Preparedness on the Move

all right welcome to season five of inside my canoe head this is a canadian podcast it's all about the integration of leading an incredible awesome life individual responsibility individual emergency preparedness and how do we navigate life's incredible wild disruptions that we see among us sit back grab a beverage and enjoy the episodes and welcome back to the studios of inside my canoe head listen this week we are talking about preparedness on the move you do things other than sit in your house and stare at tiktok or listen to incredible podcasts you leave that front door so preparedness has to leave with you no this is not an argument to throw a 72 hour kid on your back every time you leave your house but how you integrate the idea and the process and that blanket of preparedness into moving about society and the world and journeys and that's what we're going to talk about today ideas and thought processes to help you out when you're thinking about traveling or just going to get your groceries so sit back grab yourself a beverage let's get at it all right just want to mention that uh if you want to reach out to inside my canoe head and talk to us about podcast episode ideas you have something that i said that you really agree with or even more importantly something that i said or challenge you on something that you don't agree with that you think i am incorrect or that i am viewing it through the long theoretical lens drop me a line at jeff at preparedness labs dot ca or reach out to me on my website triple w inside my canoe head dot ca all of the link to our social media profiles are there including the buy me a coffee so i've always said that this podcast is free it will remain free forever and ever on men it's my passion project it literally cost me 23 canadian a month to have this on the air and to keep all of the previous episodes going we're downloaded in 39 countries now thank you kazakhstan we're just here to try to give you the best preparedness information we can if you want to buy me a coffee i love coffee drop over to buy me a coffee link and there's a little way to do that there but we're on the move today right so you live a life we travel we travel for leisure work we gather essentials unless you're like me and you find everything on amazon and get it sent to your home you got to go to costco every once in a while you got to go to the grocery store you got to go to the dentist right so we are often away from our homes and this is the big thing because in the preparedness mindset we have the greatest as humans the greatest sense of security exists while we're in our home whatever that home may be and it could be a shared apartment room you and three other people could share a two-bedroom apartment it doesn't matter this is your home this is where you are feel most secure so logically and i think it's the correct decision the vast majority of us in our big picture preparedness thought process have the idea of what's referred to as bugging in which means when the shizzy hits the fizzy or life gets a huge disruption and march 2020 comes around and that first week or two was totally chaotic and nobody knew what was going on or the future effects it would have on everybody the natural thing for everybody to do was to collect your family get together and stay in your safe and secure home as you try to figure out what comes next right so that's the natural reflection in preparedness our home has everything we need to survive you literally have everything if you never did a word of preparedness training if you never purchased a single extra item right i'm assuming you have clothes for the weather patterns where you live your home has an ability to heat and cool itself or at least heat itself you have clothes you have blankets you have access to potable water uh and there's food around like you have everything you need to survive in your home and as well it's a sense of familiarity in the neighborhood and i talk at length on this podcast about social capital and neighbors so your neighbors being the most important element of preparedness is to build that social connection with the people around you the people who you are going to turn to the most when things get the most disruptive and you have just a general all-around sense of security when you're standing on your back deck or your front porch in your driveway chatting it up with your neighbor walking the dog seeing people around out with their families it's a sense of security right but you can't stay there forever so because most people have that plan for bugging in and not bugging out there is an evacuation episode it's a light way back season two episode 20 about evacuations which means i should need to do an updated one since then um but otherwise today we're going to talk about modes we're going to discuss this and frame the discussion by modes of travel so we're going to talk about going in your car locally going in your car a bit of a distance trip some long international plane train or long distance car trips etc so when you're traveling locally so you're just in about i live in the city of ottawa so when i consider locally it's the entire city of ottawa it's probably ottawa as a city is about three times the size of new york uh city in area not obviously population we only have one million people but it's a very vast city so it's where it costs when i used to go uh pre-pandemic and attend my university it was 23 kilometers from my home right so i knew that exactly 23 kilometers from my home so when i think about traveling around the city of ottawa to do my business i think of high impact low probability events and there's really one that comes to mind and that's some form of accident that i'm involved in with my mode of travel now i drive a car so it wouldn't be a bus getting into an accident and the most important lesson for preparedness on the move traveling locally is know the rules and i mean that most generally when we talk about the rules we need to know that if you get into a car accident exactly what does your insurance company want you to do this is the idea and you'll hear it throughout this podcast today the idea of stoicism thinking through it's the mindset of the prepared it's a different focus and a change on how you examine the world you need to think through probable events and how you intend to handle them before they occur you're going to be discombobulated you're going to be somewhat in shock you might even be shaking and scared and so you are very much open to intimidation by an aggressive other driver who's yelling and screaming at you trying to get you to admit to fault or you're going to have a tow truck driver