I agree - survival in a non-military situation is usually completely different from someone in a "behind enemy lines" escape and evasion. The latter is more akin to someone escaping from prison and trying to avoid the searchers.

If you're not trying to escape from the local authorities (for whatever reason) then the almost universal rule of thumb is to stay where you are and wait to be found. The major exceptions to this are:

1. You're experienced and skilled enough to find your own way out. According to some of the NASAR publications I've read, about one third of all lost hunters rescue themselves.

2. You know that no-one is going to be looking for you (e.g. the Chilean(Argentinian?) soccer players in "Alive"), or they're going to be looking in the wrong place (e.g your light plane has been forced 50 miles off course to avoid bad weather and your ELT is busted).

3. You're in an inhospitable location without enough supplies or equipment to survive if you stay put. (Joe Simpson's "Touching the Void" has been discussed in a number of threads recently; he admits in his book that their cardinal mistake was trying to reduce weight by leaving excess fuel behind. For the want of a $5 canister of gas they both almost died. Had they had one more canister of gas for the stove, they could have holed up in a snow cave, melted some snow to quench their thirst, and waited for the storm to break. Without it, they had no choice but to continue descending the mountain in a whiteout.)