5 Essential Urban Survival Tips To Keep You Alive

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As a part of developing The Ultimate Urban Survival Kit (TUUSK) with the team at Ready To Go Survival, our conversation turned to urban survival planning and strategy.

We talked about our experiences with the various snowstorms, hurricanes, blackouts, and terrorist threats that we had been through and compared notes.

In this guide, I am going to share the Top 5 Urban Survival Tips that came out of our brainstorming session. If you are not one of the 80.7% of people who live in an urban environment feel free to share these with anyone you care about who does.

Top 5 Urban Survival Tips

Urban Survival Tip #1 – Move fast before exit routes are clogged or closed

There is a clear first mover advantage when evacuating a highly populated area. Once everyone around you gets the same idea, getting through the exits – bridges, tunnels, highways, or train routes will become hopelessly clogged. To ensure a speedy exit:

Make sure your bug out bag is packed, accessible, and ready to go.
Make sure everyone you are bugging out with is on the same page for when to initiate your bug out plan and where to meet
When in doubt MOVE! Don’t wait for everyone around you to agree, get going. Be a survivor, not a statistic.

Urban Survival Tip #2 – Be prepared for environmental hazards

The modern urban landscape if full of dangers that become exposed in any type of disaster. Damaged buildings put all manner of dangerous debris in the air from asbestos and concrete dust to broken glass and toxic smoke.

We need to be sure that our bug out bag has the proper protective gear to keep us moving through such hazards, you never know what you will need to scramble over or through to get to safety.

Sturdy shoes, and well-made pants and a long sleeve shirt should be your default bug out clothing even in summer to protect you from jagged or burning debris. Additionally, consider having environmental protection gear to protect the rest of your body:

Eye protection
Hearing protection
Respiratory/Lung protection
Hand protection

Urban Survival Tip #3 – Be a Grey Man or Woman

The idea of being a “Grey Man” (or Woman) is based around being fully prepared but inconspicuous as to not draw unwanted attention to yourself. This serves two purposes:

Being a Grey Man will help you blend in with a crowd if people are being singled out or if you are trying to evade a pursuer
Being a Grey Man will make you seem like a regular person instead of a target of opportunity for aggressive people who are less prepared than you

There are many ways to be a Grey Man and a lot of them just come down to common sense and not advertising your presence:

Wear normal looking clothes, not camo or other tactical looking gear
Remove any military style logos – The TUUSK bag comes with a velcro patch of the RTGS logo that can be removed at a moment’s notice to slip into the crowd
Do not open your bug out bag in a public area where others can see that it is loaded with food, water, and survival gear that they may need.
Avoid staring or unnecessary eye contact
Conceal any obvious survival gear on your person

Urban Survival Tip #4 – It’s better to look like a threat than a target

In an urban scenario, you are inherently more likely to encounter other people. Some of these people may be aggressive, desperate, or seeking to take advantage of others in the chaos. It is best to deter such advances before they even start by making yourself look like more trouble than it is worth to bother you.

Travel in a group if you can, single people are far juicier targets than two or more people who are obviously together
Have a self-defense item ready to deploy if you are approached; this can be pepper spray, a firearm, knife, or another weapon. Showing you are armed and ready to defend yourself shows that you are not a target of opportunity
Be aware of your surroundings – If you are being followed or possibly entering a dangerous area keep your eyes open and change course immediately
Keep in mind the Grey Man tips above to keep off the radar of inquisitive people

Urban Survival Tip #5 – Follow your instincts, not the mob

When a disaster hits, 99% of people are completely unprepared. You are reading this article, so you are obviously of a mindset of preparing for the worst BEFORE it happens. Stick to your bug out plan and improvise when necessary.

If a mob of people is heading one way, it doesn’t mean that is the best way for you. You don’t need to go in the opposite direction as everyone else but look for the safest way for YOU to reach your destination.

Follow your instincts when faced with a hard choice, not just the path of least resistance.

Putting These Tips Into Action

Partnering these 5 tips with a well thought out bug out bag will vastly improve your odds of making it through the next urban disaster alive.

For more urban survival tips based on my real world experiences check out my article here: 10 Preparedness Lessons From Living In NYC.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, these tips came out of the TUUSK project that I partnered with Ready To Go Survival (RTGS) on. The team at RTGS has been hard at work sourcing gear and getting The Ultimate Urban Survival Kit ready to launch out into the world.

If you are interested in getting your own TUUSK and free Lifestraw before they are made available to the general public check it out here.

Good luck prepping and remember, Chance Favors The Well Prepared.

Your Thoughts?

Do you have an urban survival tip to share? Let us know in the Comments Section below, thanks!

Primitive Fire Making – 6 Ways To Make Fire Without Matches

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In a survival situation being able to start a fire can mean the difference between life and death.

Hopefully your bug out bag or survival kit has the fire starting tools that will help you start a fire quickly and reliably. But what if this gets wet, lost, or used up? Then you will need some primitive fire skills to build your fire. Primitive fire making is a bushcraft discipline that uses simple tools and natural materials to create fire.

By being able to make fires quickly and effectively in any weather conditions, you will be better prepared for emergency situations. In this article I am going to show you how to start a fire using primitive skills as well as compare and contrast the various methods to help you decide which one is best for you to learn first.

