too much...food, water, medical supply shortages, the logistics are a nightmare....and whos in charge?

Well, I guess it was irresponsible of me to make that challenge without being willing to back up my thoughts on the matter AND I shouldn't have expected everyone to read a rather out dated book from the 70s (classic or not) to glean what I am trying to say. The point is to not Bug Out but to strategically relocate to a small agricultural TOWN...NOW (or at least years before the disaster). Ive been trying to smack down the "Myth" of the Special Forces Prepper methodology for a wile now. Ill explain further by editing down Mel Tappan on Retreating. Please forgive the choppy, cut and paste editing.

HEEEAAARS MEL......

"The concept most fundamental to realistic long-term disaster preparedness is retreating;
having a safe place to go in order to avoid the concentrated violence destined to erupt in
the cities -- a place where, in addition to owning greater safety during the crisis
interval, one can reasonably expect to generate subsistence for an indefinite period
thereafter. Despite its central importance to the business of staying alive in the
aftermath of a pervasive disaster, such as a monetary collapse or a nuclear exchange, this
aspect of the survival equation is not widely understood.
Most people who approach the topic for the first time tend to be hampered by what I call
the "backpacker mentality." They tend to conceive of disaster survival as an extended
wilderness adventure in which they somehow manage to escape from the cities in the nick of
time, just ahead of the fleeing mobs, carrying all they will need for shelter, food,
clothing, medical care and protection in a pack on their backs, in the saddle bags of a
ten-speed bicycle or in the trunk of the family car. Another common misconception centers
around the isolated wilderness cabin or mountain stronghold where a single family or a few
friends expect to fend off all comers, in the event of their being discovered.
Now, those of us who see the need to make serious survival preparations have to begin our
thinking somewhere, and it's a disgrace to start with these obvious clich‚s. The danger
lies in not thinking beyond them. Unfortunately , the gross inadequacy of current survival
literature does not tend to lead one further, because most of it seems to confuse the
romance of woodscraft, nomadics and homesteading with the hard realities of disaster
survival. The hackneyed retreat alternatives so shallowly conceived and so tirelessly
repeated by the few writers on the subject are, upon careful examination, simplistic,
unworkable or of severely limited value in the real world.
Once you have reached the point where you feel that preparedness is no longer academic,
and you have a growing, apprehensive awareness that the time grows short for you to
relocate away from the areas of greatest danger, it becomes increasingly easy to see the
shortcomings of the traditional retreat alternatives .
To ice the matter, most of these clich‚ retreat alternatives require crystal-ball timing.
Because they are generally such an extreme departure from conventional life patterns, one
would hardly choose to activate his retreat plan a moment sooner than necessary. Who would
willingly elect, before circumstances forced him, to start blundering through the bush for
months on end.
Almost two years ago, my wife and I established a workable retreat, after several false
starts and some expensive mistakes. Whether or not you are ready to make the commitment
necessary to take that step, I think it is important that you understand why lesser
measures will not do.
The truth is that any realistic retreat plan is going to involve a good deal of effort on
your part and possibly substantial expense as well as significant rearrangement of your
lifestyle.
there is no retreat site in the continental United States where you
could be certain of living in total isolation, completely undetected. Clearly there are
places where the odds of discovery would be greatly in your favor, but if you should be
stumbled upon by looters, remote from any possible aid, the superior force would almost
certainly prevail. Further, if your security were to depend on remaining undiscovered for
an extended period of time, the hardships and limitations placed upon you would be
enormous. For one thing, raising animals for food would be virtually impossible and even
cultivating a garden conveniently near would be a hazard. The emotional strain of keeping
constantly quiet and hidden would also be burdensome to most.
The empirical answer to this dilemma, which the theoreticians seem to have missed, is
obvious: an already existing, functioning community in which the balance of skills, social
interplay and other essential factors have been established pragmatically . A small town.
Not just any small town will do however. It should meet the stringent requirements for any
good retreat and offer certain advantages of flexibility as well.
THE SMALL RURAL COMMUNITY
I am concerned that a large number of people who believe that a catastrophe is coming and
who see the need for survival preparedness may suffer a similar fate because they are
convinced that they will be able to perceive the warning signals and flee to their
retreats in the nick of time. Unfortunately , that sort of thinking makes for victims, not
survivors..
There will probably be no warning at all, and unless you are living at your retreat when
the first blast occurs, the odds are that you will never reach it. As an example, if the
collapse develops from economic and political causes, the chances are that its coming will
be so gradual that you will wait too long to leave.... I'm not, here, predicting when an
economic collapse will occur, but I am saying that everything necessary to cause such a
catastrophe is now in place.
This preamble is meant to point up one of the primary advantages of locating your retreat
in a small rural community, as opposed to following one of the more radical clich‚
alternatives (that is, isolated wilderness retreats, commercial group retreats, sea or
land mobile retreats). You can move there now and live comfortably with whatever
conveniences your means allow, for whatever period of grace we may have before the
breakdown occurs, and by doing so, you can eliminate the two greatest risks in the
survival equation: (1) estimating or recognizing the time when you should leave for your
retreat, and (2) the hazardous travel that might be involved in getting there when the
crisis actually occurs.
Further, if you are to realize the full advantage of retreating in a small rural
community, it is extremely important that you allow enough time before the trouble starts
for you to become a part of that community. The last thing you want is to be the stranger
-- perhaps the expendable stranger -- who just blew into town before the crunch began.
From my own experience I can testify that one of the most prudent reasons for moving to a
rural retreat now is the development time involved. If you really intend to try having a
self-sufficient farm or ranch, you will need as much lead time as you can get before the
crisis hits.
Selecting a Small Town Retreat
1. SIZE AND COMPOSITION. The community you choose must be small -- one to 5,000
population, preferably, and 2,000-3,000 optimally. You are looking for a community large
enough to be proof against any outside attack short of one by an armored division and
still small enough to remain cohesive during hard times, with a minuscule disruptive
element. Just because a small town has fewer people than a city is no guarantee that it
will be nirvana for retreaters.
Also, the community must be essentially rural -- a small industrial town will not do. The
economy should be based on small individually owned farms producing a broad variety of
crops and livestock. What might be termed "subsistence truck farms" would be ideal. Avoid
one-crop areas where vast amounts of grain or some other specialized item is produced but
where other food consumed by the population must be imported. Make certain that a large
number of the residents do not depend upon government employment, industry or large
agribusiness . Imagine what might happen in the small town of Hershey, PA, for example, if
the chocolate plant closed.
PEOPLE. There is an inherent social discipline in small towns. There is no anonymity
and, perhaps for that reason, the people tend to have a strong sense of responsibility .
Further, unproductive people who are unwilling to work are seldom attracted to farm
communities. Farmers are usually disciplined because their work demands it. If you have a
cow, she has to be milked twice a day every day at the same hours. Such people are already
accustomed to working together for barn raising, harvest and the like. Also, barter is a
way of life: lamb for pork, butter for eggs, hay for grain, or labor for a share of the
crop. These are the kinds of folk who would band together in a crisis to protect their
community from outsiders. They have worked for what is theirs, they take pride in it and
they are determined to keep it.
Much as I abhor being dogmatic, I see no viable alternative to relocating to a small rural
community, if you believe as I do that we are on the verge of a catastrophic social
upheaval. Arguments against the position are all ultimately irrelevant if you regard
survival as a priority, just as arguments against breathing are irrelevant, no matter how
persuasively an expert might insist that polluted air can damage your lungs. There are
difficulties , of course, but they must be regarded as necessary adjustments, not reasons
for choosing a wholly untenable course of action.

