Head straight to the nearest lake marina, commandeer a sailboat + fishing gear, and head out to the middle of the lake to drop anchor and wait out the apocalypse. I imagine enough people would do this, there might eventually even be a little seafaring community rafted together.

Sailboat Community

The lake itself would provide practically an infinite source of fresh water, and the fishing gear would offer daily sustenance. Image Source

With the strategic use of a dinghy or two, we could approach land periodically to scavenge extra supplies. Image Source

Eventually, we may send a small group inland to secure the marina and slowly make our way back from civilization. BUT the important thing is that our base of operations is an impenetrable floating fortress with unlimited food and water supply. With that in mind, we can afford to go slow and avoid making classic mistakes of other zombie apocalypse survivors.

They don’t armor up.

You have people in movies/shows running around looking like this

and they’re fighting blood thirsty, crazed, incredibly stupid, UNARMED zombies.

You know what nails and teeth can’t get through, armor. I’d love to see a zombie try and kill this guy.

Sure he looks a little silly but what do you think the odds of fingernails and teeth are of getting through that? The odds are slim to none and I hear slim just left town. Heck you don’t even need chain you can wear this and they won’t get through

Now if you’re REALLY going for it you have someone make a crude set of this and the odds of a zombie biting you are infinitesimal.

Think about it, this is armor that was made to resist swords, spears, axes, maces, and all other force multipliers that were used in the medieval era. Guys in full plate were the medieval equivalent of a walking tank almost unable to be killed on the battlefield. Do you think for one second people wouldn’t start wearing things like this to fight zombies? What would a zombie possibly do to get through someone wearing full plate armor, heck it doesn’t even need to be steel, lightweight aluminum would be fine since you’re only protecting against nails and teeth.

Instead everyone goes around in t-shirts and nothing else basically screaming come bite me.

Also we as humans have dealt with and defended against hordes of melee combatants, we used things like this

Coordinated troops with shields and spears, you don’t think that would work against zombies? These formations were specifically designed to combat numerically superior hordes of undisciplined opponents!

The reality is we wouldn’t even need firearms to defeat zombie hordes, we could go back to the medieval times and do it quite effectively. A basic suit of armor would completely protect you, but it isn’t entertaining so you don’t see it in film/tv.

So yea that’s what people don’t do in zombie films/tv, they don’t armor up even though it would provide almost complete protection from biting and clawing zombies.

EDIT:

2.9k Upvotes Thank you everyone that’s amazing this is officially my most up voted answer!!!!

Some points to put in since I see a lot of similar comments.

The entire point of this post is that this is an easy thing to do that no one does in films and movie to keep yourself from flat out dying. Many zombie films and movies show that 1 bite = instant zombification and death. Armor reduces these odds greatly, so would you rather no armor, or take the risk of a single bite ending your life when a leather wristband would have saved it?

Many people are quoting a Zombie Survival Guide as essentially the bible on this topic. I just want to remind everyone that it was written by Max Brooks, the son of Mel Brooks, whose career has revolved around comedy and acting. The book in itself is written in a humorous tone and is labeled as humor, so yes it has some good material in it, but you’re not exactly dealing with an individual whom may even know very much about armor and arms.

Last edited point is that many people are saying armor is too cumbersome, that it isn’t agile enough, or your can overheat. First off you can also freeze to death, so the entire overheating argument is silly since it’s situational and the opposite can be true. Medieval armor, even the full plate that knights wore (which I used almost as an exaggeration of how defensible a person can get) weighed less than a full modern soldier’s gear does today. Additionally you’re looking for armor that primarily will stop cuts and bites from puncturing skin so you don’t get infected. You could even wear these and be very well protected since human teeth can’t really puncture leather.

Motorcycle leathers are also pretty readily available, at least throughout the US.

So, what's the most valuable resource in a zombie apocalypse?

Guns?

Gasoline?

Food?

No wait, I know, it's a heavily armored vehicle.

No, boats.

Hold up, ammunition.

Nah, medicine.

Swords?

These are all wrong answers.

The most valuable resource in a zombie apocalypse or in any apocalypse is….people.

Oh don't get me wrong - people are dangerous, especially in a zombie outbreak. And I'd like to think that I'm a hardass enough guy that I can go loot a gun store, live in the woods, put a cow cutter on a Humvee, and become some zombie-executing self-sufficient badass.

But honestly? No. I'd be so dead. If I didn't die when I showed up at the gun store full of rednecks or gangsters, you can be damn sure I'd be dead if I had to spend more than a few nights out in the wilderness trying to start a fire with a Zippo or hunting deer with a .45. Maybe some dudes have the vast array of skills needed to survive self-sufficiently in the wilderness, but I suspect not very many (and a lot less than think they could). It's hard enough without zombies.

But you know what I have that those motherfuckers don't?

I can talk to people and be relatively charismatic and am very good at convincing people that their self-interest is best served by helping me.

I don't spend the first month of a zombie apocalypse collecting weapons. I spend it collecting people.

Granted, don't do this right away. But instead of trying to raid the sporting goods section of your local Wal Mart on Day 3, maybe talk to the gal that lives five doors down from you. She's a nurse. Next guy over is an engineer. Two doors down from them is a drug dealer with a shotgun. Dude at the end of the block works for the water company and knows how to tap into pipes. There's a mechanic across the street. And so on and so forth.

Pretty soon, you have a workable colony. Those other dudes are still trying to be perfect survivalists, trying to decide if they should personally take on thirty zombies with a spiked bat or a pole axe while they hope their snares maybe catch a rat and their water source isn't contaminated with corpses.

No thanks.

By the time they wander out of the woods, emaciated and half-crazy, they come to me - with a walled-off town and hundreds of loyal citizens.

As a species, we are poorly adapted to survive as some kind of lone wolf badass super predator.