Primitive Fire Making Techniques

Flint and Steel

This is the easiest of all bushcraft fire starting methods. All that is required is a flint and a piece of carbon steel (such as your survival knife). Flint and carbon steel should be a part of every wilderness survival kit as it will allow for easy primitive fire starting in virtually any conditions:

The friction formed by striking the steel against the flint will form sparks.
You want to strike the steel against the flint with a loose wrist. It may take a bit of practice to get the technique down.
Have tinder ready to ignite as the sparks start to fly from the flint.
Gently blow on the sparks that land in the tinder or char cloth until it ignites.
Make sure you have your kindling nearby and ready to add to the tinder once it catches.

This method of bushcraft fire starting is relatively easy to execute. It requires the least amount of physical strength and energy to perform and can be done with only two items. We recommend the SurvivalSPARK Emergency Magnesium Fire Starter as a trusty flint and steel tool. However, if find yourself in a situation without carbon steel or a flint available, which is why it’s important to know as many primitive fire making techniques as possible. This will better perfect your wilderness survival skills, preparing you for all situations. Here is a video that shows you how to find flint in the wilderness:

Fire Plough

This is the simplest form of primitive fire making using only natural materials. It is essentially an optimized way to “rub two sticks together” with the base board being one and the plow stick being the other.

Start by procuring a flat piece of hardwood at least a couple of inches thick to use as your baseboard.

On the flat side, cut a straight line down the center using your survival knife.
Hollow out this line to create a shallow, thin groove, about ¼-inch wide.
Find a softwood stick, at least 1-inch thick. Use your bushcraft knife to carve the end of the stick to a rounded point, with the tip being small enough to fit into the groove on your board.
To cause enough friction to generate sufficient heat to ignite a fire, we will now rub the two crafted parts together.
Applying continuous force, rub the stick through the groove in the wood, starting at one end and going toward the other.
This will require a bit of strength in order to create the friction necessary to form a spark.
As the stick rubs against the baseboard, wood will slowly shave off.
The friction you are causing will create heat and tiny embers, which will ignite the wood shavings.
Have your kindling ready and, as before, gently blow on the sparks within the tinder to ignite a flame.

The fire plough method of primitive fire making is simplistic in design, allowing it the versatility to be applied in virtually any location. It’s an ideal wilderness survival tactic due to sheer simplicity.

Nonetheless, it does require quite a bit of physical force and energy to create the spark, someone who is weakened by starvation or exposure may have difficulty getting the fire plough to work. As with all primitive fire starting methods it is essential to practice in order to perfect the technique. Here is a video demonstrating the fire plough method:

Hand Drill

A hand drill is a bushcraft technique that is simpler to build than the bow drill, but it will require greater energy, patience, and skill to implement. All that is required is a drill and a fireboard. The stick being used for the drill is spun between two hands (instead of using a bow to spin the drill) to generate enough friction to create embers.

In the same way as the bow drill’s drill was constructed, find a softwood stick and carve one side to a rounded point.
Cut a small hole in the softwood fireboard, about an inch from the edge of the board.
Cut a v-shaped notch connecting the hole and the edge of the board, with the point of the v connecting with the hole.
Fill the v-shaped notch with tinder. Position the point of the drill into the hole on the fireboard.
Place both palms flat on either side of the drill. Press your hands in firmly, and rub them back and forth. Apply downward pressure as you spin the drill for added friction.
Continue to spin the drill in the fireboard until smoke and embers form.
As with the bow drill once the embers start to make the tinder smolder gently blow to develop a flame.

This method is easy to construct in a pinch, making it a valuable bushcraft skill. Be sure to practice often because it can be difficult to implement. Persistence and endurance are required to make it work. Here is a video showing the hand drill fire starting method:

Bow Drill

This method is more complicated to build than either of the previously mentioned methods. However once a bow drill is built it requires less exertion to create a usable ember. Lets take a look at how to build a bow drill fire starter:

Start by finding a piece of hardwood, rock, or bone that contains a divot or shallow depression. This will serve as the socket that the drill rests in.
Next, find straight stick that will serve as your drill. The drill will need to be a piece of hardwood about ¾-inch thick. One end should be blunt and the other end will be chiseled to a rounded point.
Make a flat piece of softwood, at least 1-inch thick, to use as a fireboard. Cut a tiny hole into the board, about one inch from the side, barely big enough for the tip of the drill to rest in.
Cut a triangular notch connecting the hole to the side of the board, with the point of the triangle connecting to the hole in the board.
Find a bendable, green stick to craft into a bow.
Tightly tie a piece of sinew or paracord to the bent ends of the bow.
Place your tinder into the triangular notch in the fireboard in step 4. This is where the sparks will form.
Place your foot firmly on the fireboard to hold it in place. Loop the bowstring around the drill and place the point of the drill into the hole in the fireboard. Grab your socket from step 1, and place the depression in the socket on top of the drill to hold it firmly in place.
Pull the bow back and forth rapidly. As you do so, this will drive the drill into the wood, creating friction.
As the embers begin dropping into your tinder nest, gently blow until it ignites.