LIVING OFF THE LAND
I approach this topic with some misgivings. Nothing in the field seems to generate as much
controversy and, frequently, outright hostility as the question whether living off the
land is a viable approach to long-term disaster survival. At the risk of being required to
turn in my fire drill, snare wire and obsidian knife, I intend to answer that question
forthrightly , in the great tradition of acknowledged experts everywhere: yes and no.
Obviously, the answer is yes, at some level of technology, because we all draw our
sustenance from nature every day. If, however, your idea of living off the land is heading
for the nearest woods with nothing more than a backpack and a gleam of confidence in your
eye, then I would rate your chances of surviving the sort of catastrophe which I
contemplate as somewhere between zero and none.
Like thumbsucking in children, the notion of escaping a holocaust and subsisting on forage
in the wilderness seems to be a phase that all of us must go through when faced with a
high probability that the fragile symbiosis of our current urbanized social order may
fragment into chaos as a result of runaway inflation or nuclear war.
First, if you expect to ensure your safety by hiding, just getting out into the
countryside will not do. To have a chance at all you must seek out real wilderness. If you
don't, you are almost certain to encounter frightened, desperate mobs of people whose
first thought in escaping the cities is the same as yours -- head for the nearest patch of
woods with whatever can be carried. If there is game in the area, it will quickly be
decimated or frightened away. Those who are without supplies, equipment or the skills
necessary to provide themselves with food and shelter will undoubtedly try to take what
they need by force. Terrified, inexperienced hunters will be shooting at anything that
moves; and all around you, first-time woodsmen will be igniting giant fires for warmth and
cooking without due regard for safety. The conflagration that will ensue, I leave to your
imagination.
If that weren't enough, there is also the matter of logistics. The nomadic aspect of this
approach to retreating limits your gear and stores to what you can carry, and you cannot
expect resupply. Weight and space considerations will probably confine you to a single
firearm and ammunition -- probably a centerfire sporting rifle since that option has the
potential for providing the most meat for the least expenditure of ammunition. Consider,
however, that you would have to take at least eight 125-pound deer to feed a family of two
or three for a year exclusively on venison. Further, you might still starve, even with the
addition of some plant forage, because such a diet lacks sufficient essential fats.
Defending yourself from a superior force of attackers with only a hunting rifle and
severely limited ammunition supplies would certainly prove hazardous, particularly at
close range in the open where such encounters would probably occur. Finally, stress would
exact an enormous toll under these conditions. Virtually every move you made and every
decision could mean life or death. Breaking your knife blade or shattering your axe on a
hidden pine knot could be a decisive factor in your struggle to stay alive, and the strain
of living under such unremitting pressure brings about changes in the human cardiovascular
and endocrine systems that are themselves life-threatening,
And then there is the matter of getting to your hideaway. If it is remote enough to do you
any good at all, it will probably be several hundred miles from where you live now -- and
many of those miles should be traversible only by air, pack mule, sled or, possibly, an
all-terrain vehicle. If you wait to run until the balloon goes up, the highways will
resemble parking lots, airports will be closed or in chaos and you will probably never
reach your retreat. If you move there now, you will run the unnecessary risk of being
without emergency medical care and lose some of the options that might be available to you
if you remained nearer the mainstream of the social order. Forest fires would remain a
peril in most locations and, because your entire rationale for security would rest upon
your isolation, bartering goods and services would be impossible. Also, you could expect
no help from any quarter if you were discovered by a hostile force.
Finally, even in the sort of wilderness we are discussing here, game is now by no means
sufficiently plentiful.
If you really expect to succeed living off the land, you will almost never "go hunting."
It is too time-consuming for the amount of food produced; yet you should always be
prepared to take a mixed bag, as it is presented, whenever you are outdoors at your
retreat. Small farms develop a certain rhythm which the animals perceive and they expose
themselves much more frequently when you are performing routine chores than when you are
"hunting."