which here in ottawa there are no rules it's the wild west i swear they're all run by mobs it's literally craziness right so you're very much open to it we say this in war and this is a very important reference when you get into conflict situations when you get into what we refer to as the two-way rage right people don't jump up to the occasion that's bs people fall to their level of training right so a soldier who has top-notch contact training so when he comes under effective enemy fire he knows exactly how to respond he will fall to his level of training when you get into a car accident you will follow what you've prepared and if you haven't prepared you will shoot from the hip right so what i'm saying is your responsibility now before you get in the car is to understand what does your insurance company want you to do to get in a wreck number one your safety first and foremost don't be running around like the hero first aid person if the scene is not secure that's the first thing they tell you in basic secure and basic first aid is that secure the scene before you try to help anybody you don't need to get smacked by a coming car etc etc take care of yourself once your own personal security is through the first thing that you need to do is contact your insurance company now i have it as an app on my phone i have that phone number pre-programmed as a contact in my phone listen make your life simple you call them and tell them what happened they will tell you what happens next they will tell you what tow truck company to call they will tell you what the process is from that point forward right understand read the documents ahead of time figure that out but at least have that right before you talk before you talk to a tow truck driver before you agree to anything make sure you're doing exactly what your insurance company wants you to do so if the tow truck driver takes somebody for a ride you know doesn't take it to the body shop it takes it to their yard for two thousand dollars a day or something ridiculous they're going to take the insurance company for a run not you most important understand that if you break down and you don't have an accident and you're on your own what tow truck company are you going to call you need to figure this out ahead of time now locally there is two that are very very good and they have great reputations and they're about 15 that are just nightmarish right so you got to figure it out for we i buy insurance it's called caa in america it's triple a right i don't have to worry i know that the tow truck will take the vehicle where i want to take it which again i need to where's my garage you know what's the garage i'm going to use and what tow truck so for me i just have a triple a card in my wallet i have it as a contact in my phone i dial them up i'm broken here i need a tow truck it needs to go to so and so so say my car is a dodge i bought it from local dodge dealership i know i'm towing it to the dodge dealership we can figure it out from that point forward but you've got the essentials down otherwise you could be taken for some thousands of dollars if you think about family members moving about locally i'll give you an example my son doesn't want to drive he turns 21 this week and he has no interest in the driver's license so i i added my uh credit card to his uber app right yeah so he does buy food every once in a while and i shake my head but the funny but the part is is he has access to uber so wherever he gets stuck in the city of ottawa he can tap tap on my credit card and get his arse home right full stop i know he's good to go he's got the bus as well but if he gets into a rock and a hard place and situations turn pear-shaped etc he can get in the uber and get his butt home so the whole idea of traveling locally is you're looking for high impact low probability events right and so basically it's an accent right the last thing about this that i say is i have the ability to walk home that's all i think about right so when i was down at my university 23 kilometers from my home what would it take to walk home so i literally you know i wore stylish clothes sure but i wore coat that would be coat hat and gloves and i always told my kid i live in ottawa it's a minus 30 or below here in the winter i don't care what you're going what you're doing take a pair of warm winter gloves and a toque and throw it in the pocket of your winter jacket and always wear your winter jacket it's just that easy and wear footwear that would be comfortable to walk 23 kilometers in right so we buy good quality footwear or at least footwear that's comfortable right and that's it and that's all i worry about right so maybe i have a water bottle i usually do maybe i have a granola bar i'm not really concerned about food or water because i can walk 23 kilometers without either it's going to be a pain in the butt but i plan to be able to walk home from wherever my destination is if things really go sideways it's not challenging but that's it so let's think about the second part here right so car distance as i call it this is your high probability now i switch the focus to these are long car trips so add that you've already thought about the high impact low probability for your local trips now you're taking a long trip like i'm going to toronto for the weekend by car it's six hours away i'm going to me for eight hours away whatever it may be it's a local car i call it a distant car trip what i add to that is plan disruptions what could go wrong and this is again you and a cup of coffee and a notepad that's all it is thinking about the things that could go wrong before they happen again back to what i said about the stoic process it's the mindset of the prepared you think through what is likely or unlikely to happen so the reason reality is you're going to have a disruption right you're going to show up at some place and your hotel is closed or your booking got cancelled or the show that you're going to somehow your e-tickets didn't download and you didn't print them off before you left home so you think through the process okay i use my e-ticket you know what i'm just going to print these suckers fold them up and stuff them in my luggage and carry them in my back pocket when i go to the event if my e-ticket doesn't work i can whip out the paper version blah blah blah good to go simple things like that high probability events with low impact which means lives and livelihoods are not at risk but they could happen what happens when you get robbed like seriously like you can go to another place and end up getting robbed that's really craziness you think about that that's not gonna happen i don't want to think about what happens