Although a bow drill is more difficult to build than a fire plough it should create fire faster and with less effort. If you are able to make your tools you can use them multiple times, making your investment pay off again and again. Here is a video demonstrating the bow drill technique:

Pump Fire Drill

The pump fire drill is the most difficult to construct of all the primitive fire starting tools. This is due to its more mechanically complicated nature. This is compensated however by requiring nearly no effort to generate embers and a fire once the pump fire drill is constructed. Lets take a look at how to build one:

Find a round piece of hardwood and cut a small hole in the center. Using sinew, cordage, or paracord attach a sharp rock or arrow to the end of a hardwood stick.
Drill a hole through a rock at the same width of the stick, and push the stick through the hole, with the arrow resting about one to two inches below the rock. The rock should fit snugly, without moving.
Find a slightly curved piece of hardwood and drill a hole through the center, the same width as the stick.
Insert the curved piece of wood onto the stick, an inch above the rock, so the bow in the wood is facing upward. It should fit loosely so the device will easily rotate inside of it.
Etch two notches on the ends of each side of the bowed wood so that a string can be tied around easily. Tie a piece of sinew, cordage, or paracord to connect the edge of each side of the bowed wood to the tip of the stick, in the direction away from the arrow.
Grab the bow wood as a handle. Press the arrow to the hole in the firewood and spin the device to wind it up.
Allow the device to unwind itself. As the arrow is driven into the fireboard, embers will form.

This bushcraft fire starting technique requires almost no effort to create a fire and is great for people of smaller stature and strength. However, the pump fire drill itself will take some time to build so it should be practiced or built ahead of time and then brought out when needed. Here is a video showing the pump fire drill technique:

Fire Piston

The fire piston is a primitive fire starting technique that is a bit more complicated to make, requiring the use of hardware to build. The fire piston uses the pressure created by quickly ramming the piston down a chamber to generate enough heat and pressure to ignite a piece of charcloth or other tinder.

You will need a piece of copper or strong plastic pipe about 10 centimeters long. Sand the ends so they are smooth.
Plug one end using a brass end cap, piece of metal, or wood. Glue the cap on so it fits snug.
Take a 10-millimeter thick wooden piston and cut it so that it is a couple of centimeters longer than the tube.
Insert the piston into a power drill. Run a file on the end of the piston, a couple of millimeters from the end and run the drill until the file carves a smooth indented line around the piston.
Insert a 10-millimeter rubber ring around the ring in the piston. Drill a 5-millimeter hole into the end of the piston on the side with the rubber ring.
Apply a thin layer of glue to the end of the piston to clog the pores of the wood. Drill a 10-millimeter hole into a cylindrical wooden knob and glue the bare end of the piston into the knob.
Fill the hole at the end of the piston with charcloth.
Lubricate the rubber ring and insert the piston into the copper tube. Forcefully push the piston into the tube quickly, pulling it back out immediately.
Do this repeatedly until the charcloth ignites, then transfer the ignited charcloth to your tinder.

While the fire piston method does require some effort to build, creating a fire with it is incredibly easy. Although it can’t be built out in the woods with simple tools it is still useful to learn. Once a fire piston is built it’s a light weight and compact addition to any fire starting kit.

Bonus Method: Fire Starting Tools You Can Depend On

While primitive fire starting is a huge asset in your survival skill set, being prepared with the right tools can make your life a lot easier.

I recommend the SurvivalSPARK Emergency Magnesium Fire Starter as mentioned above. It is a fire starting tool that you can count on getting a fire started quickly in an emergency situation.

The other interesting survival fire starter worth checking out is the Everstryke Pro Waterproof Emergency Lighter which integrates a wick and striker wheel in a small waterproof housing.

What is the Best Primitive Fire Making Method?

In an ideal world we could just go out and master all of these 6 techniques and be ready to build a fire no matter the circumstances. However not everybody has time to master all these survival skills. What I suggest is picking one, or 2 at most and practicing it until you can create a fire using it in your sleep. Picking which method to learn comes down to several factors including:

What resources are available
How much time you have
How much energy you want to expend

Feel free to try out all 6 methods to find which is the best for you. Once you have that figured out practice, practice, practice. The time invested improving your primitive fire starting skills will pay huge dividends if you ever need to start a fire without matches. Always remember, Chance Favors The Well Prepared.

Your Thoughts?

Do you have a favorite primitive fire making method? Have any tips for starting a fire without matches? Let us know in the Comments Section below, thanks!

How To Pack Your Bug Out Bag For Survival

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Scared yet excited, Rick raced anxiously to retrieve the large bundle he had carefully hidden in the corner of his garage. This was the moment he had anticipated, and he was ready.

Several months ago, Rick had come across a video about Bug Out Bags (BOBs) while surfing the Internet; even with no outdoor or survival experience, he decided he needed one. Planning a personal BOB seemed like an awful lot of work, so in his panic he bought the most expensive pre-made bug out kit he could find. After dropping a whopping $3,000, he felt confident he was prepared for any emergency and left the pack hidden for 2 years. Now, he would finally get the chance to use it.

What happened to force him to bug out? It could have been any number of things such a natural disaster, civil unrest, viral outbreak, or some other type of event that throws society into a freefall ; but the ‘why’ isn’t what’s important. When you need your BOB, the question ‘why’ becomes much less important than the question ‘will’: will this survival kit keep you alive for 72 hours? Using Rick as an example, I’m going to take you through the basic steps in properly packing your bug out kit so that if (or when) you need it, ‘will’ won’t be a question – it’ll be a certainty.

