[Defender968]

So my wife and I will be taking a little vacation in the near future to the mountains for a little R&R, while there we're going to look for a vacation/retirement/SHTF property.

Our vision for this property is to be more than 25 acres, not terribly steep, but with some good contours and some ridgelines but also some flatter areas. We're not looking in the mountains proper but a little east of the mountains.

What we're looking for is a property that has water originating on it (spring and or well), that preferably has some open areas already cleared that could be used for farming or pastureland, but with the majority of the land being mostly timbered. It needs to be accessible enough for building but not have a paved road on it. We want it off the beaten path enough to avoid mass migrations should there be any from major cities during a disaster, but still within 30 miles of a hospital with an ER.

Our idea is to put a cabin on it now, then over time build a retirement home there. Currently I've been looking at properties that share boundaries with public land, either game land or national forest, as that gives me easy access to hunting, as well as the guarantee of not being developed, however I was thinking about it and having property that borders game land/national forest means there is a legitimate reason people would be on neighboring land who I wouldn’t know, which presents some risk if we have a place up there that isn't occupied 24/7/365. My thought is we would mark the boundaries with the standard No Trespassing/no hunting signs during Non SHTF times, which would limit incursions from hunters and hikers for the most part as I think hunters and hikers are usually pretty good about respecting private land for the most part. Then we would take those signs down to try to blend in during SHTF times.

Now we’ll use good OPSEC to minimize who knows where the property is and what’s on it, and have the signs posted to hopefully minimize unwanted incursions, but with those things in mind anyone have any thoughts on pros v.s. cons of bordering public land for SHTF times?

Not having neighbors at all during SHTF times could be good if you don't know and/or can't trust the neighbors. However good/trustworthy neighbors are obviously also invaluable as another ring of defense as well as a QRF with proper commo and preplanned agreements in place before SHTF or shortly thereafter.