That's it for now. If you want the un edited version, I presented it in the previous post. FYI We have already moved to our retreat because enough of the signs we were waiting for have happened and we are three years into adapting the property and ourselves. Our Town has its short comings. Its actually Too Small...and we are alittle Too Far out from it for safety. Just food for thought.

Well-portrayed perspective!
The motive emphasis in my view is the personally-embedded yearning for viable community, which , when mutually aspired to, shared by companions, will have the best chance of overcoming any logistical challenges, including "mere" survival.
If moving into an existing town 1-2 at a time, it will take proportionately longer to assimilate in a mutually interdependent way. It's a challenge to find such a place in any case.
The next best thing , i'm convinced, is developing a village-scale community nearby a town ,several at a time, in a loosely scattered rural population, already resilient in their living.....and assimilating immediately., naturally being approachable, helpful, teachable, ....yet maintaining discreet privacy of detail.

cernunnos...that wasn't the question though. UC asked about optimum for a 'bug out' scenario. im ex british spec ops and I would have to be on fire before id bug out. back in 1994 I was in a live escape/ evasion scenario for just over 9 hours until airlifted and I tell you it was STRESSFUL. there were four of us (ASU) and not four guys you would want to screw around with on our worst day and your best, and we were all shitting it. everyone listen up, if you have a choice DO NOT BUG OUT!!!

cernunnos...that wasn't the question though. UC asked about optimum for a 'bug out' scenario. im ex british spec ops and I would have to be on fire before id bug out. back in 1994 I was in a live escape/ evasion scenario for just over 9 hours until airlifted and I tell you it was STRESSFUL. there were four of us (ASU) and not four guys you would want to screw around with on our worst day and your best, and we were all shitting it. everyone listen up, if you have a choice DO NOT BUG OUT!!!