Choosing the Right BOB

No doubt you’ve spent months, maybe years, carefully planning out potential bug out scenarios and collecting the items you’ll need to survive should one of those scenarios pan out.

It’s now time to select the perfect bag for your kit. One of the key questions in choosing your bag is whether you select a bag big enough to hold all the items you need, or a bag that best fits your body and sacrifice some of your items if there isn’t enough room. The answer is: it depends.

What Features Should You Focus On?

The number one feature you want from your BOB is mobility. If you can’t move with it – what’s the point? Therefore, having a good fit is a must. To learn more about selecting the best bag for your situation and what to look for in terms of comfort and fit, please see our article How to Pick the Best Bug Out Bag Backpack for YOUR Survival Situation.

In addition to comfort, the pack must weigh enough to be carried wherever you need to go; this sometimes means paring down your items to only the most essential or packing more creatively.

With mobility as your number one priority, the best strategy is to find a bag that is most comfortable for your body type and tailor your items to fit in it. However, if you have a ‘can’t live without’ item that requires using a certain bag, you may consider packing your kit around your bag. Survivalist vlogger Envirosponsible provides a great example of such a situation in this video:

Let’s get back to Rick, our wannabe-prepper. Having simply bought the most expensive bag he could find, without consideration to how it would fit his body, he found his bag way too heavy. Additionally, not having tested the bag, he found that the straps dug into to his shoulders and made it almost impossible to walk for more than a mile at a time. Instead of being the life-saving asset he intended it to be, his BOB has turned into a hindrance.

Deciding What to Pack

There are myriad lists available online that can provide you with suggestions for essential bug out items, including broad-based lists such as this one from Survival Cache as well as highly specific ones such as our own Bug Out Bag List. You can even purchase pre-made bug out bags; if this is something that interests you, we’ve provided a fairly robust review of some of the pre-mades out there. However, keep in mind that no two kits are the same; the person who best knows what should be in your survival kit is you, and customization is key.

Customize Your Kit

What you pack depends entirely on your own situation and location; check out our past articles on how to tailor your kit for an urban location or a wilderness location and see how they differ. Customizing based on your own situation is essential – a well-stocked urban kit could be useless in the wilderness, while a bug out kit perfect for California wouldn’t hold up for a minute against Canadian winter.

The most difficult part of packing is deciding what goes in and what stays out. You can never be 100% sure of what you’ll need should disaster strike so the best you can do is make educated guesses.

Test Your Gear

A great way to test your kit is to actually go and try it out. Spending time with your bag under non-disaster conditions will not only help you determine what is essential and what may be missing, but also allows you to test out your equipment and become more proficient with its use. A good adage to remember is that if you have two, you have one, and if you have one, you have none – always bring a back up.

Organize Your Bug Out Bag

Generally, your must-have BOB items will fall into the following categories:

Shelter and safety / protection
Water
Ways to make fire
First aid
Hygiene
Food
Tools

The types of items you choose for each of these categories depends on your personal situation, but the greatest tool you can add to your bug out kit is knowledge. The more you know, the more useful your pack will be in an emergency situation and the less you will have to pack.

For those with minimal survival training, packing a survival guide is a must (the SAS Survival Handbook is a solid resource). If you want to develop your survival skills, there are many resources available to you including Creek Stewart’s Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag, which has an entire chapter dedicated to developing the mental and physical preparedness needed to survive in a disaster scenario.

How about our friend Rick, how is he faring in his disaster scenario? Unfortunately, not too well. Since he didn’t bother to try out any of his gear, he found that he couldn’t even use half of the items in his bag. His $300 water filtration system? Completely useless without the knowledge of how to forage for water. Thankfully, he’s found one item he actually can use and that he desperately needs – aspirin. Unfortunately, it expired over a year ago.

Packing the Bag

When packing your BOB, much like choosing your bag, mobility is key, while utility is a close second. The organization of your pack cannot be haphazard and must be approached with the same methodical process as planning for your bug out kit.

However, keep in mind that the purpose of a BOB is not for a hiking or camping trip – it’s to save your life in an emergency. As such, you want to prioritize the packing of your survival kit slightly differently than you would a hiking or camping backpack while still keeping in mind basic rules for properly distributing your load.

A properly packed BOB is not only easier to carry, but can also fit more stuff. Generally, you want to keep heavier items further down in your bag and close to your back and vice versa for lighter items. The following is an example of a properly packed BOB from The Prepper Journal:

In his book, Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag, Creek Stewart recommends organizing your items into three categories:

Non-urgent
Urgent
Emergency

Your non-urgent items would go into the pack first. Non-urgent items are those that won’t be retrieved with a sense of urgency and include items such as:

Extra clothing
Bedding
Hygiene
Miscellaneous supplies

Your urgent items would be packed second, for easier access, and include items such as:

Shelter
Water
Food
Fire starting items

Emergency items are those that will need to be accessed within a moment’s notice; these items should be kept on your person or in easy to reach pockets of your pack. Emergency items include:

Communication gear such as radios, walkie talkies, or whistles
Self-defense gear
Flashlights
Personal tools such as survival knife
Foul weather gear such as your poncho

Within each of these categories, you should compartmentalize your items based on a system that will make it easy for you to find what you’re looking for in a hurry. When packing your items, look for creative ways to save space; some popular tricks include wrapping duct tape around a water bottle as well as packing items inside other items, such as your cooking pots.

