I created two of these bags for my wife and I to keep in the trunks of our cars.
I watched quite a number of videos to get ideas from other people about what
should or should not be in the bags.
The bags were designed to contain everything that we might need to get home in an urban environment
over a distance of up to 35 miles.
And my initial intent was to make the bag as light as possible.
I think we've achieved this with a bag that weighs under 10 pounds.
So let's take a look.
Right off the top, this is a single-shoulder carry bag, but I've added a waist strap
to it to keep it from flopping around and it makes it quite comfortable.
I also have the ability to switch shoulders on it.
It could be reconfigured within just four five seconds to go for the left shoulder or the right shoulder
shoulder so that as my shoulder gets tired of carrying it, I can switch to the
other one and get some relief. So it works either way I've got it. So it's very easy to
put on and take off because it is a single shoulder bag and just sort of
throw it over your shoulder and then use that extra strap to strap it to your
waist so that it's reasonably secure and this and trying to fall off your
shoulder the bag has several pockets and pouches on it and so I want to talk
about what's on the exterior in the bag first first on 24 ounce metal water
container this is minimal water especially for round here but I expect
that because I'm in an urban environment water will be available people find
water in a pool or in a tap or something like that along the way so I should be
able to replenish unless things have really gone far along I also have on the
exterior a survival whistle this is one of the loudest whistles that's available
and this particular whistle would be very good for signaling and it's outside
and accessible
also on the outside I have a small pouch where I have things that I might need to
access immediately there's a tiny Leatherman tool there's a Bic lighter
there's a button compass and there's a good Phoenix flashlight with a lanyard
so the things that I'm likely to need in an in short order on the open on the
outside of the pack inside the pack we have a spare set of wool socks which
give you a change of socks for walking pair of gloves so you can protect your
hands when you have to manipulate or move through things that could cause cut
scratches and then later on infections a shemagh which is useful for a million
different things and then a very good frog talk poncho which also can be used
as a field expedient shelter so it could be held up with some cordage okay let's
look next at tools and equipment so we have some cordage is what 50 feet of
paracord here 550 paracord a very interesting little survival knife which
is very inexpensive but came with a sheath has some paracord wrapped around
the tangle the handle it's a full tang has a little bit of saw in the back of a
pretty good tanto knife and it has a fire steel also there's a small roll of
duct tape some battery replacements for my electronic equipment on my flashlight
carabiners that I can attach something to outside of my pack conveniently and
easily there's large size freezer bags that I can use to carry water if
necessary or other items then there's $120 in cash plus about 10 dollars in
quarters in case we find a working vending machine or something like that
and a very small Leatherman very compact has some nice tools in it and then two
sizes of tie wraps including the high quality ones with the metal tang in them
and that can be used for field repairs or to attach something to the pack or
they have a million uses so they can be really helpful okay that brings us to
personal protection stuff first we have two particulate masks in case I'm
traveling with someone else you can both have masks in case I'm required for
smoke or dust just to live in the deserts we have some sun protection for
skin and lips have some personal protection in non-lethal and high
and pepper spray also I wanted to remind people a tack of a spare set of your
prescription glasses these are cheaters which are fine for me and then a little
bag of aspirin here just to remind me to tell you about bringing your own
medications if you have something you need daily I'll bring two or three days
or more of your medications with you see you have them in the open become
desperate and over something that's medically necessary and first aid we
have a Spanish a small one and then a first-aid kit which contains some night
travel gloves a number of bandages different kinds of medications and
mostly two mole skin and blister protection because if you are walking a
great deal of distance and you wind up with something that something comes up
on your feet you have to take care of your feet have an Israeli bandage in
case of some kind of major trauma for lighting we have a couple of snap lights
which are good long term you know multi-hour solutions to give some light
so you can navigate or see headlamps so that you can operate in the dark
hands-free small flashlight and a spare battery for the small flashlight and
both the flashlight in the spare are lithium batteries because they're
considerably lighter than alkaloids and they last longer and they also have a
low much longer shelf-life so you know I'm less likely to have a situation
where I pull the flashlight out in its dead and I have no way of getting it
going moving on we have some hygiene items
slot and part roll of toilet paper some hand sanitizer some button towels these
you can take a cap of water from your water bottle drop this in and it makes a
wet towel that you can use there's some soap flakes some wet naps and some wet
