Bug-Out

Maybe it's because of an oncoming disaster or an invading army -- or maybe your annoying brother-in-law just called to let you know he's dropping in for the weekend. But whatever it is, you have to get away from wherever you are, fast. You pack a few bags, grab what non-perishable food you can, and bundle the kids into the car before heading off to safer territory. It's a Bug-Out -- a short-notice escape from some threat that you simply can't weather in place, because if you try, something bad will happen.

Hopefully you already had a plan for this contingency, because the better prepared you are for a Bug-Out, the more likely you're going to survive whatever it is that sends you running. Whatever the cause, though, it's almost certainly a major plot point for the story. You don't just pick up and leave on a moment's notice without a really good reason.

This trope covers any kind of emergency retreat, escape or evacuation made on short (or no) notice.

If someone should Bug-Out but doesn't, it's probably because they ignored an expert who told them to.

Contrast with Last Stand and "Shelter-in-place".

Fan Works

 * Aiko Yamada's panic in chapter 8 of the Ranma ½/Sailor Moon Crossover Fic Relatively Absent, where because of her daughter Nodoka's actions upon learning of Ranma's apparent death, she is about to set in motion all manner of contingency plans, including the immediate dispatch of vulnerable underage household members to safehouses in overseas locations.

Film

 * Aliens: "Marines, we are leaving!" after the first probe into the reactor plant building.
 * Bug Out, a 2013 Short Film about two friends who attempt an escape from the city in which they live following a nationwide power outage.

Literature

 * Farnham's Freehold: The second time that Hugh and Barbara are faced with the threat of nuclear annihilation, they choose to bug out rather than sheltering in a fallout shelter.
 * There is a subgenre of Post Apocalyptic/Speculative Fiction literature catering to survivalists frequently called "prepper novels". Almost every author of such works has at least one volume that is called "Bug-Out" or has the term in its title for obvious reason:
 * Stewart's Bug Out by Ron Foster.
 * Society’s Collapse: The Bug Out. by Jeremy Lock, the second volume in his Society's Collapse series.
 * Bugging Out by Noah Mann, the first volume in his Bugging Out series.
 * The Bug Out! series by Robert Boren is thirteen novels all of which have titles in the form Bug Out! Part X: Subtitle.
 * Boren also has a thirteen-volume parallel series called Bug Out! Texas, whose books have a similar naming scheme.
 * The Bug Out Chronicles: Exodus & Exiles by Ronald Shelton is a Christian Literature take on the subject.
 * The Nautical Prepper is a non-fiction book by Captain William E. Simpson II, which describes how to equip a sea-going vessel as a "bug-out boat" in which one can wait out disaster or social collapse far out on the ocean.

Live-Action TV

 * Amusingly averted for virtually the entire run of M*A*S*H; the "M" in "M*A*S*H" stands for "Mobile", but for obvious reasons of production logistics the camp was almost always in the same location. The only exceptions were the two-part episode "Bug Out" from 1976, and the 1979 episode "C*A*V*E".  In the former, the camp's comfortable location had to be abandoned in the face of an enemy advance; in the latter, a seemingly endless barrage of friendly artillery fire forces the camp to relocate to a nearby cave.
 * Doomsday Preppers was a 2011-2014 Reality Show on the National Geographic Channel about uber-survivalists, which focused on a different group of "preppers" in each episode. Among the consistent features of each group was their plans for a Bug-Out in the event of disaster or societal collapse, including their bug-out bags (see Real Life, below).
 * Last Man Standing, a 2011-2021 Sit Com starring Tim Allen as an executive at a sporting goods store chain who is also a survivalist/prepper. Bugging out is discussed in multiple episodes, with one 2015 episode including a scene where Allen's character chastises an employee for not having bug-out plans and a survival cache.
 * American Blackout, a 2013 TV Movie from the National Geographic Channel, which used a Found Footage format to tell a War of the Worlds-style semi-Mockumentary story of a nationwide disaster. One family followed by the story is prepared with their bug-out bags and immediately take off for their bunker in the woods.

Real Life

 * Pick a disaster, any disaster. Someone had to evacuate, and almost always on short notice.  Standard emergency preparedness advice recommends keeping a "bug-out" bag or kit in your car or somewhere else handy, containing clothes, nonperishable food, water, necessary medicines and cash.