Choosing Land for Preparedness in 2026: The Biggest Mistakes Most People Make

Choosing Land for Preparedness in 2026: The Biggest Mistakes Most People Make

Thinking about buying rural land for preparedness? Don’t sign the paperwork until you hear this.

In this episode of The Prepping Academy Podcast, Forrest Garvin explains how choosing survival property has changed in 2026 and why many of the old rules no longer apply. From water availability and soil quality to community, security, access, and long-term sustainability, you’ll learn the critical factors that separate a smart preparedness investment from an expensive mistake.

You’ll discover why buying the most remote property isn’t always the best choice, how population shifts are changing rural areas, and the simple framework Forrest uses to evaluate whether land can truly support your family during uncertain times.

Whether you’re searching for a bug-out location, a future homestead, or land for your preparedness group, this episode will help you avoid costly mistakes and make informed decisions with confidence.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why is preparedness land different in 2026
• The #1 mistake buyers make when evaluating property
• How to assess water, access, and sustainability
• Why can community be more valuable than isolation
• A simple four-question framework for evaluating any property
• The differences between family retreats and group preparedness land

If you’re serious about preparedness, survival planning, homesteading, or building a resilient future, this episode is packed with practical advice you can use before purchasing your next piece of land.

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Podcast Tags:

preparedness, prepper, survival, homesteading, bug out location, survival retreat, preparedness land, rural property, off grid, self-reliance, land buying, emergency preparedness, water security, homestead planning, sustainable living, community preparedness, survival property, prepper land, defensive property, The Prepping Academy Podcast