OK. Let me rephrase that. The optimal number for a bug out scenario would be ZERO. I understand your stress. in 1999, I spent two weeks evading police that had been told I was armed and dangerous and they should make no attempt to physically restrain me (That last part was true. I was alittle higher strung back then). We all know how that could have ended. I used much of my survival training that week including going so far as to begin building myself new ID (something no longer possible) and preparing to live on the run. I would be leaving behind everything I owned, My family, everyone and everywhere I knew, for a future that was unlikely to succeed. Not a life at all. Eventually, I realised I would have to confront the situation. Through a series of calls, eventually I was able to get a police officer to meet me.(in a place I had set for continued evasion). After I was able to tell my side of the story, Their reply was..."Oh. We understand now. Just forget this all happened". Well, I never forgot what happened.

cernunnos...that wasn't the question though. UC asked about optimum for a 'bug out' scenario. im ex british spec ops and I would have to be on fire before id bug out. back in 1994 I was in a live escape/ evasion scenario for just over 9 hours until airlifted and I tell you it was STRESSFUL. there were four of us (ASU) and not four guys you would want to screw around with on our worst day and your best, and we were all shitting it. everyone listen up, if you have a choice DO NOT BUG OUT!!!

OK. Let me rephrase that. The optimal number for a bug out scenario would be ZERO. I understand your stress. in 1999, I spent two weeks evading police that had been told I was armed and dangerous and they should make no attempt to physically restrain me (That last part was true. I was alittle higher strung back then). We all know how that could have ended. I used much of my survival training that week including going so far as to begin building myself new ID (something no longer possible) and preparing to live on the run. I would be leaving behind everything I owned, My family, everyone and everywhere I knew, for a future that was unlikely to succeed. Not a life at all. Eventually, I realised I would have to confront the situation. Through a series of calls, eventually I was able to get a police officer to meet me.(in a place I had set for continued evasion). After I was able to tell my side of the story, Their reply was..."Oh. We understand now. Just forget this all happened". Well, I never forgot what happened.

they were told you were armed and dangerous and one met with you by him/herself? well, that cop needs a slap for probably disregarding every policing policy and procedure set out. the guys chasing us were militants with guns and dogs...it did not occur to me to call them and request they meet me at Starbucks to explain why we just offed a couple of their guys when we were compromised. we would've been tortured, skin and shot in the face...you would've been arrested....Im sure we suffered exactly the same levels of stress, our situations being so comparable. (Im pulling your leg 😀 ) but your right, your experience did prepare you better than most for a bug out scenario, and you clearly understand some of the stressors involved with evasion.

Are we seriously wipping it out for quarters. OK you win. There were several calls and they had figured out that something was amiss. They probably wouldn't have "accidentally" shot me or my dog at that point. The meet never would have happened if some sort of negotiation hadn't been reached. Of course I didn't have a rescue helicopter, Nor three soldiers backing me, high capacity armaments, an entire military machine and command structure to the rescue, a multiple thousand mile resupply train and the financing of an entire nation.(something missed by many) In the end all I really lost was a 18 month old son.

I should mention I've also survived two attempts on my life so I get it. None of these things were the worst experiences I have had to survive but those things I have no interest in talking about. Either way, these have made me the rather charming man I am today and a hit at parties.

That experience had me live off grid for a decade. Not the off grid way I live today which is very grid dependant, but no address, no computer trail, no medical. Never staying in one place too long. Living up logging roads, the industrial areas of big cities or ski towns where no one paid too much attention to travellers and someone like me could find seasonal work. My prepping system kept being refined but I had a lot of time to figure out what was wrong with the way survivalism was being presented. I lived the bug out lifestyle to its fullest and have seen its shortcomings. What I have today is way better. This is sustainable, realistic, safe and sane. That wasn't.
So here I am, challenging the bugout methodology that keeps being repeated over and over and over. Its not that Bugging Out is totally useless. It just mainly is. Im here to give it some perspective...especially to the newbies that obsess about their bug out bags and weekend forest visits. Prepping is something different.