But gather enough of us together, we are unstoppable. I know next to nothing about how to start a fire, how to clear an infection, how to hotwire a car, how to plant corn, and so on. I can't singlehandedly work a farm, or patrol it. Do you know how to jumpstart a boat, find an island that's not populated but can support people, desalinate water, create a self-sufficient food source, treat infections and sickness? I sure don't. And even if you're successful and enormously lucky and become Tom Hanks in Castaway or Les Stroud in the Canadian Rockies or Mel Gibson in the Road Warrior….then what?

But get a few people together? Add a few more? Find six survivors, then add six, then add six? Well, you suddenly got yourself a powerful goddamn unit. Manpower beats firepower, horsepower, or willpower every time.

My first call isn't to the gun store or auto body shop or local marina.

It's to my neighbors.

See you on the other side.

The cheaters guide to the zombie apocalypse

So you want to actually survive those zambies coming after you, instead of making an entertaining film? This is for you.

1. Weapons? Pfft! Who needs weapons when you can have armour! The average person (in fact even the bitier than average person) wouldn't be able to bite through a laminated magazine, rope, or a motorcycle jacket. Zombies are just bitey people. So armour up in something tooth proof and you're good to go.
2. Can zombies swim and climb? No? Get to a pier. Burn or cut down the back end of it to make a platform out to sea and only place a makeshift bridge across when you need access. Other than a pier, a large docked ship or a bridge with both ends out will work.
3. You do realise army camps still exist right? And that they not only have armouries filled with weapons and ammo, but also have food, water, medical, and fuel stockpiles that will last ages. Not to mention vehicles, easy to defend areas and buildings, and generators. (Note: if the military are evil in this iteration of the apocalypse you may want to reconsider).
4. Ever heard of the Scottish Highlands? What about the Outback? Northern Canada? Rural Alaska? Siberia? Mongolia? Savannah Africa? Mountain ranges? Zombies are made from people, and there's a lot of places with few people that can still be lived in, especially with modern technology. Oil platforms, remote islands, deserts, Greenland…
5. Ever considered that maybe if zombies detect you by scent, fox dung could save you in the same way dogs use it to mask their scent? Foxes to the fucking rescue, once again!

Exact tactics heavily depend on the type of zombies we’re talking about. Fast zombies vs. slow zombies makes a difference. Zombies that infect you with a bite vs. airborne virus makes a difference.

Also, people after the collapse of society would probably be the greater threat than the zombies.

Things I would not do:

• Go everywhere alone when you don’t have to

This is something that continuously happens in just about every zombie movie. People wander out of protected places by themselves left and right. This usually results in either being trapped or abducted and necessitates some sort of a search and rescue effort leading to more people being endangered or killed.

I wouldn’t go so much as to the bathroom without a buddy to watch my back. Actually, especially to the bathroom. Zombie apocalypse is no time for squeamishness, and everybody poops. It’s real damn hard to fight or run with your pants around your ankles and a load on the way.

• Camp out in the woods

Having a wall makes for a direction where you don’t have to worry about zombies. This means you can concentrate your forces. Heck, most animals know to look for a resting place in a corner, or in a box. Zombie survivors like to sit out in the open and fight in all directions. First season of Walking Dead does this a lot.

• Get covered in gore

Bodily fluids are a great way to catch viruses and bacterial infections. This is why Walking Dead drives me up the wall with their use of knives. Even if the zombieitis isn’t fluid-borne (although with the bites being infectious it’s likely), these are rotting corpses. Hello gangrene. Without a ready supply of antibiotics it’s a pretty good way to a painful death.

I would rely on ranged weapons and traps as much as possible.

Things I would do:

• Find a large home improvement store to make my base.

Something like a Home Depot or a Menards. These places are usually built of concrete, have no windows, and have secure doors. The front entrances are glass, but this being a place that sells building materials, it would have concrete and blocks to plug that up. This would keep zombies and all but the most determined bandits out.

They are also full of improvised weapons and other handy stuff like generators, tools, and similar. There is even usually some snack food to tide me over while I do the construction. Shelves make great bunks. There is room for piles of loot. And the internal volume is such that I can safely have cooking and warming fires without fear of suffocation.

• Wait till winter.

All of the zombie movies take place in summer or in warmer climates. I live in Minnesota. We have snow, ice, and it gets damn cold. Anything moving slows down in the cold, and zombies will get stuck in the snow and freeze to the ground. This is the perfect opportunity to walk around with a hammer and knock their heads in.

• Make use of construction and snow removal equipment for zombie clearance

I am a good enough mechanic to get just about any such vehicle started. I can also add grates to windows to keep zombies out. The D6 Caterpillar would make short work of quite a few zombie hordes.

• Get myself some butcher gloves.

Butcher gloves are thin chainmail or aramid fiber. They are used to prevent cuts when cutting meat in industrial quantities. They allow for a great deal of dexterity and would keep my hands from being scratched and bitten. See the bit about infection above.

• Kneepads! Kneepads! Kneepads!

The knee is one of the most injured joints in the body. An ounce of prevention in the world with no doctors and no hospitals is worth more than a pound of gold.

Elbow pads would be useful, too.

Use a bicycle for transportation.

Yeah, I know, riding a bike wouldn’t fit with the dangerous mood of a zombie apocalypse but it would be an excellent form of transportation.

Bicycles are simple and easy to maintain and they’d be EVERYWHERE in a zombie apocalypse. You can go three to five times faster than walking and a bike is easily modified to carry weapons, supplies and even a trailer. And it NEVER runs out of gas.

Virtually any cyclist could outrun a horde of zombies. They’re quiet and can go places cars can’t go and are easily picked up and moved around roadblocks.

