A Bus as Your Group’s Bug-Out Vehicle

Here’s a really off-the-wall concept, but don’t reject it out of hand.  There are several aspects to this suggestion, and if you consider it carefully, it might open up exciting and extending new prepping opportunities.

Think about the problems we all face as preppers, if we live in cities.

First, ideally, we’d like a retreat some hundreds of miles from our city location; indeed, depending on where we live, maybe even a thousand miles or more away from the city.  But how can we be sure we can safely and conveniently get there in an emergency?

Second, ideally, we’d like to move to a retreat with a group of other people who we already know and who we’ve ‘quality controlled’ in advance.  This enables us as a group to create a retreat community for mutual support and greater overall viability.  But, living in the city, we have no chance to build up a community presence where our retreat is or could be located, and the same problems that make it difficult for us to maintain a ‘dual life’ as between our city life and our standby retreat are at least as discouraging for other potential group members, who might be less committed up front to the prepping ideal than we are.

You doubtless already know these problems, because we all face them, every day.  Now for an unexpected solution – a bus.

Create a prepper group among your family members, friends, neighbors, and colleagues, in the city.  It is probably easy to find some other couples who would ideally like to join a prepper community, but the challenges of doing so has put it in their ‘too hard’ pile, the same as you.  Having a bus as an easy/convenient way to travel from your normal homes to your retreat might encourage them to become more participative and supportive of the overall retreat/prepping concept.

Then, when you have your community members, buy a second-hand bus.  Share the cost as best you can among the group of you.  The very good news is that a 40 – 60 seater bus, probably ten or more years old, is not going to cost you a great deal of money.  We’ve seen ideal buses priced anywhere from as little as $10,000 to no more than $100,000, and when you split that ten or twenty or more ways, it becomes very affordable on a cost per person basis.

Now here’s the thing.  Think about the capabilities the bus gives you.

First, it gives you the ability to transport a large group of people together with a large collection of supplies.  Sure, we know that you should have everything you need pre-positioned at your retreat, but we also know there are sure to be personal and essential items that you keep with you, wherever you are, and we know that if/when you need to bug-out, there are things you need to bring with you – both to ensure your safety on the journey, and last-minute essential items to have for when you get to your retreat.

Second, if you make an appropriate choice of bus, it will have a rest-room on board and 150 – 250 gallons of diesel in its tanks, giving you 1,000, maybe even 2,000 miles of nonstop range.  You don’t need to stop for anything (except swapping turns at the wheel).  Maybe it also has a kitchenette/galley so you can boil water and prepare some snacks, and if the 1,000+ miles you can go on the diesel in its tanks isn’t enough, you can readily carry hundreds more gallons in the bus’s capacious storage lockers.  Truly, a bus could convey your group pretty much from coast to coast without stopping or needing to rely on the ability to refuel or on any other external dependencies at all (other than the ability to find open roads to drive on).

Please Continue Reading Our Bus Series of Articles

So, what do you think?  Crazy idea, or exciting idea?  Hopefully you can see the possibilities and the potential, so please now continue on to read the other parts of our new series all about using a bus as a bug-out vehicle.

Part 0 –  Introduction

Part 1 –  The Pluses and Minuses of Using a Bus/Coach as a Bug-Out Vehicle

Part 2 –  Things to Consider When Evaluating Buses/Coaches as Bug-Out Vehicles

Part 3 –  Things to Consider When Buying a Bus/Coach

Part 4 –  Tactical Considerations When Traveling by Bus/Coach

Part 5 –  Coordinating a Community Bug-Out Event

We also have other articles on other aspects of the broader general subject of bugging out.