Bug Out Bags - Pack Mentality and How to Set up Your Pack

Hey BIN!  Here are several videos from the Discreet Prepper “Tips & Tricks” department.

Building a bug-out-bag/emergency bag can be tricky.  Too much gear can weigh you down and not enough can get you killed.  There are also several different types of bags you can build depending on the situation you are expecting:

1) Are you building a bag that will stay in your car and help you get home safely?  (A pack for a day or two on the road within a short distance to your home.)

2) Are you building a bag for your home to be used in response to a possible disaster?  ( A pack that covers all you would need living outdoors for a longer period of time. Example: hurricane or earthquake.)

3) Are you building a bag with thoughts of bugging out?  (A pack to help you escape due to uprisings, war or military take-over.)

4) Are you building a pack to take care of a family or just yourself?  (A pack for a family of 6 would be much more involved than a pack for one person.)

You might read through those different pack designs and say “Aren’t all emergency bags the same?”  No, they are not.  As an example, let’s say you work about 25 miles from home.  That is a 2-3 day trip depending on the conditions.  A get home bag might have food in it for 2-3 days whereas a disaster bag might have to have 1-2 weeks of food in it.  Another example would be a bug-out-bag.  In that scenario, a person feels their lives are threatened and they need to flee to the woods and live of the land.  In that type of pack, there is no way to carry enough food to sustain yourself, so that type of bag would have hunting and trapping gear in it so you could continually secure food.  The other bags would not need gear like that.  So you see, there is a reason and a design that goes with each bag.

It may be hard to build a pack for just one of those situations, but at the same time, the bag you pack should have all the necessary elements in it to keep you alive in the location you will be in.  In other words, if you live in Florida, the pack you have for that environment would not be suitable for your vacation to the Smokey Mountains in the winter.  Here is another example…  If you live in an area that has an abundant water supply, all you would need is a filter.  If you lived in an arid area, you need to carry lots of water.

So, first things first…  Figure out the type of pack you would need for your particular situation.  Make a list of your essential items first (water, food, water purification, fire starting elements, knives, tarp or tent, etc.), the first items are ones that you cannot do without moving towards items that are more for creature comfort.  To figure what stays or goes, you will have to decide how much you can carry comfortably without hurting yourself.  Most people are not trained or prepared to put an 80 lbs. pack on their back and start walking through a wooded area.  If you have a large family, you may need to split the needed items into several back packs.  I am married with 4 children (1 being a baby) and I have  5 back packs for us all to evenly distribute the weight.  As you move forward in your build, you can determine if you have redundant, heavy or useless items from the back end of your list and remove anything that is unnecessary. 

As for me and my family, I have developed a system that ensures all our needs and comforts are met.  Not only do I have an emergency bag in each car, but I have designed a drawer system in the back of the SUVs where I store all the basic survival items as well as items that will make our journey much more comfortable.  So all in all, the vehicle would have everything we needed in case it hit the fan while we were traveling and if we were close to home, we will also have all our individual bags ready as well.  So where ever we go, it would be like a well-planned camping trip.  If we had to ditch the car and go on foot, that is when we would divvy up the best gear and leave the unnecessary items behind or trade/give them to other people in need.

With all that in mind, let’s learn how to pack your emergency bags.  Below, I have included several videos on preparing your survival bags as well as how to outfit your car or truck with the necessary equipment you may need to save your life.  Below the videos, I have more tips on how to pick the right gear.

Here are some ideas on how to build your survival pack and what to put in it. 

1) You should have at least 3 ways of doing things (example: 3 ways to start a fire, 3 ways to purify water, 3 ways to secure food, etc.).  

2) The items that you carry should have multiple uses (example: your large metal cooking utensils can double for digging implements, your tarp can be a tent, a water collection system, or you can simply utilize it as a poncho for wet weather, your old containers can be used for water storage, etc.).

3) You should have multiple packs ready to go for a variety of reasons (example: a bag for extreme outdoor living, a bag with your clothing and sundries, a bag with a mixture of the two, etc.) because you don’t know what your disaster will be.

4) You should have multiple of the same items (example: 3 or more knives, 3 or more lighters, 3 or more types of cordage, 3 containers, etc.) in case of product failure, product loss, or to trade/barter for needed gear.

5) If it is up to me, I would rather be weighted down with food than with gear for my comfort.  That is why when I pack, I follow this guideline: smaller is better.  If you can get used to carrying less gear, it will give you more room for food and water.  Think about it this way…  You can make rope from a vine, but you cannot make food from nothing.  Without food, you will fail miserably.

Last but not least, a person must be realistic in packing a “go-bag” and not pack one for fear of up and coming military take-over.  Seriously, if you think you will be safer taking to the hills and living off the land when it hits the fan, you better be ready for a rude awakening.  How will you get past all the check points if there is martial law?  Do you realize that even if you are in a city, you are much safer inside the walls of your home than you would be out on the run living in the woods?  You could pack the most inclusive pack in the world, but if you can’t protect it or yourself (you have to sleep, bathe, relieve yourself some time), what good was all that prep work?  Plus trying to travel over rough terrain with a pack for an extended period of time will wear you, your clothes, your mental awareness and your supplies down.  I think the only reason to bug out of your house is if a natural /chemical/biological/nuclear disaster occurs and you MUST vacate to a safer locale.  At that point, dress for the weather, pack all the creature comforts your body can carry and get a buddy to watch your back.  Sleep in rotation so you can get some rest.  I have been in law enforcement for years and I know the type of people you will encounter out in the middle of no-where…  They will be people like you, who bugged out, but they won’t be as prepared as you will be. They will want what you have. Be prepared and plan now before it is too late.

More Tips and Tricks:

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