Ideally, you’d carry a bike with your car and use the bike for scavenging runs, saving gas and wear and tear on the car. But nooooo, no one ever does this. If they can’t be riding in a car, they’d rather injure and exhaust themselves walking in the open. They’d rather have zombies eat them alive than hop on a bicycle.

This is all so obvious, zombie movies and series never even show bikes, not even derelict bikes. The obvious connection would be “Hey, you’ve been walking for three days without food or water and I can hear zombies approaching. Why not hop on that bike and GTFO?”

Every town has at least one bike store with a full mechanic shop, where you could do maintenace and upgrades and raid spare parts, tires, tubes, tools and accessories.Much easier than trying to repair a car and find parts for it. Heck, you could pick up a brand-new bicycle in every town you visited, so you’d keep repairs at a minimum and reliability at a maximum.

Schwinn used to make a baseball bat holder for the Stingray. Slick! Imagine Negan cruising around on this with Lucille, whacking people as he pedaled by.

Me and some friends were thinking of a bike for the zombie apocalypse. The priorities would be toughness, reduced maintenance, high reliability and ease of repair, at the expense of comfort and performance. There will be many abandoned bikes in the zombie apocalypse so you'd want a bike that could accept scavenged parts. This is what I'd recommend:

• A Trek 930 or similar steel-frame bike with a suspension seat post. These US-built steel frames from the 1990s are practically indestructible.
• 26-inch five-spoke aluminum wheels with solid rubber inner tubes and sealed bearings, so you'd never have to worry about flats, broken spokes or worn-out hub bearings.
• One gear in the front and up to six on the back. Gearing on the low side, favoring rough roads, dirt trails and hills.
• Cantilever brakes. Very simple and accepting of many replacement pads.
• Rear and front racks with large panniers and some kind of weapons rack. Include a basic tool kit and an extra chain, rear derailleur, oil and brake pads.
• Optional: a bike trailer to hold additional food and supplies. The trailer could carry tools like bolt cutters and gasoline cans for scavenging runs.

A somewhat more exotic modification - but easily done - would be to install a dynamo hub on the bicycle, so it could recharge flashlights, walkie-talkies, your vape and other electronics. These create surprisingly little drag.

This is assuming the use of a Distribution Center as a survival base, but a variation or two can be extrapolated for the Wal-Mart/HEB/Target/etc base ideas.

I’m also throwing in some Leadership 101.

Welcome to Home Sweet Home:

Now, remember: many times there are communities built around these centers, so your band won’t be the only ones showing up. For story’s sake, I’ll assume your band winds up as the dominant one. Depending upon your personal apocalypse, you might find the distro center already HAS a population—-of employees! (side note: this would be great, since they’d know the place well)

Pick a place for your speeches that isn’t too acoustically “live” (wide open concrete etc). The echoes create a sense of emptiness that will worsen your survivors’ feelings of loss and abandonment. Only get about a meter above them at most; higher feels dictatorial. Appoint at least a couple of people as secretarial/recordkeeping and use kids as runners for messages, even if you already have radios. This gives the kids a role of participation and their caregivers knowledge that they probably aren’t just wandering around.

From the first day there, with your several dozen to two hundred survivors, start grillin’. The freezers won’t last forever and when they fail, you’ll have a MASSIVE amount of ROTTING FOOD right in your midst. My advice is: as soon as you are secure, and enough survivors have joined you, you task some of the less combat-capable people as Carriers and Cooks. These are great roles for the infirm, injured, or just plain freaked-out.

Use the loading manifests to find the dehydrators, set up folding tables or use pallet rack space, and get some of your number (and I am assuming about 100 people) to start in making jerky and dried foods from what’s in the center’s freezers. Dehydrators use a miniscule amount of power vs. a freezer, even if you’re using a hundred of them at once.

This being a distribution center, there will be these:

Trucks and trailers, probably hundreds more trailers than tractors. You use these to make a raised defensive perimeter. Assuming you have no flying monsters, this is super handy.

The ones you designate as Carriers do this: After you’ve made a “conga line” of semitruck trailers to a corner of the lot, you cut a large hole in the roof of the trailer sealed up against a loading bay door. Then you secure a ramp or stairs there, so you have indoors access to its roof. You then have a 10′ tall, 40′+ long platform. The next trailer is alongside that one for about ten feet, and so on, creating a 10′ tall bridge as long as you may need. These are linked to each other using more of the loading platforms inside.

The Carriers then start with a single freezer, sort out what the survivors will want to eat soon, what can be dehydrated, etc., and then relay across the trailer rooftops and dump the excess stuff outside the perimeter. Using the trailers along the perimeter, the discarded food ought to be thrown (or, hell, use an automatic football passer (my RL grandfather’s patent, BTW) to catapult items) so it doesn’t pile up and make a “ramp” for zombies.

What it will do, as a bonus, is this: it will attract dogs. These will be former pets and maybe a few schutzhund/K9 dogs, and the food source you give will provide you with your pick of guard animals. Depending upon the sort of zombie, they might even tear some of the undead up for you, because of their instincts for protecting their food source. Meantime, all that gourmet frozen dog food will make for some happy guard dogs inside your perimeter. Also, dogs are great for morale.

Inside the center, each freezer block that gets cleared out is shut down. Now you have jail cells should you need them, and/or panic rooms, and/or secure medical facilities. For those so traumatized that they dare not sleep, the emptied freezer blocks form locktight-secure havens for a while. Every freezer that is shut down reduces your power draw and your ambient noise.

Meanwhile, your Carriers have been helped by your Builders by improvement of the relay dump system: some of the center’s distribution roller conveyor sections have been moved atop the trailer bridge, so now they can push crates along with much less effort than carrying items. This has yet another good use: your bridge system is also a defense system, and should you face any raiders, ammo & supplies can be moved quickly along the rollers, and wounded put on a board and rolled back to the center equally quickly.

