Bug-Out

At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that "news" is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different -- in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.

—Robert A. Heinlein, The Number of the Beast

Maybe it's because of an oncoming natural 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, including leaping into life rafts from sinking ships or Escape Pods from doomed spacecraft.

When a Bug-Out appears in a story, it is almost always a key initiating event for the overall plot. In some cases it is the plot, which subsequently revolves around the journey from danger to safety. In other cases it is a simple "transition" or "gateway" event, analogous to the "first threshold" step of the Hero's Journey, marking the shift from ordinary life to adventure. Either way it triggers a transformative event for The Hero, who must cope with danger, change and other challenges as a result of having to abandon their home and seek a new safe haven.

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". See also Crazy Prepared and Properly Paranoid for characters who are ready to Bug-Out at a moment's notice, and Emergency Stash and Survivalist Stash for caches of supplies that would come in handy in a bug-out situation.

Examples of Bug-Out include:

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.
The trope makes two appearances in the Worm/Harry Potter crossover A Wand for Skitter:
- At the start of her second year, Taylor acknowledges the need to be prepared for a possible emergency exit from Hogwarts, and begins assembling a "bug-out bag" in the Chamber of Secrets.
- At the climax of the story, Taylor arranges an emergency evacuation of all the drugged aurors and Hogwarts staff by the expedient of having all the Hogwarts house-elves take them to St. Mungo's. Unlike the usual bug-out, though, she stays behind to face Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and their allies.
When agents of the British Wizarding World unknowingly kidnap the daughter of the self-exiled Harry Potter in Exposure, a Dark Fic! by "Bobmin356", one of the first things his employers in the Muggle British intelligence service arrange is to immediately relocate Harry and the rest of his family, in the process completely emptying their house and wiping it clean of any evidence that anyone had ever lived there. They even go so far as to wipe the family's existence from any records available to agents of the Wizarding World.

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.
The 2013 DreamWorks animated film The Croods is about a family of cavemen forced to abandon their home by natural disaster, who must then travel across unknown territory to find themselves a new home. Their Bug-Out in the first act of the film becomes the plot for the rest of the film.

Literature

In Robert A. Heinlein's 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.
In what is an example of the concept, if not specifically of the trope itself in action, in Heinlein's The Number of the Beast "Bug Out" becomes an emergency command code for the voice-operated autopilot of the interdimensional craft Gay Deceiver, that tells her to immediately transport to an empty, safe field in an alternate Mars.
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 reasons:
- 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.

Within this subgenre, the Bug-Out almost always includes a degree of self-congratulation or validation for those undergoing it (explicit or implicit), as it proves that the characters were "superior" in some manner to the rest of society who had looked down on them for their obsession with preparedness, and thus were "worthy" of survival. It is also frequently cast as a transformative event, allowing "ordinary" people to become Big Damn Heroes, unfettered by the restrictions of the decadent society which has died around them.

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.
"The Ministry has fallen!" Ron, Hermione and Harry's escape from incoming Death Eaters at the end of Bill and Fleur's wedding in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a classic Bug-Out. Hermione even has a bug-out bag on her, although she'd failed to properly stock it with all the supplies they'd need.

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.
One of the most memorable sound bytes from CBS news anchor Dan Rather came from a live broadcast he made from Iraq in the 1990s. He closed the broadcast with "Time for us to bug out" -- which he and his crew did as soon as they were off the air.

Video Games

Subnautica begins with a panicked dash by the player character into an Escape Pod when the starship he is on suffers a catastrophe and he must flee for his life.
Every game in the Metroid franchise has at least one or two beat-the-clock events where Samus Aran must escape the base/ship/facility before it blows up with her still in it.

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.