Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Why Hide your Preps
The very nature of what we prepare for should be help us understand why we need preps in more than one location. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. That’s an old way of saying it. If for any reason you have to abandon your home then anything you cannot take is gone, too.
That could be in the face of a fire or even hostile invaders who want to take your home away from you and all the preps therein. So, you need places to hide your preps.
Seasoned preppers know that there is another reason to hide preps that has nothing to do with losing what is theirs. That is the reality of limited storage space. After a couple years of serious prepping, you start to run out of room, frankly.
Having preps in hidden locations gives you more room to achieve this. It is an eye opening experience when you start to realize your creativity can buy you all the storage space for preps that you could ever want.
Let’s look at 10 places to hide your preps. I am certain you will find a few that you can take advantage of.
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1. Alternate Location
The first option on the list is an alternate location. When I say ‘alternate location’ I am talking about a home or fortified modern shelter of some kind. An alternate location should be a place that is climate controlled and protected from weather. It should also be secure.
Having a BOL, second home, or even a small cabin or shed that’s hidden on a piece of land, can be the perfect place to hide preps. They can be stored out in the open or you can hide them in closets or pantries.
At an alternate location you might even consider dedicating the first level to living and the second level to preparedness.
2. Buried Cache
A watertight container or even a large piece of PVC pipe sealed on both ends can become an awesome cache of preps that can be buried, spray painted and hung in a tree, or it can be weighted and carefully pushed to the bottom of a body of water.
I would recommend still water or slow-moving water for this. You can get really creative with where you bury a survival cache but you should keep a few copies of paper maps to be sure you remember where they are!
Plotting them on your phone GPS is a bad idea as that information can be easily accessed by others.
3. Strange Places in the Home
You can hide preps in your own home! You do not need to invest in anything or have extra cash to buy an alternate location. This whole hiding preps thing is a game for the most creative. When it comes to hiding preps in your home, I have seen some pretty creative stuff!
- By rethinking your stairwell, you can create a hinged hiding place below underneath the steps
- The space under your bed can be used and hidden easily
- There is an interesting little space beneath your cabinet that can be used to hide preps, too.
- Store preps on the top shelf of a closet, fill the space halfway, and then cover those preps with things that should be stored in a bedroom or linen closet.
- You can give bookshelves the same treatment
- Small preps can be stored in hollow doors
It really comes down to how creative you want to be. I have seen people store gold and silver in the walls of their home!
4. Beside Highways
There is land that runs beside highways that can be beneficial for a number of things. This is state owned land for the most part and it can be a great place to hide preps.
That said, you have to be careful about how old and congested the stretch of highway is. If you see build up in the area, then highway could be widened and you will have to find a hiding spot.
Use caches in the ground near highways.
5. Bunker
This is an option that can requires some investment. However, an underground bunker is not just a place to hide out from a nuclear blast. This is also an great place to hide your preps. Any underground bunker is going to be hidden if you install it properly.
While many cannot afford a bunker, it can be a perfect place to hide preps for those who can.
6. Under Structure
If you are building a shed, greenhouse, workshop, or something else, when you break ground, you can store long term preps either in the ground or in the concrete that you are pouring to make a base for that structure.
If you are not using concrete you can build a wooden frame for that structure and hide preps that do not require temperature control there, too. This could be a great place for things like
7. Abandoned Structures
This could be a little risky but if you are careful then you can have a lot of success hiding preps in abandoned buildings and structures. Covering your preps in ruble and rusty metal or fallen insulation is a great way to keep people from finding it.
Of course, hiding your preps anywhere that is not your property is dangerous and can cost you losing everything you have stored there. This is not the place you want to store a cache of guns or gold and silver. Still, it might be an option for you.
8. Deep in Water
While we talked about caching food in shallow waters the idea of hiding preps in deep water is a little different an undertaking. One of the important things to remember about deep water is that it will not freeze in most locations in the United States.
This means you can store shelf stable foods and things like that in a very comfortable temperature range if the water stays warm enough that it does not freeze. This deepwater is where you will find fish when the lakes surface freezes.
These deep water preps are going to need to be anchored by weight or by chain. There is a good chance you are going to need to learn to dive deep if you want to keep these preps in deep water and retrieve them.
You can get a little more creative with buoys and things if you own the water. However, you do not want people to reel up your cache in a public lake because they are gonna keep it!
9. National Forests
National and state forests make up millions of acres of land in this nation. There are wide open spaces that you can trapse through and might be a great place to hide preps. This would have to be a covert operation that looks more like a backpacking trip but it is something you can do.
The great thing about these protected lands is that you do not have to worry about this land being randomly dug up and buildings erected or towns and roads coming through.
10. Well
An old well can be the perfect place to hide preps. You can even store preps in an active well if you run a PVC pipe and pump to get the water out. That well can be completely covered with a decorative wooden well build that would make it look more ornamental than actually useful.
Nets and ropes are easy tools that you can use to hang preps into a well. Those PVC or waterproof caches can be dropped all the way down into the water as long as you have a way to get them back up out of the well.
How to Retrieve Hidden Preps
Each one of these hiding places is going to present their own challenges when it comes to retrieval. However, any time you are dealing with hiding places you should consider OPSEC or operational security.
Cover
If you are digging up an area, heading into a body of water, or walking through a National Forest then you should have a reason to be there. If you run into people or the fish and game commission the last thing you want to say is, “I’m just out here to recover my hidden preps.”
Carry Out
You need a backpack, duffle bag or something that you can use to carry out the goods. You do not want to be walking out of the woods or away from your hiding place with an armful of MREs, food storage, or ammunition.
Situational Awareness
If you are unaware, then someone might be paying attention to you! Chances are if you found a good hiding place for preps then you are gonna hide stuff there in the future. If someone is watching you enter the area with an empty bag and leave with a full bag they may get curious.
They could not only follow you into the woods, but they might find that hiding place and then capitalize when you are not there to protect your preps.
Conclusion
Storage space goes faster than you think! You can always make more money but once your house is full of preps it is time to get creative. This is a good time to start staking out hiding places either on your property or in your local area.
Be smart and considerate with where you hide your preps. Make sure you have paper maps because not everyone in your home is going to know where the preps are hidden.
Make a simple plan for recovery of those hidden preps and you will be ready for anything!
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