Further raised sentrylines can be created by clearing pallet racks from the center interior and moving them outside.

Clearing the freezers (along with any of the fresh vegetables etc that were in the center) should increase the healthiness of your survivors, reduce the morale-destroying smell of rot, and create specialty rooms, while also feeding them very, very well.

Remember: Morale is huge, huge, huge. Provide counseling, provide revenge, provide humor and entertainment, and be watchful for things your charges may rebel against, because the intensity of rebellion will be far out of proportion because of their repressed rage and fear. Explain things to them, don’t use “because I said so,” even in a military structure. A side effect of building longterm like I have described is that, even in the short term, it raises morale because it makes a tacit promise that you intend for there to BE a future.

Let me start with a simple question: Where do most survivors try to run to in a zombie apocalypse?

• The mall. Lots of stuff. Likely close by. Seems like a good option.
• A warehouse. The mall and other shops get their supplies form somewhere. Why not just go to the sourse. Likely better stocked than a single shop.
• Gun store. Guns are a good option for fighting zombies. Gun store is where you get them.
• A military base. Like a gun store, but with bigger guns.
• On a boat. Can zombies swim? and you can catch fish for food.
• The country. Thinking long term here. We want somewhere with few zombies to grow crops.
• Your own personal fort. Some people have been preparing for the big day for a few years.
• The mountains. If you haven’t been preparing for years, nature can provide a fort for you.

[needed this image to prevent spoilers]

That is where everyone else goes. Being somewhat different, this is where I would go:

• The city.

What ??? But isn’t the city the last place you would want to live? Pretty much every zombie movie has the main characters trying to escape from the city. Not try to settle down in the city. Let’s go over some things:

Why the city is scary:

• There are a lot of people in the city. That means lots of people who have turned into zombies.
• There are not many places where you can grow food.
• Cities don’t function very well without electricity or running water.

Okay, so if the city is such a bad place why would I want to go there? I would go there because it is the safest place to be!!! Take a look at that picture of the city. What do you see? Because what I see is an endless number of forts. Every building is designed to be locked up. Every building is made from solid cement blocks with steel reinforcements.

Walk into any apartment block and it will have 3 elevators that no longer work, and one stairwell. Block that stairwell and you have the rest of the building to yourself (once cleared of zombies). Go to the top floor and smash in a door, it will be hard work but you will gain access to that room. Once in you can tie together some bedsheets and abseil out the window and down to the next room. You now have access to two rooms, one with a broken front door, but one with the door able to be unlocked from the inside. Rinse and repeat for every room you want to explore.

What about the down sides? like the hordes of zombies outside. Firstly, they are outside your fort. And that is where they are going to stay. Secondly, it really doesn’t matter if there are 1 million zombies outside or if there are 100 zombies outside. Once the zombie count gets past a certain threshold it is already a no-go zone, a few extra thousand zombies isn’t going to change that.

What about clearing the apartment block of zombies? This is one of the best parts: Depending on when the zombie outbreak happens, the apartment block may be totally abandoned because everyone was at work/school. And if people who have turned into zombies are in their apartments, I can clear the building one room at a time! every apartment is separated from each other. How many people are we really expecting to be in the apartment, maybe 5 max? all of the zombies have been separated into small, manageable, groups. And since I am entering each room via the window, I have an opportunity to assess the situation before entering each apartment. I can even try to attract any zombies to the window before entering.

What about food? in an apartment block there are people’s fridges. Tinned food has a shelf life of years, so I have that long to sort out my rooftop garden. Anything that goes moldy can be put into my new compost bin, and there is a chance I will find pot-plants. In short, so long as I keep raiding rooms I should keep finding more food.

Water? Roof top collection is my long term plan. finding bottled water is the short term plan. There is probably a vending machine on the bottom level that I would have raided on the first days, that is an emergency supply.

Other humans? Lot likely. No-one wants to live in a city, remember. Anyone who starts in the same building as me is likely going to team up with me out of necessity. Anyone who starts outside of my fort will have a sea of zombies to deal with first. There is the possibility of building bridges between buildings. Although this would slightly increase the threat of human invasion, it would also exponentially improve my exploring potential. So all in all, it would be a plus.

Weapons? I’m sure I can find a blunt object somewhere.

That about covers it. The city gives you plenty of options of fortifiable positions, with sufficient stored food to get you up and running, and a zombie free area to grow crops.

Some thoughts:

1. Stay inside quietly with the lights off - Most zombies are unlikely to break into other houses if no noise is coming from them. If you stay inside, with your doors and windows closed and make as little noise as possible, the zombies are likely to wander away towards areas with greater commotion going.
2. Wear long sleeve shirts - Really. It would take a great deal of force for a human to bite through a shirt and break the skin. In most idiotic zombie films, everybody strolls around in tank tops and short sleeves, apparently waiting to get bit.
3. Band together quickly - Zombies can't plan; humans can. If humans band together quickly, they'll outthink and outfight most zombies in the majority of situations and prevail.
4. Use trained animals against zombies - Nobody brings a dog with them which might alert them to the presence of zombies. Or two. Zombies would likely avoid animals as they would become a food source or a threat to them after a few days.
5. Start setting traps for zombies ASAP - From pits to bombs, the more zombies you get rid of, the fewer problems that you'll have. Zombie eradication is Job #1.