Keep your gear dry

Above all else, remember to waterproof your items; you can use professional grade plastic bags or simple Ziploc bags, just ensure your items are protected. Creek Stewart also recommends lining your pack with an industrial strength garbage bag as an added layer of protection.

Stay Low Key

While mobility and utility should be your foremost concerns when packing your BOB, it is also important to keep in mind safety. Don’t make it obvious how much gear you’re packing; in desperate times you don’t want to become a target for scavengers. The more your bag looks like a simple backpack and less like a survival powerhouse, the safer you’ll be. This is known as the Grey Man Principle.

Once you’ve packed your BOB, don’t toss it in a corner and forget about it. Your kit should be constantly evolving to reflect your lifestyle and location. We recommend a quarterly review to ensure the items you’ve chosen are still the best choices and that nothing has expired, leaked or been damaged. For tips on periodic BOB reviews and a checklist to help make sure you have everything covered check out our article, How Often Should You Update Your Bug Our Kit?

Conclusion

I bet you’re wondering how Rick is faring. As you’d expect, not too well. Since his store-bought BOB was packed more for show than utility, he had to stop and unpack his entire bag every time he needed something, slowing him down at critical points.

However, he doesn’t need to worry about his pack anymore; his flashy bag and expensive tools hanging from the side attracted the attention of less-prepared parasites who quickly took it off his hands. As it turns out, when SHTF, Rick would have been better off pocketing his $3,000.

Don’t end up like our friend Rick by letting let packing become an afterthought; put the same effort and analysis into packing your kit as you did into planning it. When disaster strikes, it won’t be the guy with the biggest BOB who wins, it’ll be the guy who best knows how to use his.

Your Thoughts?

Do you have a trick to pack your bug out bag as efficiently as possible? Do you know of any major mistakes that should be avoided? Let us know in the Comments Section below, thanks!

What Is Bushcraft: Survival Skills, Tools, & How To Learn

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The old saying goes “The more skills you have the less gear you need”. This is a great mindset to have and it provides a clear path on the journey to preparedness. Today I am going to share with you a set of skills and tools that all add up to the overall field known as “Bushcraft”. If you are an old hand at wilderness survival or are just asking, “What is Bushcraft?” this article will show you what skills to learn and tools to use when growing your bushcraft knowledge and survival abilities.

What Is Bushcraft?

Bushcraft is the art of using the resources provided by our natural environment to survive and thrive in the great outdoors. It combines the knowledge of how to best use the plants and animals at your disposal with some basic bushcraft tools to make outdoor living easier and more efficient. In learning bushcraft skills we benefit in many ways including:

Increasing our ability to adapt to new challenges
Becoming more self sufficient
Growing our confidence
Increasing our survival skills
Becoming better prepared to face unforeseen problems

Bushcraft is not just one thing to learn. It is a group of related skills that help you survive and adapt to overcome obstacles. Although traditional bushcraft is focused on wilderness survival, its mindset of using the world around you can easily be applied to an urban or suburban setting.

Learning bushcraft survival skills will go a long way in making you better prepared the next time a disaster strikes. Many of the skills and projects within the field of bushcraft can be directly applied to survival situations and are immensely useful to learn.

What Are Bushcraft Skills?

Bushcraft encompasses several primitive skills to shape the world around you and meet your survival needs. In this article I am going to focus on the fundamental bushcraft skills that are most related to survival:

Food Foraging
Trapping and Hunting Game
Water Gathering and Purification
Shelter Building
Fire Building

Now we have discussed many aspects of these skills in other articles (such as this one) but remember, bushcraft teaches you how to do all these things with just a basic tool and the knowledge in your head. Each of these bushcraft skills have many smaller subsets of tasks and abilities that make them up. Let’s take a look at what you need to learn to become proficient at these fundamental bushcraft survival skills.

Food Foraging

Knowledge of local plants
Camp cooking
Avoidance of toxic plants
How to efficiently harvest

Trapping and Hunting

Tracking and stalking game
Reading animal signs
Building snares
Using lures
Hiding human scent
Tying knots
Making cordage
Cleaning and cooking game

Water Gathering and Purification

Foraging for water
Making a water filter
Purifying water
Fire building (for boiling)
Container making (for carrying water)

Shelter Building

Felling trees
Batoning branches
Harvesting other materials
Thatching or weaving grass or bark
Knot tying
Making cordage
Natural insulation and waterproofing

Fire Building

Collecting wood
Gathering tinder
Batoning branches
Building a bow drill, fire plough or other device
Building a fire pit
Types of fires and their uses

How Long Does It Take To Learn Bushcraft Skills?

As you can see there is a lot to learn! While becoming a bushcraft master can take several years or longer the good news in that there are many small skills that can be quickly learned to get you started. Additionally, some of the more basic skills like making cordage and batoning branches have many uses and can be applied to more than one discipline.