when i get robbed none of us do you give the people the crap you have your phone locked etc you're good to go like don't overthink things but think about logically what could happen so you're not walking home likely let's be serious if i'm in toronto i'm not walking home i'm gonna walk to safety what does safety look like in toronto well it probably looks like a police department or a fire department or it looks like um a public space like a shopping mall that would if you know for example i got robbed i could get to a shopping mall i could figure out things from there what do i do from that point um i live in the province of ontario my driver's license everything else like that comes from service ontario right uh my phone is with uh rogers god love them so where am i going to go to a local rogers outlet if somebody snatches me phone right to tell them hey listen my phone is snatched i need you to do the following um that kind of thing right it's basic it's not complicated but you think about it um i need to walk home from toronto right i just said i didn't but what if i do how am i going to get home from toronto if my car is no longer available so if i have that car accident in the city of toronto and it's gone and broke down and my insurance company gives me a rental do i have you know i'm gonna go off i go but what if for example a rental is not available there was a span in the fall of 2021 and part of the pandemic where insurance companies could not provide rentals to people who had accidents because the rental market was so constrained due to the pandemic there wasn't so imagine what if the rental company says to you i'm sorry you're entitled to a rental car but there are not available there's nothing we can do for you what's your plan to get home all you need to do is get home right it's not that complicated your life is at home how do you get home when the mode of transport you took to the destination is no longer available again simple conversation with yourself not complicated you don't need to overthink this trains run right airplanes can run this is what i'm talking about don't overthink it so now the fun part right you've decided to put on your speedo or your bikini and you're going international you are flying to the caribbean or greece or somewhere warm because you've had enough of this world right so plane train long distance or international travel preparedness on the move how do we do this okay hopefully you're choosing only one or two destinations uh if you're going full out this is going to be harder it's a process we called in the army intelligence preparation of the battle space and it's simply acronym ipb it means know where you're going if you're going to go on vacation to cayococo like i do as much as i can in cuba understand cayococo how does it operate everything you need to know about it where's the local towns what's the crime rate in the local towns what's available in the local towns understanding your environment gaining knowledge making notes on the smartphone or tablet that you're going to take with you understanding the local laws dude you're not in canada anymore if you do something stupid and the law in a foreign country is really tough it doesn't matter what the law in canada is it doesn't matter that you didn't know ignorance of the law is never ever an excuse right so it is your job as a prepared individual when you travel internationally to take a little bit of time and say hey i'm going to mexico right i'm going to cancun for this awesome vacation what are the local laws in cancun that i need to know about right what are the local considerations that i need to understand about the lifestyle how people live uh regulations on driving regulations on renting cars regulations on being drunk in public alcohol in public uh fights you know whatever it may be whatever your thing is right just understand the laws and regulations in general as you can where you're going right understand the environment understand the town it gives you that sense of safety that sense of community because you understand how you are going to be expected to operate in somebody else's community right think about it your little street that you live on the community that you have that's just the way people do things right everybody does things a certain way everybody recognizes that it's a sense of security drop yourself in the middle of somebody else's community and how would you want to act right you wouldn't want to act like the locals expect you to so a couple of quick things that you do need to know and i recommend number one how are you going to access health care right that's a big bad thing that can happen i don't care accidents murphy's law call it what you will how are you going to access health care in the town you're going to how does your resort there's lots of stories of ambulance drivers wanting bribes at the gate of resorts before they drive anybody to the local hospital uh the medical staff on a certain resort want a bribe etc how do you access health care in the country and location you're going for example i have travel insurance as part of my health care plan how do you do that it's in my phone as a contact with all of the numbers right so all that i or my spouse has to do is open my phone and dial these people x and y z happen we're dealing with the emergency right now what do you want me to do full stop understand how do you get a hold of these people and the second part of that is if you're international how do you get access to your consulate you're i'm a canadian i travel to kazakhstan beautiful country it's on my list i can't wait to go right i'd love to go to kazakhstan i wouldn't land in kazakhstan without first having the number and the contact and the address and the different routes of travel to get to the canadian consulate the embassy in the capital of kazakhstan whatever that is right i would not travel to an international country without knowing where my embassy is the local phone number to the embassy the international phone line to the embassy the email to the embassy the address of the embassy listen these are just basic preparedness stuff but what happens is if you two things happen like you have a high a low probability high impact event you have a significant medical emergency in a foreign country you know how to access health care your insurance company is on the ball talking to the local hospital so they're making sure that you get the appropriate care you also want to turn around and reach out to the embassy for consular services whatever that may be dealing with police local laws that type of thing all of that it's really hard to figure out when you're staring at a phone you don't