First off let’s real quick cover the intent of the go-bag. The go-bag is meant to sustain you in the interim until you can either make it home, make it to your bug out location or evacuate to a secondary location due to a natural disaster. The contents of your go-bag will vary depending on your climate, the season, distance you travel away from home each day and possible natural disasters for your region.
With that said, when building your go-bag, you should have a baseline of gear to start with and then you can tailor to your personal preferences and specific needs.
Based off my experience, the experience of others I work with and training I’ve had, here are the contents I run in my go-bag at this point in time.
- Camelbak water bottle with the PACE lid
- Sawyer Squeeze water filter
- Mora Garberg fixed blade knife
- Gerber Center-Drive multi-tool
- Princeton Tec headlamp
- Gorilla Duct tape
- Black Diamond Neutrino carabiner
- Rain shell or poncho (I’m packing a Black Diamond rain shell)
- Ranger roll (t-shirt, underwear, socks)
- My Medic SOLO medical kit
- Personal survival kit (contains my fire kit, compass, backup knife and backup flashlight)
- Comms (I’m personally packing a Snow Lizard iPhone case that provides an additional battery and solar charging)
- Notebook and Zebra pen
The key here is to keep it simple. It’s what you NEED when you NEED it.
This gear is in addition to what I have on me (my EDC), so there will be some redundancy which is a good thing in any type of situation where you are having to rely on the contents of your go-bag.
I did not include any ammunition or a firearm as this list is only a baseline. Add to it as you feel fit.
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