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Transcript

Announcer 0:54

Survive, thrive, so realize it's time to get rebuilt with the Prepping Academy podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Hey, welcome to the Prepping Academy. I am for thank you for joining me. So much going on, guys. Thank you for joining us. We are going to talk tonight, today, or whatever you or wherever you are about choosing land for your preparedness. We can call this a bug out location. We can call this there's all it's just choosing, sometimes buying, sometimes partnering, sometimes begging. So that's what we're going to be talking about this evening. Hey, there's so many announcements going on, guys. You guys need to join us over at Preppin Academy, not Prepping Academy. Well, you can. That's the Preppin Academy.com's the website for the show. But a lot of our announcements will be on preppernet.com. We've got a big movie premiere coming up that we're partnering with. All this stuff will be coming out. And hey, hope you can join us and and and learn more about that. I'll give more information. It may happen so quick, I may even have to redo this podcast and add it in by the time that this podcast will be out in like a couple days. So anyway, this is about choosing land for preparedness. Buying land used to be simple. You go out in the country where no one was there, you find out who owns you know the six acres or whatever, and you buy it. You you know, throw a few thousand dollars down and you you you buy it. It's out in the middle of nowhere, you got some acres, you're all good. Really didn't work that way anymore, guys. It's totally changed. It does not work, it's never that simple anymore. That's just it doesn't happen. That is very, I mean, buying land is a much bigger thing these days. Hard to find the right land, hard to find location for the right land. In 2026, choosing wrong land could actually cost you. It could be painful if you don't do your research. I mean, oh what a development's gonna happen right next to you? Well, we're out in the middle of the country. Things like that happen these days, and less likely, you know, many years ago. So today I'm gonna walk you through what changes, what to avoid, key factors most people will completely miss. And we I do this all the time for groups with in my consulting company. So, yeah, pretty excited about sharing some of this knowledge with you guys as well. So, again, my name is Force Garvin. I've been a prepper consultant, run prepper net, do online teaching, I do all kinds of stuff, but I've been doing consulting for over 13 years, and we're talking with hundreds of groups. So I have a little experience, and so not saying I'm the expert, but I am writing a book on it, and it's called The Complete Guide to Survival Groups. It's not going to be out in the next few months, so don't rush out and look for it. It's not, uh it's it's a long time in the making. So this episode is going to save you from making expensive mistakes. I mean, I've so many groups, literally had a group, bought some land, wrong side of the mountain. I kid you not, the wrong side of the mountain. They literally can't even do solar. I'm like, oh goodness, people, the sun doesn't. Their property faces the northwest and the way the mountains are, it it very little sunlight. And in the winter, almost, I mean, very little, not any very good sunlight. Anyway, that was some tens of thousands of dollars they wasted. And more people just in general are moving out of the city into the rural land. Who wouldn't? Who wants to live in New York or Charlotte or Atlanta or Houston? People want to live out. Only the young kids want to live in the city these days. And young kids, I mean, under 30. So a lot of you know, the let's be fair. Let's think about this. The pandemic literally changed a lot of people's minds. Literally got a lot more people, and like, yeah, I don't need to be in the city. I if I'm out in the house out in the country, I just need toilet paper. And people are working remote a lot more, so they don't need to be in the city. And a lot of people like literally became more prepper mindset. I mean, well, maybe we should put some toilet paper back, Nancy. So we don't have to go to the Feynman Dime store, or the dollar store, we'll say, and get some toilet paper when everybody else is getting toilet paper. So, and and also these days, let's I mean, land is not hidden. You remember, you know, 30 years ago, you could, well, you might not, but you maybe you do. You drive out of the country, you're like, gosh, man, there's nothing here. It's not like that anymore. It literally is just not like that. There you everywhere you go, there's people. People everywhere. Prices have gone up. Like land, land's a good investment, I guess. It keeps going up and up and up. And you're like, dang, I need to get some property before it gets up to a million dollars an acre. So, but prices are up, but not all land is equal. You can find land cheap. You're like, why is this only like a thousand dollars an acre? It might not have you know the right things on the land. It might could be a train track going through your backyard. Might not have water. The soil may be bad, might not be able to perk, meaning put like a sewer, because if you're in a country, you're probably not going to get sewer or water. Or you're gonna have to, you know, find your own or drill down and get some, which is fine. That's it's easy, just cost more money, and and you want that as a backup for sure. But land is it's just different these days. I'm just telling you, it's different. Infrastructure matters. When you buy that land out in the middle of nowhere, it used to be. This is a good thing. You buy you go out 15 miles outside the city, you're not getting the internet. Well, that's changed. You don't need any wires going to your house these days. All you need is, you know, the Elon Musk. I'm forgetting the Elon Musk, the satellite system. I even I you know what? I'm gonna have to look it this up. It's called what's it called? Come on, oh Starlink. That was a little brain, little brain fart there. Sorry, can I say that? Yeah, so Starlink, you can even get like a passive service now for almost nothing. It's crazy how great that is. I don't know if you guys know, but T-Bogul uses Starlink now as a backup for data and phone calls, and their advertising t-mobile's advertisement is we're in every zip code in the United States. That's right. They are. But you gotta make sure there's water, you gotta make sure, you know, that everything that you need, you gotta have road access, gotta have, you don't even need, like I