have any contact information you may not even have a local sim card and you you are stressed to the nines you're in a very difficult emotional state and now you have to do the investigative journalism shit to find this stuff out no that's not the time not at all no prepare think ahead of time put yourself through that the last bit of key nugget uh event that's out there are access to great knowledge facebook expat groups i'm dead serious now if you keep barraging them with a whole bunch of questions about where you should travel in the country they'll probably help you out but find the face and everybody's on facebook i mean whatever you can take what you want facebook is where people are right there are facebook if you go to belize you go to roatan you go to panama you go to honduras you go to the turks and caicos you go to kazakhstan there are x english-speaking expat community groups on facebook because that's how they socialize get together and provide each other supports ask to be a member of the group get into the group and then you've got a history of everybody talking about the issue there right you put a couple things all this looks beautiful i can't wait to go there uh this sounds wonderful hey everybody tells me is this the right place to go like you don't barrage them with questions because they're not there as your servants but if you get one or two add a couple of comments in there and then you start being part of the network right you start seeing the feeds so when you're standing there lost not knowing what to do you're in international country open your facebook go to the expat group explain yourself in your situation you've posted there before or whatever you're a canadian you're in belize you were in a car accident um somebody came and seized the car from you and is demanding a 500 payment you're standing in this city can anybody give you an idea of what you're supposed to do next facebook groups are great people are on facebook all the time you'll get somebody who will give you a bit of peace local advice right the last thing that i'll say about traveling internationally my friends very simple make sure you have data roaming capability now it may cost you a bleep ton you can go through the process of getting a burner phone like bringing a blank phone and then getting a local sim card put in i'm a simple guy that's a little complicated for me i get a hold of rogers and say hey listen i'm going to the country of belize for a week please turn on my data roaming to ensure i can use the belize cell phone network through my rogers plan which means all of my contact in my phone my phone will work my internet will work and i can use all of the information that i've preloaded on my profile right good to go so hopefully these tips today were a little bit of help for you about preparedness on the move i did not intentionally talk about kits and packing all this stuff in your car and having a 72 hour kit with you because if you've ever tried to build one of those for international travel etc i talk realistically right something happens local you have your car accident stuff taken care of you know what your insurance company wants you know how to deal with the tow truck you know where your car is going to get towed to and you can you have an uber app on there with uber to get your butt home if you've stranded somewhere you know the bus routes and in worst case scenario you have enough comfortable clothes and footwear with you at all times to be able to walk home otherwise you know how to get to a place of safety in the town that you're going to so if i'm in toronto etc i know what i need to do to figure out how to get home from a town that i'm in if my primary mode of travel is no longer available to me and when i'm traveling international i've preparation i've looked at the laws regulations i understand the environment i'm going i have data roaming on my phone i know how to access health care get a hold of the embassy and i'm a member of the social network support group facebook expat groups right there you go it's the idea of the stoics and i keep returning to this on many episodes of the podcast think your problem through before the problem occurs this is not a prescription for endless problem solving for hours on end it's thinking through what are the high probability low impact and the low impact high probability events right they're at either end of the spectrum and if you think about what is the worst and most likely things that could happen to you and think through your plan for those you've likely covered everything that's going to fall in the middle so it's not a long process but it's exceptionally important i have a poor memory i put everything that i might need to reach out to into a contact in my phone i use the notes app to write down my plan now i'm a nerd on this you don't have to do it i use apple notes i have a little apple note when you get into a car accident idiot do the following and i actually list it out right so now when i get into a car accident god forbid i open my notes app on my phone and there's a little apple notes they're written by me for me that tells me the steps i never have to think about what i would do in the face of an accident again because i put it in notes now you may not want to go to that extent and i completely understand why but i hope this episode was helpful thank you very very much for continuing to support inside my canoehead drop by our website at www.insidemycanoehead.ca we've got an excellent episode coming up we've got a returning guest and we are going to talk about what the world wants to know about preparedness because this is the million dollar question for if you're somebody like me who attempts to put out a positive word on preparedness and help people along their preparedness journey i always ask for feedback about what would be the topic you're interested in what do you want to hear what do you want me to talk about or what do you want me to stop talking about right i only am helpful when i'm doing things that are helpful to you and i'm logically largely guessing at what i think would be helpful so with that thank you very much take care of yourself drop over to my social medias have a look-see uh and drop me over to buy me a coffee and buy me a coffee if you appreciate what i do here and you value these episodes i would appreciate you dropping over to buy me a coffee and getting me a cup of javas because my favorite is starbucks i love my starbees and my timmy hortons it's just a cup of coffee with a shot of espresso and that comes up to two dollars and ninety four cents so my buy me a coffee is set at three have yourself a great day take care and stay safe