12-Minute Survival Bag Part 1

There are plenty of guides online for how to build a survival bag or bug-out bag, as well as plenty of options for purchasing complete pre-made bags, which are great, but there are a couple of reasons why these end up not working for people: they cannot afford them, or they get caught up trying to design the perfect kit (and never actually have one). There is, however, another approach one can take: build a bag now with whatever you have on hand. A useful strategy for this approach is to utilize a most-important-in-first attitude.

How's this work? Simple. Grab what you think is the most important item and put it in your bag (any bag you have), then grab what you think is the next most important thing and continue doing that until your bag is full. These don't have to be ideal items. You can grab a lighter you have sitting around, an old pocket knife, etc.

Now you have a survival bag. Congratulations! Is it a good one? Probably not. You may have poor tools for the task, a poor bag choice, it might be too heavy, missing key components, etc. But you have one, and that counts for a lot. Once you actually have one, it can be easier to see what is missing and what doesn't work (which is often a very personal thing). From here, you can begin adding or replacing items piece by piece, or at this point decide that purchasing a pre-made kit is the way to go. Even so, in the meantime, you always have one ready to go.

The photo at the top is an example of one I put together. This took me about 12 minutes and I still have room for a little bit more. See this post for a detailed look at what is in my bag (and what isn’t but should be).