If you are just starting out

If you are starting with no base of bushcraft knowledge it is best to begin with one of the easier skills to learn. Many of these can be learned in a matter of hours and be further developed whenever you have the time to practice. Some basic bushcraft skills to start out with are:

Batoning wood
Carving simple tools
Lashing basic camp structures such as a tripod
Knot tying
Basic fire starting

If you have a basic knowledge already

With some basic bushcraft knowledge under your belt you can start to learn some of the more intermediate skills such as:

Foraging for food
Primitive fire building (no matches or lighter)
Shelter building
Basic snares and trapping
Water purification

For the pros

If you have a working knowledge of survival or outdoor living you can start to take on some of the more advanced bushcraft projects and skills such as:

Making rope and cordage
Advanced structure building (camp oven, beds, thatching)
Advanced foraging and trapping
Land navigation
Tracking

What Are Bushcraft Tools?

At its most basic level bushcraft is the art of going out into the woods and surviving with nothing more than the clothes on your back and an edged tool. Nearly every skill and most bushcraft projects use a bushcraft tool to make your labor easier.

bushcraft projects — A solid bushcraft toolkit will make most projects easier and faster

Bushcraft Knife

A fixed blade knife is the most common bushcraft tool. Finding the best bushcraft knife (Check out my guide for picking the best fixed blade knife here) for your kit will make many camp tasks easier and faster. Bushcraft knives are best suited for light and medium duty tasks:

Batoning branches smaller than your wrist
Carving or whittling wood
Skinning game
Making snares and traps
Preparing food

Here are my favorite knives for bushcraft:

Knife	Size	Cost	Features	Blade Material
KA-BAR Becker 22	Overall: 10.5" Blade: 5.25" Weight: 14.6oz	$$$	Glassbreaker/hammer pommel. Extreme heavy-duty construction, ergonomic grip.	1095 Cro-Van steel
Tom Brown Tracker	Overall: 11.90" Blade: 4.25" Weight: 28oz	$$$$	Serrated back and multi-level main edge give this knife maximum versatility. Heavy duty, high quality construction.	1095 High Carbon Steel
CRKT Ultima	Overall: 10" Blade: 5" Weight: 8.3oz	$$	Patented Veff serrations, pry tip in pommel, fantastically designed grip melds to your hand in any conditions.	1.4116 Stainless steel
ESEE-6 Survival Knife	Overall: 11.75" Blade: 6.5" Weight: 12oz	$$$$	Textures handle with contoured design provide excellent grip when wet. Glassbreaker/hammer pommel.	1095 High Carbon Steel
Morakniv Companion Heavy Duty Knife	Overall: 8.9" Blade: 4.1" Weight: 4.8oz	$	The king of basic knives. Far better performance than expected out of such a low price point. These knives have been used by cost conscious hunters and campers for many years.	High Carbon Steel
Fallkniven S1 Forest Knife	Overall: 9.7" Blade: 5.1" Weight: 6.7oz	$$$$	Straightforward knife built using some of the best materials available. High corrosion resistance.	VG-10 Stainless steel

Tomahawk or Hatchet

As I discussed in my article “How To Choose The Best Tomahawk” (check it out here), a small axe is a highly versatile bushcraft tool. Generally the design of a bushcraft axe makes it best suited for heavier duty tasks:

Chopping wood
Felling trees
Splitting logs
Butchering large game
Digging
Hammering stakes or posts

Here are some of my favorite bushcraft axes and tomahawks:

Axe	Length/Weight	Cost	Features
Fiskars X7 14 Inch Hatchet	16.5" 1.4 lbs	$	FiberComp handle is nearly indestructible. Designed with power-to-weight ratio for efficient splitting and chopping.
CRKT Kangee	13.75" 1.5 lbs	$$$	Sharpened spine and beard, multiple grip options
Cold Steel Frontier Hawk	22" 1.5 lbs	$	Also available with flat butt for pounding. Basic, cost effective hawk.
WatchFire Camper's Hatchet	10" 13.6 oz	$	Large head, compact handle.
Gerber Gator Axe II Saw Combo	15.2" 1.8 lbs	$$	Saw is hidden in the axe handle. Glass-filled nylon handle is extremely strong.

Machete

Functionally a machete is a hybrid between a large knife and small axe. It can be used for many of the tasks I mentioned above. The long, heavy blade of a machete is best used for medium to heavy cutting jobs:

Clearing Brush
Batoning large branches
Chopping wood
Digging

Tool	Features
Woodsman's Pal	Designed as a bushcraft tool from the ground up. Heavy duty blade cuts branches up to 1.5" thick in a single stroke and sickle hook on the back side easily cuts vines and briars.

Saw

The saw is a more specialized bushcraft tool as it is only used for cutting branches. It is however highly efficient at this task. This advantage should be considered if you are planning on working on any bushcraft projects that will require you to cut lots of wood such as building a:

Platform
Hut
Camp table or chair
Bush ladder

Saw	Features	Cost
Sportsman Pocket Chain Saw	Lightweight and ultra-compact. Can be used as is or combined with a branch to make a basic bow saw.	$
Bahco Laplander Folding Saw	Good basic folding saw. The 8" blade has a safety lock for both opening and closing and is coated with a rust inhibitor.	$
Sven Saw	The original classic! I used one of these in Boy Scouts 20 years ago and they are still chugging along. Packs down very compact but quickly assembles to a full sized bow saw.	$$

Bushcraft Backpack

Lastly we have the pack that you carry all your bushcraft tools and other gear in. As highlighted in my article on how to choose a backpack (read it here), make sure you pick a comfortable bag that matches your body type and that you can comfortably carry. It is also important that your bushcraft backpack is waterproof and has multiple compartments rather than one large sack. This makes it far easier to efficiently organize and then find your gear when you want to use it!