ones for keeping clean and then there's also a very small camping or hiking
towel because you're forever getting wet or may have to wash your hands and this
is a way of making whatever that is dry again you can hang it on your pack to
dry it out so you can reuse it again later next we have some fire and
nutrition items it's three sources of fire here first is a very inexpensive
Finnell lens it's very lightweight and boy down here in the southwest does this
do a job of lighting a fire you can have a fighter running in seconds just using
the Sun and we have Sun most days have a deck lighter and a fire steel which is a
fuckin fire seal beside the one that we had in the knife
plus a little bit of cotton in Vaseline for fire starter and some as
bitch fuel tabs which could be used for making long-term fire without having to
gather anything or basically enough fire to boil the water or something like that
we have some teriyaki which is good for hydration or salt which you lose fast
when you're sweating in the desert some granola bars some coffee packs and some
sugar go in the coffee and also some hydration have us to make flavored water
so you can drink something other than just water may cut the flavor or
something that maybe doesn't taste so good now water purification tablets in
case we need them and then very important we have a sillcock key the
sillcock key is used in the in an urban environment almost every building has
some kind of a faucet on the back of the building somewhere sometimes they're
covered with a metal shield and all you could see is some holes in the metal but
inside there is a faucet that has no handle and the silcock key is the tool
that's used to turn that water on an off suit so we can obtain water we have a
metal 24 ounce water container 24 ounces gives me something for survival it's not
too heavy and because it's metal I can use a tea water so I can boil new water
and make it safe to drink using that container and it fits the
pack and doesn't add too much weight for navigation and communications I have
laminated city street map a state map and a basic navigation guide so that I
don't have to rely on just what I can remember from Boy Scouts and I have a
right in the rain pad and pans so that I can make notes or leave notes and I have
a reasonably good orienteering compass with a magnifier which is another fire
source and for navigation and a small button compass that goes on the outside
of the pack so I have something ready to use I also have a celestron monocular so
I can see down the road and can see what's up ahead can swap danger or
opportunity pretty lightweight normally I wouldn't keep it in the pack but I do
want to protect the optics so it doesn't get scratched up for damaged and all the
vibration from the car so it's inside that but almost nothing else I have is
inside its packaging because that's just unnecessary extra weight I also have an
FRS and gmrs radio which has higher power and can reach a little bit farther
and gmrs requires that you have a license but a group license will cover
all of your radios for your group it's not very expensive you can easily get it
online also have a small signal mirror and a
very very loud survival whistle so that I can signal to someone else that a
level beyond what you could do with just with your voice all of this is carried
in a unit gear crossbody sling pack it's a one shoulder pack seems to be pretty
well made it has a little bit of webbing in here so it's not too hot the only
thing I've added to it is an extra strap that holds it down across your waist so
it's a little bit more comfortable to carry long term has a small pouch on the
on the straps you can get access things in my case a knife on the far side a
compass and the things that you might need has a baggage but a water bottle in
this case my steel water bottle goes in it has a carry handle on it it's also
set up so you can put a hydration pack in it although I don't use it that way
and then has a pack on the back where you can put in flat things and then 2x
or 3x on pouches that give lots of capacity and I'm able to fit everything
in it's in a pretty sturdily built seems like a pretty good well-made bag and
rounds out my entire kit to little over nine point four pounds and meets my
design goals trying to get a pack under 10 pounds that had everything in it now
almost everything that's in here is things that I ordered from Amazon and it
comes from a lot of research that I did with from other people that have done
similar videos and I want to thank them for their expertise and for their ideas
and suggestions which have culminated and and what I think currently is the
best pack that I can build within my requirements it is a little pricey oh
and put all this together and a lot of people may substitute items that are
less expensive to procure I think for each of the packs my wife and I have in
our cars we're out of pocket something around three hundred dollars but of
course that includes about $130 in cash that's in the pocket so if you're not
carrying that cash or the cash is kind of separately from the equipment it's
considerably less than that we also keep in the trunks of our cars walking shoes
hats jackets and items for personal protection I hope you find this video
useful and I've included a complete list of all the items in the bag in the
comments below so you can use this as the basis of your own
man if you're watching this you probably have some great ideas about to get home
bag too so let me know what you think what have I missed what could I do to
make it better what have you got in your bag that I've overlooked let me know in
the comments below and don't forget to like the video it really helps me out