You can do this with any watch, analog or digital, if it has hour and minute hands. You can recreate hour and minute hands with twigs or stones, but the watch is very helpful. The method described here only works in the northern hemisphere. You will also need a watch that is set correctly (doesn’t have to be exact but should be accurate within a couple of minutes).
Absolutely! GPS can fail, or if you take a bad fall it can break. Same with a compass, but I have my compass in a padded pouch as well as a map in a waterproof map holder.
People hate my answer, but the best survival pack is the one that carries all your items you need to survive while making it relatively comfortable to carry for an extended period. Most people shop for a pack, then all the items, and find out that the pack is not sized appropriately (usually too small) for what you need to carry.
There are a lot of acronyms for everything these days, and it would be nice to have a place to go to find ones specific to a category, in this case, communications.
This is my go-to water bottles for adventuring and have bottles for my various survival packs. I carry two of these, one is plastic, and one is stainless steel.
There are seven essential skills for survival. If you have these 7 skills down and practice it on a regular basis, you will be able to survive for a very long time. That being said, you need to practice often like more than once a year. I recommend camping in a remote location (not glamping or car camping) and test these skills 4 times a year at minimum.
I love this question. All of this can be packed, nested in different items, or worn and it doesn’t take as much space as you would think. It weighs less than 20 lbs. In the event I get injured or lost (I have never been lost yet), this provides enough items to survive until I am evacuated by a medical helicopter or found by search and rescue.
I had a problem with water bottles as I kept getting free bottles from different manufacturers, employers or events for free for many years. I have discarded most of the water bottles except the ones I tend to use on a regular basis. Nalgene water bottles have been my go-to water storage to start my hike and to use for processing water for decades.
It’s amazing how many people I know go on hikes and only have water, wallet, cell phone, car keys, and maybe a snack. I usually carry a full pack of items, enough to survive for a few days while I am signaling or attempt to make contact to be exfiltrated out if I am injured. I don’t get lost, but even if that happens, what I have in my pack will get me back out.
Yes. Most phones have mapping apps that can support offline downloading of a map of an area. Make sure to do that before you go on a hike or a hike through camping trip. Here are two native apps that can be used for GPS navigation using offline maps.
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