Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Traveling pains

In this week’s Fear The Walking Dead, the convoy had to make a long journey they WEREN’T prepared for. Don’t make the same mistake.

Lots of things happened in Sunday’s new episode of Fear The Walking Dead, but, the thing which dominated the bulk of the episode was Morgan’s convoy valiantly trekking across Texas to find the original Humbug’s Gulch and make it the convoy’s permanent home.

Of course, nothing is easy in a zombie apocalypse, as was proven by how increasingly arduous their journey became. With setback after setback piled on, they persevered, only to find no gold at the end of the rainbow, but, a large herd of walkers waiting for them, and, being forced to ask Virginia, the very person who initiated all of their setbacks, for help.

With all of that in mind, I figured that this week, I’m going to focus on all the things that went wrong with the group’s misadventure, and hopefully, help you to avoid those pitfalls should you find yourself having to take a similar journey in a zombie apocalypse.

First thing’s first: Know where you’re going, and, more importantly, what you’re getting yourself into.

It’s easy to pick a destination on a map, but, if you don’t know what condition it’s in, that’s all it is: A place on a map.

Though, it will obviously be difficult, if you have a means of scouting a place before you get there, you might save yourself a lot of precious time, effort, and fuel going to a place that, for all you know, might not even exist anymore.

Next, know how you’re getting to where you’re trying to go.

Just like picking a place, in a lot of cases, this is a simple matter of finding a stretch of road that goes from where you are to where you want to go. But, just like a place is simply somewhere on a map until you know it’s there, the way you get there is just a squiggly line on that map until you actually use it.

For all you know, the road may be gone. It might have been flooded, it might be loaded with abandoned cars, or wreckage, or zombies, or it might have a bridge that simply…isn’t there anymore.

So, scout ahead if and whenever possible, maybe even on foot to save gas (If you can), so that you know — Not think, know — that the road you’re traveling is even capable of being traveled on.

And, in the event the road you originally wanted to take is impassable, take the time to know alternate routes so that you don’t have to worry how you’re going to get somewhere, you can simply know where your alternate route is, and get to it A.S.A.P.

Of course, the same rules apply: Make sure that, whatever alternate routes you’re considering taking (If possible) can, in fact, do the job of actually covering the entire distance you need to go. An alternate route doesn’t mean much if it’s bust, too.

Now, I’ve often said before that you should always stock up on supplies whenever you can, because, you never know when you’re going to need them, but, when traveling, this can become a problem. If, for whatever reason, you’re forced to go on foot, suddenly, half of your stuff is too heavy or too numerous to carry!

If you find yourself in such a situation, only take the things you’ll absolutely need to survive however long you need to walk; Anything more and you risk exhausting yourself, and leaving yourself at the mercy of any hostile or zombie that finds you.

Next, as the group learned, sometimes, you journey across the desert only to find the place you were going to was not the oasis you’d hoped. Recognize that this is a real possibility and be prepared for it.

Be ready for wherever you’re going to be overrun, occupied, or just gone, outright. The better prepared you are for potential disappointment, the better you can deal with it.

And, lastly, if your destination has…tenants who aren’t of the living persuasion, have a go-to plan for getting rid of them.

Zombies aren’t going to get rid of themselves, so, you need to come up with a plan for breaking up, distracting, dispersing, or otherwise eliminating the dead from the place you’re trying to get to.

Traveling in a zombie apocalypse is not going to be easy; There will problems and pitfalls aplenty. But, if you use your head, do some good scouting, be savvy with your fuel expenditure (Both of your vehicles and of yourself), and have a solid plan for dealing with the dead, you can make traveling less of a nightmare than it otherwise would have been.

This is why you follow…The Rules.

And that’s our Survival Rule Of The Week! Hopefully, you’ve gained a little insight into all the various things you’ll need to look out for and do. If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!