Backpack	Features	Cost
Global Assault Pack	Large, versatile bag with many organization features. Can carry all your cushcraft tools, clothes, and other gear for a weekend in the woods.	$$
Alice Frame Pack	Great basic pack with a time tested design. 1 huge main compartment and 6 smaller pouches easily organize your gear.	$$$
Long Range Patrol Pack	Modern military style day pack for shorter bushcraft trips. Hydration ready, lots of storage, and multiple handling options make this a highly versatile bushcraft bag.	$

OK but what is the BEST bushcraft tool?

Any of the bushcraft tools mentioned above can be used for nearly every bushcraft project or task. Remember that one of the core ideas of bushcraft is to be adaptable in approaching problems. The best bushcraft tool is really whatever you have with you! Nearly every bushcraft project can be made easier by using a knife, hatchet, or saw at some point so either choose your favorite or bring more than one.

Think about what you are going to try and accomplish as well as what the trees and other resources are in the area you will be working. Will you be doing lots of heavy chopping? Make sure to bring an axe! Will you be doing detailed carving for snares and traps? Having the best bushcraft knife will be an essential tool.

If you have time to plan your bushcraft project out it never hurts to carry all the items you think you will need. It is better to have a piece of equipment with you than wish you had brought it along!

What beginner bushcraft projects I can try?

As you can see from the bushcraft skills list above there is a huge range of tasks to learn and try. Starting off with some simple bushcraft projects is a great way to get your feet wet and start learning some useful new skills! Lets take a look at a beginner bushcraft project from each of the 5 skills we talked about earlier.

Food Foraging Bushcraft Project:

Go out in the woods and try to forage one edible plant. Make sure you read up on what local plants are edible and palatable and then give it a try! Check out this video for some tips:

Trapping and Hunting Bushcraft Project

Find and identify one set of animal tracks. Again, read up on animals in your area and where they tend to travel. Focus on common animals to increase your chances of success. Here is another video to help get you started:

Water Gathering and Purification Bushcraft Project

Learn and practice one water purification method. This can be boiling, building a solar still, filtering, or any other. The important thing is that you actually practice doing it. Note for this beginner bushcraft project I suggest practicing with bottled water just to be safe. Here is a video to get you started:

Shelter Building Bushcraft Project

Build a basic shelter such as a debris hut. This is an extremely useful bushcraft survival skill and can save your life if you are ever caught outside overnight. Pour a bottle of water on the completed shelter to judge whether to not it would keep you dry. Extra bonus points if you actually sleep in your shelter to test it out. Here is a video on how to build a debris hut:

Fire Building

Build a small fire. This encompasses many important fire building skills including gathering wood, finding and preparing tinder, and actually building your fire. If you already know how to build a basic fire try building an upside down fire (how to article here)

Good luck!

Good luck with your bushcraft projects! If you choose to do any or all of these you will be well on your way to growing your bushcraft survival skills and making yourself more prepared. Get out there and take action!

More Bushcraft Resources

As you can see bushcraft is a huge field with many skills and activities to learn. I have provided a basic overview to answer the question of “What is Bushcraft?” but there are lots of great resources out there to help you explore further.

Bushcraft Books

Book	What It's Good For
Bushcraft by Richard Graves	This was my first bushcraft book. Great explanations of skills and how to apply the bushcraft mindset to problems. Lots of hand drawn illustrations, including some of the ones in this article!
Bushcraft 101 by Dave Canterbury	A good beginner book. Focuses mainly on the survival aspects of bushcraft.
Essential Bushcraft by Ray Mears	Covers survival, projects, and crafts. Lots of color illustrations to help you along.
The Forager's Harvest by Samuel Thayer	Great for an intro to foraging. Many tutorials and over 200 color photos.

Bushcraft Community and Instructional Sites

Bushcraft UK – A supportive, helpful forum. You do not need to live in the UK to join.
Ray Mears’ Blog – One of the big personalities in the bushcraft realm. Really knows his stuff.
Dryad Bushcraft – Lots of FAQ and How To Articles about skills and techniques.
Bushcraft And Survival Skills Blog – How to articles and gear reviews

Conclusion: What is Bushcraft?

Bushcraft is a diverse and extremely useful skill set to add to your survival arsenal. This guide should help get you started but there is no teacher better than experience. I challenge you to go out into the world and practice your bushcraft skills. You will make yourself more confident, adaptable, and better prepared for whatever fate throws your way. Always remember, Chance Favors The Well Prepared.

Your Thoughts?

Have you tried a bushcraft project? Do you have a must have bushcraft tool that you love? Let us know in the Comments Section below, thanks!

5 Quick Tips To Make A Better EDC Kit

Lets get started!

What is an EDC Kit?