Oh my favorite topic... bugging out : AKA becoming a refugee!

Unless you have a place already pre-arranged and well stocked (ideally, more than one place), leaving your house with just your family in tow, especially a young child, is hardly survival, it would be more like drawn out suicide.

Sorry for my negative-sounding, yet honest and likely very realistic comment.

I'll reference C5's ultimate BOB and survival gun post as a better place to discuss the pro-cons of the theory, too.

In the woods with the goal of more than just a trip here to there, absolute bare minimum numbers because it is very, very easy to strip an area of resources quickly. You may be expecting some kind of massive die-off of humanity spurring your evac or you may be in an area where you can't walk for not hitting game and edibles in excess. I assume foraging and fishing are part of the plan as well.

If you do opt for more, I would worry less about firearms training and skills and more about whether they're going to pick hemlock and recognize an active burrow hole from one that hasn't been used in days, weeks or seasons, and my partner requirements would be more about good woods knees and ankles than the contents of their bag.

I consider a small group and big group bigger than yours. For a household with a decent yard, maybe even nearby woods and fishing, I'd try to get 1-3 families with a total of maybe 5-8 able-bodied adults and teens, maybe even 1-3 seniors in there. I would for sure want a dog that barked at strangers and bears and coyotes and other dogs, but not every time the wind blows.
-1-2 on watch/patrol if that's needed
-Seniors or 1-2 with kids, kids can pluck bugs off garden and find acorns and haul weeds to chickens or goats; laundry, cooking, cleaning, canning, water filtration/purification if necessary, youth education
-1-2 down with illness or injury
-1-2 garden, checking traps, fishing, wood collection, foraging, mucking, home repair, livestock rotation
It gives the ability to:
-Consolidate wash/laundry water
-Optimize land use to most productive vegetation
-Optimize short-ripeness seasons both in collection and processing
-Provide backup
-Keep night watch to 1-2 hours each (if needed)
-Consolidate heating and cooking fuels
-Rotate duties
-Small enough number for fast communication
-Large enough numbers to make you think about whether you as an individual, trio or quartet can take us out

A bigger group and bigger land would be my ideal, with 3-5 families and a total of 6-15 adults, maybe even 20. Ideally, I'd see it as a couple of houses and maybe an RV or trailer or insulated garage/shed for added sleeping at each, spread out some but able to observe each location.
-Much larger pool for watches
-Better optimization of food crops to soil and moisture and sun
-More hands available for short ripeness harvests of garden and wild edibles
-More specialization, but more minds available as well
-More difficult communication and more strife, but also more backup and a better chance that my mother and nephew are not alone with somebody who suddenly snaps or some thief or murderer wanders up
-Even better water and fuel conservation
-Backup locations if a household burns down (even if just insulated trapper camp tents or sod walls)
-Even larger group to suggest that the small thieves and trouble makers find somewhere else to be, and less chance that confrontation leaves somebody stranded on their own should it become necessary to remove a threat to the area and community

If you don't have them, you might want to check out Thayer's foraging books. He gives a pretty good account of "good" harvests and the time and yields involved.

For me personally I see that scenario only working out if it is a very remote location ideally at high elevation. I feel a couple of homes anywhere near a road or a plain is a sitting duck for desperate and well armed large groups of people. Unless your night watch (guard) team has night vision assault rifles you will not stand a chance against a well armed well trained group of people that NEEDS your resources to move on. There are people out there in possession of some serious fire power. Ten guys with assault rifles can raid you and your family so quickly you will barely blink. That's why for me a location with a house....garden and all these luxuries is.....unnerving. I could never sleep.

Now I'm sure it's possible to find a home base where some sort of stability is possible but you need to move these people to some pretty hostile terrain to get to safety. Can the elderly survive a multi month treck trough hellish terrain to attain safety? What if its winter?

I don't know..... don't have an answer but something to think about. I think you need to be as far away from civilization as possible if you want to survive.
I live in BC and guess what all those well armed American's are not hanging around LA with no drinking water and resources? Guess which part of north america all the well armed survivalist will migrate to? Where is the fresh water? Where is the wild game? And a close proximety to the ocean? Yup. Its gonna get pretty crowded even in remote locations. You need to be as isloated as possible in a SHTF scenario.

don't worry bout the US, they'll finally come to their senses and build a number of desalination plants across the west coast....problem solved.