1. Proactively kill the zombies. Have you noticed how the people in the zombie movies try to hole up somewhere and just let the zombies accumulate outside until they finally knock down the fence or door or whatever barrier they have? I would walk around stabbing the zombies in the head with a spear through the fence or shooting them from the roof or chopping off their heads with a sword while it is still one or two of them at a time, rather than letting them surround me in vast numbers. String a wire 6 “ off the ground, make a noise so they attack me, when they trip over the wire (they are generally portrayed as too stupid to avoid obstacles), smash their heads with an ax as they lie on the ground after tripping. Dig a trench maybe 3′ wide and 3 ‘ deep, lure them into it, and chop off their heads when they fall in and are struggling to climb out. You get the idea. Set up some kind of kill zone that would slow them down and finish them off while they are stalled. I would be hunting them instead of letting them hunt me.
2. Wear protective clothing. Heavy coat, thick gloves, hockey mask. Carry a big knife. When they attack, while they are trying to bite through the clothing, ram the knife into their heads.
3. I would say team up with as many people as possible, but that is the one thing they generally do right in zombie movies.

QUARANTINE

Some group of humans have finally begun eking out a long-term survival plan in a defensible place when a group of war-ravaged newcomers comes seeking asylum. The only human thing to do is accept them.

But inevitably one of those humans is bitten/infected but is scared of telling anyone so their change hours/days later ends up as a surprise that kills everyone.

This is easily avoided without sacrificing basic humanity and human dignity by instituting a simple rule:

Anyone entering the compound from the infected zone--newcomers or residents--must spend a day or two in the quarantined area. There are plenty of books/games, etc. so it's not a punishment, just a smart precaution.

It's the zombie equivalent of decompression.

LEATHER

A leather jacket with a leather gorget and tall leather boots if you can get/make them.

Leather is HARD to bite through. This would be very effective against the surprise behind-the-shoulder or ankle-biter zombie bites.

BODY OF WATER

Corpses don't do well in water. If you can find a yacht, large boat, or an island to move to, you'd fare much better.

Plus there are plenty of anti-zombie defenses in the water:

BICYCLE

No fuel needed, very maneuverable, and you only need to outrun running speed, at most. If you're near a body of water, a kayak, row-, or sailboat are also choice options (and good for making raids into the mainland should you need to).

After watching every episode of The Walking Dead I have concluded that all of the disasters experienced could have been prevented if they had been been able to do one thing:

DIG A DEEP TRENCH IMMEDIATELY BEHIND WHATEVER FENCE IS SURROUNDING YOUR PERIMETER.

This is of course unnecessary if one is living at sea in one or more ships, but even in this case you will need to have a land headquarters somewhere for storing, producing and gathering supplies. To protect such land based camps a fence/trench combo would prove far more effective than what has been attempted so far in the show. It would look something like the following but with a trench about five feet across and ten feet deep.

The fence should be at least 5 feet high and strong enough to repel several zombies. It should also be opaque enough so that human attackers cannot see what is behind it. The trench should be camouflaged to look like regular ground so that any human invaders unwittingly fall into it. Mindless zombies that broke through the fence would drop into the trench and could be cleaned up at leisure. I believe this approach would have prevented the invasion of Hershel’s farm, the invasion of the prison, the various Alexandria breaches, and it would even have protected Negan’s people from Rick’s attack on their compound.

Digging huge trenches around land based camps sounds like a tall order, but it isn’t if you take the right steps when things first start to go haywire.

Step 1

Find at least one of these and learn how to operate it.

Step 2

Find at least one of each of these and learn how to attach them.

Step 3

Find at least one of these…

…along with the following attachments.

The felling attachment will come in handy for building fences and any other kind of construction that is necessary as shown in this video.

There are plenty of other attachments that can be scavenged later on once things have calmed down.

Step 4

Take your truck(s), trailer(s) and caterpillar(s) to the nearest fuel refinery as shown by the white icons on this map. Time is of the essence because many will realize that a vast reserve of fuel is a huge advantage when it comes to long term survival.

Grab all of the fuel you can, especially diesel fuel, and load it into your truck(s).

Step 5

Build a fuel camp in a fairly remote (preferably forested) region that is accessible by truck and is close to a sea port. In the U.S. I would probably choose a place near Portland Oregon, but any remote location near an ocean would do. Use your caterpillar(s) and fuel to dig a gigantic pit for storing fuel. Transfer all of the fuel from the refinery into the giant pit. Use your caterpillar(s) to build a fence/trench perimeter around your fuel camp and post some sentries. You may have to build more than one fuel camp as you collect more and more fuel.

Step 6

Find one of these and learn how to operate it.

Step 7

Repeat Step 4 for every refinery you can locate. This would be an ongoing task especially if one expands the search into other countries or continents. Once a decent fuel supply is secured the only hindrance would be repair issues but this might not be a problem if you could keep scavenging working equipment.

Update: A number of people have mentioned that the fuel would go bad pretty quickly but it turns out that if diesel is stored in airtight containers with stabilizer it can last a long time. The following comment is from Mike W at Home - Practical Machinist: "One place I worked at had several sites with diesel generators for backup. Once a year we sent a fuel sample to a lab. They sent back a report on how many gallons of some additive to dump in the tank. I forgot what it was but the diesel was probably over 20 years old in most cases. The lab never said the fuel was bad, replace it."

Obvious traps designed to kill large quantities of zombies.

Ok so a key feature of zombies is the complete lack of a self preservation instinct. Walking off a cliff isn't just for Pokémon Go players, it also would work on zombies as well.

It's why the city with all the skyscrapers would be a great place to live. Especially ones with a sky bridge of some kind. And since zombies are stupid the “trap” can be as obvious as you want. People will avoid it and zombies will fall for it every time.

I'm not explaining it right… so picture this. Zombies can be lured. It happens all the time. So find a sky bridge that is over a hundred feet in the air and cut out a portion of the floor. Then set up a series of lures to guide zombies to said skybridge and watch them paint the pavement below a disgusting shade of red.

Oh, second idea. Find your local bus garage. Fortifiable, filled with enough gasoline to keep you going for ages, probably also has a generator on the grounds, mechanics with the knowledge to fix things, materials to fortify buses, use said buses to rescue other survivors…. And more.