An EDC (Every Day Carry) kit is the set of items that you carry with you everywhere. If you haven’t given any thought to what is in your EDC kit you probably have the basic items everyone takes with them when they leave their house such as your keys, phone, and wallet. However with some simple consideration you can add to this short list to help yourself be better prepared and generally make your life easier. Common purposes of the gear in an EDC kit include:

Keeping survival or “get home” gear on your person at all times
Making your life easier
Solving common problems that you face regularly
Protecting yourself from threats
Giving you peace of mind

So, what should be in your EDC kit? Well, it can be pretty much anything you can imagine. Some people just stick to the basics and others carry purpose made gear to solve specific problems they expect to face. No matter what you currently carry these 5 Quick Tips will help you make an objective assessment of your needs and improve your kit to best meet your specific challenges:

Quick Tip 1: What Threats or Challenges Are You Likely To Face?

Making a realistic assessment of what problems you are likely to face is the first step towards identifying what is most useful for you to have in your EDC kit. Just because every kit you see online seems to have a notepad or particular gadget doesn’t mean yours needs to have this as well. Tailor your ideal kit to YOUR specific needs.

This is done by looking at the threats that are present in your local environment (earthquake, terrorism, mugging, etc) as well as problems you are likely to face frequently (walking in a dark parking lot, needing to open packages/boxes at work). Make a realistic assessment of both the probability of these challenges occurring and the potential impact they will have on you. Make your ideal list based on this assessment. My “How To Make An EDC List” article covers this in greater detail, click here to read it for more detailed information.

Quick Tip 2: What Do You Carry Already?

Everyone already has some items that they carry with them that are essential to their day-to-day. This may be the basics of wallet, keys, and phone that I mentioned above or a full blown get home bag, depending on how much thought you have put into it at this point. Take a good look at what you are already carrying with you and think of what you can remove or upgrade to better address the challenges you identified in Quick Tip #1. For example:

I carried keys around on my keychain to apartments I no longer lived in for YEARS until I actually took a look at what I had on there. Many people do the same with rewards card to stores without even considering it. Do you have similar useless junk in your EDC kit that you can get rid of?
Do you have an old bottle opener that you carry around that is beat up and worn out? Why not upgrade to something like a mini-multitool so you can open those bottles plus have the ability to pry, screw, cut, and torque as you need?
Don’t be afraid to remove anything you haven’t used in a while or that does not meet the challenges you identified above, you can always add it back in if your threats change again in the future.

Quick Tip 3: What can you add to better address these challenges?

When people start seriously thinking about what to add to their EDC kit the most common items that they add are:

A quality, reliable knife (see my EDC Knife Guide here)
A bright, compact flashlight with good battery life (see my EDC Flashlight Guide here)
A tactical pen (for more info on Tactical Pens see my article here)

The reason why these are popular is that they are all compact, light weight, and can be used across a HUGE variety of situations.
When you are thinking about what to add to your EDC kit look back to your initial assessment in Quick Tip #1 to see what you need to address those challenges. Some other items that are commonly added to EDC kits are:

First Aid Kit
Camera
Rain Gear
Water Bottle
Fire starting kit
Survival Whistle
Compass
Notepad
Paracord

Quick Tip 4: How to Carry Your EDC Kit

So, you have removed things you don’t need from your EDC kit and added some useful tools as well. If you have done this based on the threats and challenges you identified in Quick Tip #1 you should have a lean kit that is optimized to meet your individual needs. Awesome!
Now consider how you are going to carry it. Remember, this is an EVERY DAY Carry Kit. So you will have it with you whenever you step out your front door. If your kit is awkward to carry around you will want to leave it behind and it will then be USELESS when you need it!

A small kit it should be able to fit in your pockets or purse
A medium sized kit can be carried and organized in a shoulder bag or pouch
Many people carry larger kits in small backpacks

If you do decide to carry your kit in an EDC bag make sure you choose one that allows you to organize your gear in a way that makes it easy to find. For detailed info on types of EDC bags and how to choose one that fits YOUR kit check out my article here.

Quick Tip 5: Periodically review your kit

Once you have chosen your EDC kit and are carrying it around for a while it is wise to review it periodically. You will want to review what you are carrying and make sure every item is still relevant to your needs. In the modern day world threats change rapidly:

If you are facing a new challenge you may want to add gear to help overcome it
If a threat has changed you may want to remove gear to lighten up your kit

This is a long term tip but if you want to set it into action RIGHT NOW you can set a recurring reminder on your phone or calendar to remind yourself to review your EDC Kit in a couple months. I like to review mine quarterly (every 3 months) but pick a schedule that works best for you.

Want Even MORE Info On Building Your EDC Kit?

If you are looking for even more information on how to build your ultimate EDC kit you can check out my book, The Every Day Carry Guide. It is a comprehensive manual that will teach you:

How to be prepared at all times – no matter where you are
How to build your first EDC kit from scratch
How to refine an existing kit to make it more effective
How to pick the best gear to realistically make you more prepared
How to assess threats and risks in your every day life

Conclusion

Following these 5 Quick Tips will put you well on your way to making yourself better prepared to face whatever challenges the world is likely to throw at you. Remember to keep your kit lean and specific for the threats you’ve identified. For more information on some of the topics I mentioned feel free to check out the in-depth articles I have written about Every Day Carry:

Thanks for reading and until next time remember: Chance Favors The Well Prepared.

Chris

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