said, you don't need internet, but power. I mean, off-grid is great. Okay, yeah, I want to do off-grid. Yeah, but it's awful great to have power when you just stay, you know, when things just work when the when the grid's on. Property's less isolated. Literally, go find a piece of property anywhere in the southeast or the east coast where you don't have you know 15, 30, 40 neighbors around you. So it used to be we like to go to a place where there's no one within a mile. Man, you can't do that anymore. Now it's like no more than a hundred people within you know a few miles. So you gotta change your thinking and your process of that. If you haven't been out of the city, I mean, yeah, it's changed. People are moving out, and it's just yeah, it's it's it's different. Can you still find places? Absolutely, you sure can, but urban areas are becoming, they're they're moving out of the urban areas into the country. Because again, if you're driving into work one day a week, I can drive an hour. And I have friends that do that. They'll drive an hour to work because they only go in one day a week nowadays. And I do also know someone that one of my friends just moved to somewhere in South Carolina, uh, where is that? Sumter, South Carolina, but his office is in Charlotte. That's like two and a half hours away. But he hardly he doesn't have to go in to work. First of all, I wouldn't move to Sumter, South Carolina, but he did. And it wasn't for prepping reasons, so don't be going looking for him. So some things to avoid when looking at land. The most important thing about land is water. Can you get water from the city to county? If you can't, you need some experts. You need to go talk to the neighbors. You got well water. How how how far did they drill down? Have you has it ever, you know, what's issues with it? Because if a neighbor can get water, usually you can get water most of the time. But the the depth of the water and the quality of the water all matters. But water is really, really important if you're buying land. It'd be almost crazy to buy land these days that doesn't have water because wells aren't guaranteed. They're not. They're not. And rain, it might not rain enough to catch all the water you need as well. I'd hate to live on that system. You gotta have a well, you or you got to have you know the city or county water. You gotta have both, really. Let's be honest. So no water means no long-term survival, plain and simple. So too remote. There are places up in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee and Virginia. You're like, well, it's only like three, two hundred miles, but yeah, it takes you six hours to get there because the roads. Some places are too remote that you know, when people, yeah, when people die there, other people don't learn about it until family members miss them. There's some remote places up there in the mountains. And I speak of that because I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina area, literally a town outside of Charlotte, but but there I used to live up there. Used to live in a town called Spruce Pine, North Carolina. There's some haulers in there. I wouldn't even during the daytime, I wouldn't drive down there. It's too dangerous. I'm just saying. Just saying. You seen moonshiners? You know, yeah, come on. You know what I'm talking about. So it's too remote. Maybe there's no access, or the roads can be washed out, or if it's winter, you can't get up there because the roads are, you know, always got snow in them. Yes, that happens in the mountains of Tennessee and Virginia, North Carolina, absolutely all the time. Could you put snow chains on or tires or get a snowmobile? You can. There's always a fix, but that fix usually costs money. You know, bad soil. That that's one of what people always talk about bad soil. I'm not a I'm not a soil kind of guy. And I'm gonna explain this, and you're gonna you're gonna hate me for this, and you're gonna like disagree with this. But I I just okay, so I've interviewed about 15 people that have had to survive during a grid-down, civil war, and one of them Selko from Bosnia. They weren't growing stuff for two years. They didn't grow crap. They didn't. You he he talks about in the in the podcast, you can go listen to it, that a little fruit would come up on the plant and someone would pick pick it and eat it before it even ripe, got ripe. Because they knew their nutrition, you know, it had a nutritional value in part of it. And he and he talked about that a lot. I'm like, dang, there's no growing food for a year afterwards. So these people that think they're gonna go farming and they're gonna have pigs and they're gonna have cows and they're gonna survive. That's what they call tomorrow supermarket. Yeah. When when your local Kroger, Harris Teeter, runs out of food or food line, you can go to people can go to the nearest, and they know where all the pigs are, they know where all the cows are, they see it on satellite, they drive by it all the time. And you tell me how you're gonna stop 50 people that want a cow of yours. You you're not. And live through it. So I'm not a big, you know, farm animal guy, farm animal guy on the retreat. I do rabbits, we do chickens, but no, no, nothing else. And we're like, well, how are you gonna survive and eat? It's called storage, it's called freeze-dried. Well, what about growing food? Yeah, we don't grow food on our retreat at all. Zero. I've had a retreat for 25 years. Longest known survival group that Jonathan Hollerman, Charlie Hogwood, longest one we know of. I've had it for 25 years, and we're not gonna grow any food on ours. I'm gonna, it's this is gonna be dark and sound really bad, but I'm gonna tell you the truth because that's what I do. Why don't we have farmland on our retreat? Because we don't, first of all, we don't want to grow it. We don't want people to know that we have resources there. We don't want people to see it on camera, on satellite, that we have rows of crops. We don't want people to know that. We don't have that. So we have enough food to survive a few years. We have good food, freeze-dried food, then we have the bulk, you know, freeze-dry, you know, rice, beans, that kind of stuff. We have everything we need to survive years. Why? Because we've had 25 dang years to buy the right food and to just dollar cost average and just buy over time. That's what you need to do. And so we have enough food. Why, and we don't want to grow it, because grow it because we don't want to put ourselves in danger. But let me say this: this is the dark side of this. You know, they say an EMP, 90% of the people will die. Government says that in the EMP