One small step for man, 1000 repetitive steps for zombies.

A simple plan.

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse: A quick & dirty guide

If this is your plan, you're not gonna make it.

In surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, one rule stands above all others, forgotten at the risk of death:

Guns are less important than brains.

Don't be confused. I am not saying: Don't be armed. That would be a first class ticket to the Zombie chow line. I am asking you to do what so few protagonists in most zombie works refuse to even consider. I want you to think BEFORE you start running.

Let's assume, for a moment, that this is not just an academic exercise and an apocalypse of any sort suddenly took place, one’s survival would be determined by a number of things outside of your immediate control.

The CDC used this as an opportunity to educate people about what to do during an emergency of epic proportions. But I suspect the horror of the event will prevent people from asking the questions that might save their lives…

1. How are other people responding to the emergency? If they lose their heads, you might be killed by rampaging humans instead of the undead/infected. First step. Get the hell away from other people who are panicking.
2. How do the authorities, (assuming there are any) respond to the emergency? A slow response, or an inability to effectively respond and quarantine people would also ultimately lack the controls necessary to keep the undead/infected from spreading. You might also find yourself killed by the very police forces you are hoping might protect you. Second step, if you can’t find people who are keeping their head, get away and find a way to keep yours.
3. How fast the did the condition spread and what was the vector for transmission? When it spread, whether it was night or day when the condition was declared out of control. Fast spreading means it potentially burns out of quickly (if its an infection) if you can stop or quarantine the infected.
4. Slow transmission effectively means it could be spread everywhere before activating and would likely cover the world. This means you may be exposed to it without even knowing it. This also means you have no real place you can hide. Focus your attention and see what each person who is afflicted seems to be exhibiting. Yes, you are trying to stay alive, but anything that can help you recognize the threat is worth noticing.
5. When did you first became aware of the impending apocalypse? Were you caught off guard or were you aware something was happening, even if you did not know what it was? How long does it take for you to figure out this is a matter of life and death importance.
6. Where you were when the apocalypse was declared out of control? Were you in your home or were you at work? The answer may make a vital difference in your approach to survival. If your home is properly prepared it is the place to be. If it isn’t, then you will have to make where ever you are as safe as can be.
7. How you responded to the apocalypse and the disaster in general? If you were unable to shed your human responses to the event, you will likely lack the necessary resolve to survive in the days to come. Fight now, weep later. If your family member is infected, keep them isolated. Yes, its cruel, and rough, but otherwise you might as well shoot yourself and be done with it. If survival is your goal, then be prepared to do what it takes.

Stop and think if you want to live

Any event that completely destabilizes a civilization, especially something like a zombie apocalypse would ultimately require that you get as far away from civilization as possible.

• The primary reason is that such an event will likely initiate a fuel-air (or thermobaric weapon)response from the military to control and prevent the spread of the infection.
• If you want to see what the military’s response might look like, I recommend watching a movie called The Crazies. In this flick, the military, in an effort to prevent the spread of a psychological pathogen designed to destabilize populations, ends up using a fuel-air weapon to destroy the town hoping to end the spread of the pathogen. (Unsuccessfully.)
• If it spread very quickly, it would likely overwhelm any emergency services in a localized area but would likely be contained and/or containable. If it spread slowly but invisibly, it might spread across the entire world before being able to be isolated effectively, if at all.

If, for example, the dead were actually reanimated and could infect the living, it would be quite different than if the living were suddenly converted into zombies who were forced to live on the flesh of the living but would die, of starvation eventually.

• If the dead were returning to life, the effect would eventually overwhelm the living as every dead person would become a zombie eventually. There would also be the added issue of an increasing number of zombies as the starving and dying filled their ranks. This would require the living to destroy every zombie they came in contact with and to destroy their own dead immediately.
• Assuming that these dead bodies would continue to attack the living until their bodies were eventually overcome by physical forces, one could expect the zombies to be effectively animated for 3 to 12 weeks before physical decomposition and physical damage made it impossible for them to be mobile.
• If it were a virus or other contagion spread by contact, it might be possible to contract the condition without even coming in contact directly with the infected, making it very difficult for anyone to avoid become “zombified” without their awareness. If it were a virus, though, it might be able to be recognized by the symptoms as the host sickened and eventually died.

No Good News So Far...

The first rule of the zombie apocalypse is observation without contact. So your first mission would be to get clear and find a way to block yourself away from the contagion. Then keep a low profile until you could determine:

1. How zombies hunt: do they have good hearing, do they have a good sense of smell, do they just wander until they bump into something that is NOT a zombie?
2. What is the ratio of zombies to humans: how fast is the contagion spread? Is it merely by contact, by bite, saliva, blood, or is it airborne? It would definitely be to your best interest to determine how zombification takes place.
3. Stay away from everyone: When in doubt, your best bet is to simply stay as far away from them as possible. Touch nothing you do not have to, and dispose of anything that gets zombie fluids (assuming they have any) or matter on them until it is determined how the condition is transferred.
4. Wear medical protective gear if you can get it: Mask, gloves, keep as much of your skin covered as possible. Remain mindful of any personal injuries. Keep your wounds cared for. Infection is now your second greatest threat due to lack of professional medical support.

