Scenario is this, in the near future a pandemic wipes out most of humanity until for all intents and purposes I’m the only person left.*
I live in Northern Ireland but I have relatives in New York, USA. For a lack of anything better to do I decide to visit to see if any of them have survived. What would be the best way for me to do so?
For background and further information on yours truly:
I’m in my mid-30’s, fairly fit and healthy.
I can drive manual and automatic cars, I have no real experience with anything larger than that. I did grow up on a farm so I have driven quad bikes and used tractors.
I have a basic understand of the principles of flight and I’ve taken a few lessons in a glider/sailplane. Basically no knowledge of boats apart from that they float.
I have self-defence training and know how to use a firearm though I have no particular knowledge or skill regarding either.
I’m not vegetarian.
Only humanity is gone, animals and plants etc are still around and infrastructure is still mostly intact.
I’m sure there’s other important information I’ve missed, if anyone has any questions ask.
*yes I realise this is extraordinarily unlikely, if you don’t like a pandemic use whatever means you like to depopulate the world but leave the infrastructure intact.
I think I’d rather try and take a boat across the pond over trying to learn to fly a plane. Yeah a plane will get you there faster, but what about finding an airport and trying to land. Plus if you run out of fuel in a boat you can still float at least.
Yeah, you might run a boat aground near the shore/port, but at least you’d be better off swimming or taking a row boat the rest of the way. I may not know how to steer a boat either, but I’d rather take my chances screwing that up over a plane. Once in the states it shouldn’t be a problem to get a car and find your way to New York and where you want to go.
You might want to risk going over to Britain. I highly recommend against a cross-Atlantic trip. Your options are to take a boat, or to fly. You’re going to have to have to find a plane that can make the trip in one go, teach yourself to fly it, teach yourself to maintain it while you learn to fly it, teach yourself to navigate, and then fly off one day solo and hope you haven’t forgotten anything and that you don’t run into any weather. Anything goes wrong and you’re dead.
You’re going to need to drive the long way round. Forget trying to sail across the Atlantic if you don’t know how to. A transatlantic crossing is not for the beginner. However, if you have the right vehicle - and there being few survivors you’ll be able to steal one - you can driver across the Bering Strait when it’s iced over. And if you arrive when it isn’t, then the strait is narrow enough to sail across in a small motorboat, and thanks to the Diomede Isles you can see your destination at every stage.
That’s not a “drive”. It’s a cross country trek. There are no roads to the Chukotka Peninsula from the rest of Siberia, and there are no roads from the Seward Peninsula to the rest of Alaska.
Driving an ATV over pack ice across the Bering Sea is not for the faint of heart either.
Also in Alaska and Siberia it’s not going to make much difference if there are roads or not in the winter, because those roads will be impassable due to snow. Might as well just save yourself some trouble and heartache and shoot yourself before starting.
At least with the boat crossing the Atlantic all you need to do is keep yourself pointed west until you either sink, run out of gas, or hit land.
If both sides of the ocean have been savaged, there’s no likely way you can cross it unless you befriend a shipwright and you still have enough oak trees to cut down. Or maybe you can hitch a ride on one of the nuclear attack subs that have survived (not likely in a pandemic since those subs carry only 90 days worth of supplies.) Barring that, you might try to cross the ice at the helcaraxe… err… arctic, which is a long and cold walk.
I think you’re faced with the prospect of staying in Ireland until you die. Now that doesn’t sound like a bad deal.
If crossing by boat or over frozen tundra, how would the OP eat? One may be able to pack a boat with a large supply of food & water, but any other method will require outstanding hunting skills, guns, ammo and immense luck. And on the boat there is the issue of navigation. Not a prudent solo, no outside assistance trip under any circumstances. I would expect the OP would rather quickly become the “former last person on earth”. Pining for the fjords, as it were.
Flying seems pretty well out of the question. If you choose a boat carefully enough, and stock it with a lot of supplies, you might make it across the ocean. Take your time and do as much research locally as you can about boats and weather patterns. Your lack of navigation skills points toward your not landing in NY or anywhere close. If you make it, you’ll just run aground somewhere along the coast. Make sure you have a dinghy and/or one of those survival suits aboard. It’d suck to drown that close to land. If you make it ashore, you can start worrying about figuring out where you are and how to get to NY from there.
Boat. 40+ foot motorcruiser. Lots of supplies and a couple of months if not years at your local library figuring out how to run it. Make sure you scavenge plenty of spare parts for it.
Never having been in the US Navy, is it even in any way feasible for a lone individual to operate a nuclear surface craft or submarine? A single person in a boomer could pretty much go anywhere without running out of fuel, and there’s usually plenty of food packed away.
When I was mulling this over myself that was what I considered, that the hardest part of the journey would be getting over to Britain. I thought sailing that would be hard enough, I never even considered sailing the Atlantic, or the Pacific if I managed to drive to the east coast of Asia.
I think I could learn to fly a plane for the short journey across the water, in fact at its closest Northern Ireland is only about twelve miles from Scotland, but both sides are pretty remote at that point. The only issue with a plane though is if it started to go wrong it would probably go spectacularly so with little chance of walking away.
From England I guess I could walk through the Channel Tunnel to the European mainland, ironically the very first part of the journey to get off Ireland is the only part of the potential journey where I would need to sail or fly.
This the route I was considering, but going from other replies it may not be as easy as I thought it would be. For varying definitions of ‘easy’ of course.
Actually that reminds me of this story, for someone going the opposite way. Its surmised she made it across the Bering Straight but that doesn’t seem to be certain.
I never thought about walking across the Arctic, from checking you would need to leave from northern Russia and its only passable in the depths of winter. It would certainly be an epic journey though.
I don’t think one person could operate a large military ship or submarine, but like you I’ve never been in the navy, US or otherwise.
I wonder if you could commandeer a tank, though keeping it fueled might be an issue.
What did Teddy Roosevelt say? ‘Dare Mighty Things’, if I’m going to die I may as well do it trying something impressive. Besides it would be worth the journey just for driving all the spare supercars and empty motorways/autobahns/freeways there would be in this scenario.
