I am currently a member of an active preparedness group and have been a member of two others prior to this group (changed groups due to moving). Something that we did in one of the groups I was in previously was to once a year do a full on complete bug out practice. By that I mean you actually load up the physical goods, supplies and equipment you intend to take with you if you are forced to bug out.

Now I fully acknowledge that there are those who do not have a Bug Out Location to evacuate to. I currently live at my full time BOL which is a go to place for several other families, all of whom have some supplies already pre- positioned here. But we do have a fall back location about 90 minutes away if needed.

When we did our exercise with the group here were the rules: you had to load the actual goods and supplies, no cheating, you had to time yourself from start to finish and you had to keep a list of three things that went well and three things that didn't go well to share with the group.

At the next group meeting following the test we discussed the results which were very interesting. The main point that folks discovered was that it took much longer to load out than they thought it would. My ex-wife and I had much of our gear pre-packed and stored and it took quite awhile. For me the biggest surprise was discovering that we couldn't haul all the goods we wanted to bring. I had a full size pick up truck and she had a mini van and we could only accommodate about 60% of what we had planned on bringing for our family of five. Made for some interesting choices in what stayed and what went. Another factor that was a downside for some of the members was not having a written checklist of what they planned on bringing. It added time as they looked for certain items. The amount of effort it took to load everything up was another issue for many, myself included. It can be physically demanding to move and load all the goods. So it was a very eye opening experience to say the least.

Have you ever loaded up all that you are planning to bring with you to see for yourself? If you haven't I HIGHLY recommend that you do, it will not be a waste of your time.