Gear Up

1. Dress for the weather, be mindful of the season. If you can find it, get a backpack that is waterproof, relatively large so that you can keep spare clothing there. Don’t carry too much. In a world of zombies, there should be plenty of good shopping to be had for quite some time.
2. Get some good fitting shoes, tennis shoes, Timberlands or other waterproof foot protection for your feet. An injury to your foot is the same as signing your death warrant. If you can't move, you die.
3. Protect yourself with armored clothing if you can find it. Particularly if the condition can be spread by contact. You are not trying to contract it, but if it can be transmitted by a scratch, it would be a shame to get it because you were showing off some skin.
4. Heavy denim would be best, light strong and durable, leather if the weather allows it, consider light hockey gear for location protection. Goggles, to protect one’s eyes, and a medical mask, if the disease is spread by viral or bacterial contagion. Motorcycle protective gear is awesome if you can find it. Light, breathable, durable, unfortunately just too hard to come by.
5. Get a bicycle. Once you get stable somewhere, fortify a position, keep a heavy duty bicycle as part of your gear. Once the cars become a thing of the past, and they will, because gasoline vaporizes over time. There will be a day about two years after the apocalypse where gasoline that isn't stored in a nearly hermetically sealed environment, will be gone.
6. Weaponry: no matter what you see in the movies, a zombie apocalypse would be a disaster unlike any seen in human history. Being armed would be a difficult proposition but not because guns would not be effective. They would likely be the most effective means of dealing with them, but guns make noise, likely attracting more zombies.
7. Don't attract unwanted attention: Since we've never had a zombie apocalypse we can't be certain if the sound of guns will attract them, but what we do know is guns also attract other people, who might not be friendly and would love to find out if you're better prepared than they are...
8. Find a short range walkie-talkie set with 4 to 8 handsets, some rechargeable batteries and a solar recharging kit. All of these are easy to find and buy BEFORE the apocalypse. Afterward, they may be very hard to come by.

If you are going to choose to carry firearms, you should understand a particular issue that most people forget when they are watching movies.

• Knowing how to clear a jam is a skill. Learning how to care for your firearms is a skill. Learn when there aren’t hordes of hungry zombies attacking you.
• Ammunition is heavy. It is also cumbersome. If you are trying to stay mobile, you will only be able to carry a certain amount of it.
• Handguns are lighter, but have less stopping power, their corresponding ammo is also lighter.
• Handguns also require much greater aim and practice, so if you are not familiar with a handgun, it is as dangerous to you as it is to any enemy.
• Other than that, the standard rules with handguns apply. Revolvers don’t jam, but carry less ammunition. Automatics like the 9mm carry more ammo, but have a chance of jamming.

With that said, my highest recommendation would be a combat shotgun (see AA 12). Alas, they aren't just lying around anywhere, but if I had to pick, this would be almost assuredly my first choice. Shotguns are excellent "pray and spray" weapons and make for fine easy to use weapons for the end of days.

• A combat shotgun is a shotgun that is intended for use in an offensive role, typically by a military force. The earliest shotguns specifically designed for combat were the trench guns or trench shotguns issued in World War I.
• While limited in range, the multiple projectiles typically used in a shotgun shell provide increased hit probability unmatched by other small arms.
• The pros of the AA12 are its devastating close range firepower. The cons are its very short range and need to reload regularly. Since we would likely not understand the causes of the Event, it would make sense to destroy as much of the target as possible.
• Smaller firearms might be useful but may only aggravate the zombie without stopping it. Work the head-shot for stopping power. No matter what you see in the movies, confronting zombies with firearms would be my last choice.

Realistically...

You are probably not going to come across an AA12. Just wanted to include it so you knew what the gold standard for zombie bashing SHOULD be...You will probably end up with something like this:

12 gauge, 10-12 pounds loaded, semi-automatic, holds 8 to 12 rounds, 18.5 inches, give or take. In a pinch, this alley sweeping beast will do.

• Barring the shotgun, there are numerous devices being promoted in the world today for the zombie apocalypse. My favorite would be the aluminum baseball bat.

• Great for propping open doors, you don't need to be Thor to use one, but if you have a bit of muscle, it doesn't hurt its performance. Aluminum bats are strong, durable, relatively lightweight, effective for damaging limbs or knocking off heads, does not require fuel or batteries, and is relatively quiet. Able to be found at any decent sporting goods store.

• Along with that would be the hunting crossbow or if you have the skill, the hunting composite bow. Crossbows are relatively easy to learn and can be used to hunt for game. Supermarkets are closed remember, you still have to eat... The biggest weakness of this weapon is its slow reload time in comparison to a fire arm. Best if use in conjunction with good team members.
• Bows will take more skill to learn to use but it isn't impossible. You will need to gather as many arrows/bolts as you can because it will be a long time between reloads. Care for your arrows/bolts. Try not to leave too many behind. Both will required you to maintain your health and fitness to practice when possible.

• Round out your close combat, utility arsenal with a large knife, axe or machete. You will have to cut through brush, get firewood, and perhaps behead unpleasant zombies who disturb your slumber.
• If zombies are contagious, spreading blood everywhere would be undesirable, but having my limbs torn off by zombies would also be a bad thing as well.

• Each of these weapons has a technique for use, and it is worth your while to figure out which attacks work best for each. If you find a knife, axe or machete that works well, it behooves you to find a means to keep it sharp. Take the time and find a whetstone.
• Last but not least...the classic crowbar. While it isn't the perfect hand-t-hand weapon, it is worth keeping one in your group. Great for opening doors, breaking windows, breaking into cars, busting locks, the crowbar is a bit heavy but pound for pound, its a great omni-tool at the end of the world. If you're going to use it for a weapon, be sure to wear a sturdy, non-slip glove.

• There is an axe with a crowbar-like feature and a non-slip handle. Don't know how hard they are to come buy but it's nice to know someone thought to include the crowbar feature.

• Just found a new multi-tool of choice for the zombie apocalypse: Enter the "Lobotomizer," or "Lobo." http://zombieresearchsociety.com...
• Technically it's just a military shovel with a hammer, crowbar and spike attachment for high quality, armor-penetrating stabbing power. Th shovel edge is flat for a full force decapitating swing...