Commission report. Yeah, after a year, you can go pick any house you want to move into. I know that sounds bad, but imagine if you're out in a rural area, small town, and 90% of the people, well, let's say that 60% of the people die there. That means there's a lot of houses and land available that no one owns anymore, and you can go and take over their little plot of land. You know, I'm just being, I mean, everybody's like, that's wrong. That's I can't believe that listen, the EMP commission report says 90% will die if the power goes out, and they can't get it back on. 90%. Our own government says that. That means roughly 90% of the homes, roughly, is going to be vacant. I mean, think about that. Why do I need to grow crops when people are fighting to stay alive and they're looking for food and they stumble on my retreat and they see no food? They just keep moving on. We encourage them with a couple, you know, a couple of rifles. We just tell them, we have no food. We have nothing for you. So so land is not very so farmland is not very important to me in the groups I work with. I usually convince people that all the time. They're like, you know, you're right. Listen to the Selko interview, and what was her name? I interviewed her, she was from Venezuela. Same thing. She goes, yo gosh, you she goes, we couldn't, you couldn't grow anything. Because you're putting seeds in the ground, she goes, it it would put your life in danger. I'm like, yeah, it would. So anyway, that's my my thoughts on land. And you may have never thought about that. You may think that's the worst thing in the world I said, but to me, that's the truth of the matter from all my research. You don't want to grow fruit food during during a time of people are starving to death. You just need to have it already. Okay? And you don't need to have it all in one place either. But I know I digress. We're we're talking about land. So, so anyway, the soil is not that important to me. Yeah, and don't buy something based on fear. Well, this one's coming up. I should buy this one because because a lot of people did that, did that during the pandemic. They bought land when the pandemic was was going on, thinking, hey, at least we'll have a place to pull our camper to or something. Yeah, if you wait that long, that's not planning. And it will cost you a lot of money and you'll make a lot of mistakes, and you let your family down. Yeah, I said it. You let your family down because you're supposed to protect your family, husband and wife. And if you wait till the last minute and you're trying to get things done, you weren't planning. And yeah, it that will come back to bite you every single time. So the worst land decisions that you make are based on fear and emotions. Don't do that. Do that when things are going good. Go, okay, you don't buy land, go talk to Farmer Joe that lives 68 miles outside of town and say, Farmer Joe, dude, worried about stuff happening. I can bring resources and people, and we can protect your land if we you know, if we can do a partnership. Or homesteader Nancy and her husband say, Hey, we need a place. You need people to protect your place. We'll be self-sufficient. You know, you you just find people out in a rural area that want a partner, and then you you pour your weight, you do what you need to do. So again, most important is I believe is water. Also direction of the sun, maybe resources like treats, some things that you can use to protect yourself. Maybe a pond, not a big pond, a pond big enough for water, but not that's away from the house, but not big enough for a lot of fish, because you don't want people to come out there and you know try to fish your land. You just want it to be, you can even cover it up. I've seen people have covers for their ponds. We're talking like a tarp that's like 40 by 30 tarp, and they'll cover a little pond up. Um needs to be defensible. The terrain access, roads, how many houses are nearby, how many people live near your land. Less the amount of people, the better, most cases. Unless you need people, y'all can bond together, form a tribe, you know, protect the community. Matter of fact, I'm gonna kind of take a right turn real quick. The community is the most important thing. The community, a tribe, a survival group is your most important prep. By far. By far. Like if we put this on a scale of one to a hundred, a tribe, a survival group is a hundred. Food is fifty. I mean, literally. I mean it's that much more important. Now you're gonna have food. I mean, just don't think you're not gonna eat, but you I mean get your food, but you gotta have community. Matter of fact, Selko don't want to bring him up all the time, but he tell he'll tell you he didn't have a tribe beforehand. Worst mistake he made, he says that he survived Bosnia sleeping in a bombed-out building, not carrying anything with him that he owned. He said, if you carried something, every day people would stop you with a more powerful gun or more people and search your body over to steal it. So you didn't carry anything. He goes, they come up to your building and you know, search you there every day. And he goes, it gets old. You have to hide your stuff. So community, most important, it's got to be defensible, you've got to have water. And you got to say, can I live here? I mean, can we survive here? I mean, is it on a earth on our fault line? Is it you know too high up in the mountains? You freeze to death. You just gotta think through these things and think ahead of time. That's what I'm trying to encourage you to do is think about this ahead of time. Are there exits? If I have to bug out from my bug out, where would I go? Where would I how would I get there? If someone's coming up the road, it's the only way in. How do I get out? Because life is more important than protecting stuff that you have. I mean, there's 15, a caravan of 15 cars coming up, and they're all loaded, and you got a family of seven, you you probably need to leave. That means don't have all your resources in your property, too. Have it stationed somewhere else. A good video that Southern Purple One does about how to stash supplies different places on your property. Distance from a major city, distance from a place that might get bombed, a distance from a place where people may go and gather. Good books to read is like One Second Ather, is a good one to kind of help you kind of get the location and what goes on. Locker 9 series is a good series. That's by oh my gosh. I do have all these brains. Franklin Horton, Locker 9, love that series. I wrote a book called The Preparedness Roadmap. Good book to start. Get you start thinking of the