Preparations for Bugging Out of the Country

Hey Fernando,
I have been a viewer of your YouTube channel for a while and finally
had the chance to read your book. I just have a few questions about my
particular situation that I am hoping you could give me some answers
to.
I am a young expat teacher living and working in Thailand. I am
Australian by nationality. Whilst I have a desire to be well prepared,
I know that if things get truly bad in Thailand (which I feel is far
more likely than things going wrong in Australia) I would leave,
rather than sticking it out. 

As such I have a much more limited set of supplies, as I don’t
foresee them needing to last long – if a situation that has me
living off supplies arises I will be on a plane within the month. I
know that in a collapse situation that as a foreigner I may attract
unwanted attention or not receive assistance from local authorities.
I have the following things in place to ensure my survival should
things go downhill here, and I would like your comments on them, as
well as any additions.

• I live within walking distance of a top quality hospital, a local
police station and have comprehensive, international health insurance.
I can speak enough Thai to speak with the police or emergency services
if needed. The airport is 20-30 mins away if there is heavy traffic.
•My home is on a no-through road in a middle class neighborhood and
has security bars, motion lights etc and have established friendly
relations with my neighbors.
•While I am unable to carry a firearm here, I do have knives
available for everyday carry and home protection. I was trained with
the basics of how to use these when I was in the Australian military.
Iam young (under 30) and relatively fit. I have had some (basic!)
martial arts training.
• I have food, water, lighting and cooking supplies available in my
house to last for 2-3 weeks. I live alone, but have made provisions to
accommodate certain friends who are also expats if required. (I know
in your book you are not fond of charity, but I feel doing this is
well within my means).
• I keep some money in local currency and US dollars physically in
my home, as well as some small pieces of gold jewelry. In my bank
account I keep enough to cover my monthly expenses – the rest is
sent to my savings accounts in Australia (obviously here I have enough
to fund an airline ticket)
• I monitor the local news and try to keep abreast of any political
or economic events that may cause problems (there have been mass
protests in the past, terrorist attacks etc).
• Anything that will not fit into airline baggage limits I am
prepared to abandon. I am also aware of routes to land border
crossings with nearby countries should air travel not be an option.
Now these preparations seem quite rudimentary compared with the depth
you go into in your book and in your videos and I am worried that I
may have missed something. Bearing in mind that I will only look to
bear a collapse situation for a month before abandoning the country,
what are your thoughts on my preparations?
I know this is long – if you made it this far I really appreciate
it!
Kind regards,
Eric


Hi Eric, thanks for your email. Just for the record, I’m of course not against charity. I simply recommend people not to do it from their front door. In a country ravaged by poverty and misery the word does get around and you’ll find a line of people waiting for your help every day. What I did myself was find organizations such as churches or an orphan home close to where I used to live and helped there, anonymously, rather than from home.

About your email, it sounds as if you are well prepared. As you notice there’s a few differences between what is typically considered Bugging Out, which often means evacuating within short or medium distances, and bugging out of the country (BOTC) which in spite of some similarities calls for different planning.
BOTC means that something severe has happened or is about to occur and the entire country, maybe even the entire region across several countries have been compromised and you are now at risk. This could be anything from natural disasters to war and pandemics.
There’s three main keys here at play:

1)Resources: You need to actually have the means to get out of there. This means money to buy a plane ticket out of there, a boat waiting for you on the marina or a car with gas ready to roll with a plan ready to go. You will also need a small basic Bug Out Bag (check my video on BOBs) and most important, passports to make it across customs and into your country of destination.  You will need enough money to get around and a pre-selected country where you can bug out to. For BOTC you’re generally looking at flying out of there. Trying to cover mayor distances by land will take longer and will certainly be dangerous, so it should fall on the plan B category for BOTC scenarios. Road blocks, riots and control posts may be set up in a matter of hours, and slowly moving by land means there’s more time for this to happen and borders getting closed depending on the given event.

2)Intelligence: You need to stay up to date on what’s happening all around you. The media in most parts of the world is well within the control of the local government, sometimes its even worse on developed nations than in the poor ones where you are used to more improvised sources of information. Within that mess you seem to be more likely to get real info rather than the sanitized version you get fed in more civilized parts of the world. Its important to keep track of events, everything ranging from weather forecasts to the political and economic landscape. During tough times my advice is to at least check a couple sources at least three times a day, morning, noon and before going to bed.

3)Timing: Gathering information and having the habit of checking often is crucial because it gives you the advantage of time, and timing may be the difference between catching the last flight to safety and finding that the borders closed or airports shut down and you’re either going for a much more risky plan B alternative to get out or you’ll have to ride out the disaster as best as you can without leaving. An hour, even a minute too late makes all the difference in the world during these sort of events, so its important to stay informed. At the same time, you cant jump on a plane every time something goes down in the country. Especially during these troubled current times there’s lots of red flags going up and you can BOTC every week or month. What you are looking for is significant events such as significant military action involving your location, verified widespread pandemics or severe political events. You want to watch out for “I cant believe this is really happening” events. Instead of staring like a deer caught in the headlight, get moving!
FerFAL