During a disaster, your bug-out vehicle will be your lifeline to the outside world. A good bug-out vehicle can get you to safety quickly and efficiently, whether that vehicle is an SUV, a pickup truck or even a sedan. However, the specs of the bug-out vehicle alone won’t be able to take you to your destination.

For your journey out of Dodge, you will need a lot of fuel and a lot of supplies, unless you want to try siphoning gas out of abandoned cars and scavenging for chips in a gas station in the middle of nowhere. (h/t to TheOrganicPrepper.com)

Store enough fuel for your bug-out vehicle

Keeping your bug-out vehicle’s gas tank full is a good idea, but like most supplies, you will eventually run out of gas. Hopefully, not before you make it to your bug-out location. However, you may not be able to account for things that can drain your fuel, such as unexpected detours and time stuck in traffic. (Related: Get out and stay alive when SHTF by having a well-thought-out escape plan.)

Ideally, you should have several gallons of fuel stored on your property – not in your home, as that poses a serious fire hazard, not to mention the fact that the fumes released by the gasoline also pose certain health risks. Instead, keep your extra fuel in a shed, a barn or an external garage. Also consider using gasoline stabilizer additives, which can keep your stored fuel usable for longer. Alternatively, after a certain period of time, you can simply use the stored fuel.

Be sure to follow the necessary precautions for bringing your extra fuel along when it’s finally time to bug-out. Don’t store it in the trunk of your car, keep it on a roof rack and secure it tightly into place.

Your bug-out vehicle needs enough space for supplies

But since fuel isn’t the only thing you will be bringing with you when you bug out, your vehicle also needs to have enough space to accommodate all your passengers and all the supplies you need to bring with you.

The first item you need to bring is lots of water. When you test out how long the trip is from your home to your bug-out location, try and calculate how much water you will need. A person will need, give or take, half a gallon of water a day to stay healthy. If your journey will take no longer than one day, then keeping one gallon of water per person in the trunk of your car should be enough.

Depending on the length of your journey, you might not need to bring a lot of food. That said, keeping some snacks or a full meal in your car shouldn’t take up too much space. Your family should be able to sustain itself on some MREs, beef jerky, trail mix or mixed nuts for a day’s journey. Any longer and you may wish to bring more food items, such as freeze-dried meals or canned goods.

Fuel, food and water are some of the most essential supplies you will need to bring with you. However, you shouldn’t forget about other items you may need, such as first aid kits and maintenance equipment for your car such as a jack and a spare tire.

Bugging out of your home is a difficult endeavor. However, with enough preparation and with enough foresight to know how much fuel, food and water you need for your journey, you should be able to make it to your bug-out location in one piece.

Sources include:

TheOrganicPrepper.com

ThePreppingGuide.com

SkilledSurvival.com

ItStillRuns.com

BallisticMag.com

Healthline.com

UrbanSurvivalSite.com