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Survival Kits - What You Need To Know

Survival kits are bags or backpacks of prepacked items that are easily mobile in a moment's notice. You can find kits for home, office, school and your car.

You can find kits that are good for 1 person up to kits that would take care of an entire family.

Most pre-made emergency kits have the essentials you need to survive short term (i.e. 72 hours) during a disaster like a hurricane, earthquake, evacuation or terrorism attack. For this reason, many survival packs are also called 72 hour kits.

What To Look For When Choosing A Survival Kit

It's really important when choosing a kit to know what to look for. Remember that a kit is your insurance policy when disaster strikes so it's essential that you choose high quality materials.

For example, the backpack should be made of high quality material (not a cheap department store backpack that will fall apart in a week). Look for reinforced straps and high quality stitching.

For food rations, look for lightweight, long lasting, high calorie foods. The best are freeze dried meals or high-calorie, non-thirst provoking, heat-resistant, food ration bars like Mainstay or Datrex.

Water in a kit can be heavy to carry. However make sure you have sufficient amounts. Also water purification tablets can also be helpful if you find water on your travels to drink.

Your kit should also have a high quality lightsource like a flashlight (not the cheap kind) with batteries and even backup batteries. Bright sticks can also help you see in a crunch.

And a heat and shelter source is critical like a heavy blanket or tent or both, hand warmers, candles, matches etc. Be careful because many 'survival kits' don't include a shelter source but in my opinion, you're going to need it.

survival kits

Other things to look for include a first aid kit, emergency radio, multi-purpose tool or swiss army knife, rain ponchos, waste bags, dust masks, toilet paper and writing pad with pen or pencil.

Also, remember to include your medication or personal toiletry items you'll need.Include these things and you're pretty much covered for whatever you're going to need in an emergency. And you'll be able to get through at least 72 hours.

Where To Find The Best Survival Kits For Sale:

While you can always put together an emergency kit on your own, it's often easier (and a whole lot cheaper) to buy one from a survival specialty store like Nitropak.

They get things in bulk at special prices so you can save quite a bit and get higher quality items in your kit.

For example, I particularly like their 72 hour executive kit. It has everything you need for one person including a heavy duty nylon backpack, solar flashlight/radio, non-thirst provoking, high calorie food ration bars, water ratio pouches, tube tent, comprehensive first aid kit and more. It's one of the best values on the market.

Another kit I like is the 2-week Deluxe Kit from Wise Foods.

It has many similar things to the kit above but adds some extra freeze-dried meals. If you're looking for a kit to last you more than 72 hours in an emergency, this might be the kit for you.

So those are a few things to look for when choosing survival emergency kits for you and your family. Remember too that you want a kit that is lightweight and can be carried by women and children (another reason I like the packs above since they're both lightweight).

For more information on emergency kits see these resources:

Nitropak Survival Emergency Kits

Wise Foods Grab-And-Go Kits