For the sake of things, let’s assume you’re a spy…
And right now, you’re overseas planning a meeting with an agent that you recruited.
Because you’re in a more dangerous country, your meeting will take place at night, since it’s better to operate at night.
The plan is to pick up the person at 7pm on the side of a dirt road.
This dirt road has a thick brush around it, so the agent can hide in the bush until he sees your car.
Then he’ll pop out of the brush, hop in your car, and you’ll conduct the meeting from the vehicle.
You have thoroughly cased this meeting site to make sure it’s safe.
You’ve checked that there isn’t much traffic, and there are plenty of escape routes if things go south.
Most importantly, remember that your meeting is scheduled for 7pm.
This means you cased the site from 6pm to 8pm so that you know exactly what’s going on at this site around the time of your meeting.
In other words, you didn’t plan a 7pm meeting and then case the site at 9am in the morning.
Obviously, traffic patterns will be different, and people will be doing other things at 9am versus 7pm at night.
This might sound obvious, but most people forget to do this.
And this is something you need to think about when it comes to bug out from your home during a crisis…
I’m fortunate that I live in a small town in Utah.
If I need to go to my bug out location, there’s no traffic any time of the day.
However, I still have multiple routes planned if a downed tree or something else is blocking one of the routes I plan to take.
But, for those who live in a big city such as DC, LA, or NYC, you need to plan accordingly.
Traffic is a nightmare in those cities, and you need to have options to escape the city even during the worst times of the day.
This might not be easy and takes some planning, such as different modes of transportation.
But this is an excellent exercise to do to get your mind thinking.
Bottom line: Plan your escape during a crisis so that you’ll be able to successfully flee danger no matter what time of the day it is.
And, of course, make sure and check out below so that you’re 100% prepared with the right gear in case it takes a little longer than you thought to escape to a safe location.