things that you need and where to where to keep them, how to place them, and all that kind of stuff, how to take care of them. But but land, so you gotta think of three options with land. One is you buy it, one is you rent it or lease it, or three, you partner with someone that already owns the land. Now, if you do the fourth, that I don't recommend the fourth. Well, we're just gonna go take over that campground. Well, you and about 15 other rednecks may think that as well. Well, we're gonna go to that abandoned house, you know, eight miles out of town. Well, other people may be thinking of that. Well, we're gonna just go, you know, lot go live in the woods. No, you're gonna die in the woods. Don't do that. Literally, you it is peace right now in America. You need to do this now. Get started. It because it doesn't happen in a week, it didn't happen in a month, it didn't happen in six months. If if you start today and then six months later, you have everything planned out and a place to go, you're doing really good. So that's why you need to start now. You need to ask wherever that place is, can I survive here? Can can, you know, can I defend this place? Could friends and family come here? Could I have a group here? Could we all survive here? Some of the more difficult questions is going to like family land. It's easy to think about, but the family, once you go there sometimes, um yeah, once you go to family land, someone that's on the land for 50 years, you're the expert because they're not. Are they gonna give control over to you? How are you gonna manage that? When Fred is on this farm for 15 years now, and you show up having all the knowledge, and Fred's just thinking, okay, guys, we're gonna have a couple bad weeks, and you're like, No, Fred, it's not gonna be like that. Then there could be issues there. So you need to coordinate, put some rules down, get some handcuffs. Okay, no, that's a joke, maybe. But you gotta be ready for this, you gotta think this kind of stuff through. Who's coming? Who you bring in with you? What size of property do you need? Do you who are your neighbors? So, one example I gave in the last podcast, I kind of got some feedback on that, and actually more positive than negative, which was good. So, there's a bed and breakfast I've been to in the mountains of South Carolina, would be a perfect bug out retreat. I just happened to do some scouting and some research and found out that the owner actually lives in Florida. And they come up very few times to that place, that that Airbnb in the mountains of South Carolina. Could that be a good place to go and use it as a bug out location? I mean, you're only going to protect it for the family, right? For the guy in Florida. It's the only thing you're doing is protecting it. But what if you went to the city right near there, rented a storage shed, put all your supplies in there. When you bug out and go up there, and maybe you rent it for the weekend. You go online real quick before the power goes out, or you know, and you rent it for a week or a couple nights. Go get your supplies at the storage unit, show up at the place, and now you're there to protect that for the family. They'll be so appreciative of you doing that for them. You know the land, you've given them money in the past, and and you protect them, you protect it for them. Great location. That's just an option. I'm just saying, do you know that you can go every single day of your life and find out if a bed and breakfast has someone staying in it or not? You can literally find out if someone's staying there tonight. Because if there's no one staying, they'll let you reserve it. Now, I'm not suggesting you do this unless you do that to help that family to protect their property. Just saying. So, anyway, my challenge to you is just get moving on this. Do this now. Times are going to get tough. Times we're gonna have trials, things could come, and you need to be ready. If you're a Christian, the Bible demands you be ready to take care of your family. Matter of fact, the Bible says if a man can't take care of his own family in the times of need, he's worse than the unbeliever. Don't do that. That's the only time it says that in the Bible. Don't be that you need, it's like insurance. Every year you pay insurance for your house. You pay ten thousand dollars of insurance for your house. Maybe five. That's a lot of money. Have insurance for your life in some kind of property, or partner with someone, or show up to Farmer Joe's, but make sure he knows you're coming so you can protect him. So, guys, I will end with one thing here. Not really, if you have questions, I do this for a living. Been doing it for a living for years. You can go to preppersconsulting.com. That's preppersconsulting.com. Preppers with a s consulting.com. That's my website. You can send me a message there. You can book a call with me. I charge for that. Sorry. You can go to preppernet.com and start looking and find your tribe in your area, meaning people of like-minded people. We have 100 and some thousand people. You can go and start finding some that lives on your road, your street, your town. Again, that's preppernet.com. Then you'll click us, click a link there to actually join our online community. And prepper consulting is a if you need, if you have questions about some land, if you need consultants for us to come look at your land, help you put you know everything together. That's what we that's what I do. Been doing it for over well over a hundred families, and I can do it for you. If I don't have their expertise, I can bring in Charlie Hogwood, Jonathan Hollerman, Scott Hunt, Southern Purple. I can bring in all the experts, and no matter what you need, that's what I do. So, but I hope this is motivating you to do something, to think about it, to put together a plan. It's your responsibility to protect you, your family, maybe cousins, you know, whoever's in your mom and dad. Take on the responsibility, start planning. And yeah, if you guys have questions or comments, you can go to preppingacademy.com. That is preppingacademy.com. There's a contact, you can uh literally got listener mail, you can, you know, different reasons you can contact me, send me your questions, and matter of fact, we're getting ready to do a question and answer in like two weeks on the prepping academy where people have sent in questions and we're gonna answer them. Patrick and my and I are gonna answer them. So anyway, guys, God bless. I hope this was informative. We'll put the links in the description, and God bless. Y'all take care. Bye bye.

Announcer 35:08

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