If this is the end of the world, look both ways

Terrain: The world as you know it is over. The kind of terrain you have to deal with, what's around you, hills, valleys, wide open spaces, tight quarters in a city, each has its benefits and disadvantages. Don't wait until you have to survive before you consider how you might navigate each.

• It can work for you as well as against you. Put as much terrain between you and the zombie hordes as possible. Stay out of places with only one exit, unless you are confident that that place can be securely defended. That said, banks and office buildings while having little food would be excellent places to hole up temporarily.
• Hills, know where they are, use them to your advantage. Higher ground gives you greater visibility and increase your line of sight. Clear any ground around your hill to maximize your chances of seeing your approaching enemies.
• Memorize your fortifications well enough you could move around them in the dark. Murphy's Law says you may have to escape and it would be a shame to be killed by a trap YOU set.

Health: Your most precious asset. There are no doctors, so you cannot afford to get sick. Get rested, stay rested, stay warm and dry. Change clothes when you can, be mindful of what you eat, bury your wastes far away from yourself and your camps.

• Find a hand cranking radio to keep an ear out for official broadcasts. Nothing maintains your mental health like hope. In the event of a zombie apocalypse the world as you know it has ended. It will behoove you to consider choices you may have never thought about before. Be assured others are thinking the same thing too.
• Raid a pharmacy to get first aid supplies, simple antibiotics, and painkillers. You might want to read up on those in advance. Here is a quick list of the most well known. Print it while printers are still available: List of antibiotics
• Mental Wellness – your mind or the minds of others you ally yourselves with are vulnerable to shock and instability. Be mindful of strange behavior in yourself and others. Remain confident in your ability to survive. Be upbeat. If you can find musical technology that you can keep running (using batteries or rechargeable solar technology) use that to keep your mental health in order.
• The Living or Uninfected – The living or uninfected may be as dangerous as the zombies as their resources dwindle and their sanity likely unraveled. I would be as cautious of the living as I was of the dead (undead). Maybe I would be paranoid but I would definitely prefer to be alive. If you can’t be sure of their intentions, it is best to stay away from everyone unless all of your lives depend on your cooperation.
• Do your best to stay clean and dry: dangerous staph infections are also be on the rise. Antibiotic-resistant staph would be even more dangerous without potential medical facilities. You can survive it, but only if you are very, very careful.

Food and Water: seems like such a simple thing, but the longer the event goes on, the more likely it is that food stores will continue to diminish. Easy to find food at supermarkets and stores are going to be the first hit and first empty. Remember, most major cities store only about 3-5 days of food on hand. Trucks bring resupply nearly every week. So after a week without support services, cities will begin to run dry at a steady pace, depending on how much of the populace is uninfected.

• Find dried meats and fruits, military rations, if you still live near a military facility, canned foods are undesirable as a whole, both in terms of flavor or quality but will keep you alive.
• Hospitals make for decent places to raid due to their need to keep food stores. The food won't be yummy but it will keep you alive.
• Avoid dented cans and cans with rust at the seals, both are dangerous to your health. Avoid wild mushrooms unless you are an EXPERT.
• Water will be equally difficult to come by so you will need to get used to boiling, filtering and/or chemically treating water to prevent infection from e-coli, cryptosporidium, and other potentially dangerous water-born infections.

Survival Training:

• Now would be the time to consider a wildlife survival course because ultimately, you will have to move away from major metropolises if you want to have a chance of survival. The zombie affliction would affect cities first due to dense population.
• This seemed to be such an innocuous question but the more I thought about it the more I realized that the world as we knew it was over and that normal thinking was so not going to cut the mustard.
• I know there are books about how to survive the zombie apocalypse but actual survival would be much harder than people know, no matter what they have seen in movies.

My final advice:

• Take nothing for granted.
• Assume threats are all around you, because in the Zombie Apocalypse, they are.
• Zombies, disease, food poisoning, starvation, dehydration, environmental issues, long distance travel, tight spaces are all deadly threats to your opportunity to survive.
• Lack of birth control... (Yes, that is an issue, you just didn’t think about it…)

Think fast, stay frosty, remain calm, be ruthless, run fast, and most importantly, for God’s sake, don't look back, they may be gaining on you!

• I originally wrote this essay on Sodahead on July 17, 2010, before movie and television madness made the Zombie Apocalypse cool.
• I rewrote in on my website Hub City Blues with some addenda after the Walking Dead television series started when I saw all the incredibly dumb things the characters were doing there.
• I've rewritten it with additional information for all of you zombie maniacs who believe a Zombie Apocalypse is a good thing. I suspect it only makes for compelling television, the reality of it would actually suck.
• Dodging man-eating zombies and fighting against the crazed and suicidal hordes of formerly civilized human beings mourning the end of life as they knew it does not fill me with renewed confidence.
• The following infographic shares some of my ideas and was actually part of a course of disaster (zombie apocalypse) preparedness.

Do simple things, like wear a jacket or leather or something more sturdy when going outside and potentially dealing with zombies.

I can put on a cotton hoodie and have an adult human bite my arm and they'll never bite through it. Sure, they'll definitely break the skin from the force, but they'll never bite through the fabric.

If people wore something like a leather jacket, or military fatigue, they'd never be turned into a zombie because the zombie can't bite through it.

Don't believe me? Go get a short sleeve shirt and try to bite through the shirt. Even using your hands to assist, is going to take a little effort and that's only going to tear apart because you're tearing it, not because you're biting it.

Now apply that to something more durable, like a leather jacket or some BDUs. You're not getting through that. Neither are zombies because they still have human mouths and teeth.

In movies and shows, though, everyone wants to go out in pajama pants and a tee shirt though. It's no wonder their worlds collapse. These people couldn't survive a mild winter.

If I were in a zombie situation, one of the first things I'm going to get is clothing that can't be bitten through by a human.