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The supplies you stored in your bag are sufficient to keep you provisioned and geared up for the trek back home, even if it takes a couple of days. The average person can walk about 3 miles per hour, so you're looking at a six-hour walk at best without rest — and that's not taking into account obstacles natural or manmade . In any event the bag needs to be well-made, comfortable, preferably waterproof or at least water resistant , and mid-sized so that it can hold all your gear but not hold you back. The color should also be muted so that, again, it does not call too much attention to itself.
Since I have some vision issues, I also carry a voice recorder that can store up to 400 short messages so catching fleeting moments or descriptions can be done quickly. The ones from Harbor Freight are inexpensive and rugged. This is where practicing those alternate routes so you can drive at least part of the way home is important. Also, keeping an eye on your surroundings and an ear to the ground can allow you to bug back in before a full blown crisis traps you. Charles Yor is an advocate of low-profile preparation, readiness as a virtue and avoiding trouble before it starts.
thoughts on “A Quest for the Perfect Get Home Bag”
You are the one who will have to rely on it, so build it out the way that makes sense for you. Just remember that every item you adds will weigh you down over a long hike. So, keep things realistic for your environment and don’t be afraid to take a two mile walk to see if your kit should lose a pound or two. I’d recommend taking a look at the Safariland 6378 ALS holster.
This pistol provides additional security without crushing your budget. The Covrt Boxpack is a roll-top bag that features a slide-adjusting sternum strap and reinforced padded shoulder straps for a secure and comfortable carry while on the go. Regardless of what cut the power to your building, you realize by looking out the window that the power is out in every building in the surrounding area. You're still hoping a run-of-the-mill power outage is the culprit when you see drivers exiting their cars in the middle of the street.
Why Would I Need a Get Home Bag?
If you don’t go stainless steel, you still need a way to carry water so consider a Nalgene bottle or a collapsible water bottle, if space is tight. Multitool – Like most of the items in your get home bag, your multi-tool should be high-quality and carefully considered. It should have at least wire cutters, cross point, and flat drivers, pliers, a saw blade and a solid knife blade.
Consider that your family members have lives of their own and a better than average chance that they too will be out of the house and scattered around your hometown. Simple, most of us are not total loners; we have family members including spouses, children, and perhaps even elderly parents that we care for. Also, chances are you won’t be taking off into the wild blue yonder from the get-go when an SHTF situation occurs while you are away from home.
Consult With Survival Pros
Consider that you may be moving through a landscape that changed in an instant, one covered with broken glass, jagged metal, or hot slag. One you may not have heard of or conceptualized is a Get-Home Bag, and that’s the topic of this article. Plenty of good-natured debate continually occurs over what, exactly, each one is, is not, and contains. Springfield Armory® recommends you seek qualified and competent training from a certified instructor prior to handling any firearm and be sure to read your owner’s manual. These articles and videos are considered to be suggestions and not recommendations from Springfield Armory. The views and opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Springfield Armory.
Increasing the chances of making it to your home base gives you the confidence and motivation to survive. You’ll need to think about the season, your region and the type of commute that’s available to you. For example, an urban environment may have required more specific items as compared to the rural routes.
Where legal, I recommend carrying a pistol in your bag that you can quickly move to your belt when life goes sideways. Even if you have a compact handgun you normally carry, having a duty-sized pistol with you can give you the flexibility that a second gun and more firepower offer. The most important thing to have is a pair of comfortable clothes and shoes. Before you worry about guns and maps, think about shoes.
This pre-packed bag contains survival essentials that can help keep you safe until you can return home. Another thing I did regularly was take what often turned out to be the long way home, by trying alternative routes, avoiding the normal faster freeways when I could. Having a map and familiarizing me with these alternate routes meant that I could probably avoid hiking, for at least a portion of the trip if push came to shove.
We’re focusing on lightweight and small so you can’t build a full-fledged medical kit for you get home bag. However, you should add a small one like thiswith the necessary items you’ll need in a multi-day trek across your city. If you are one of those people , this is seriously important, if you have to walk more than out to the car in the parking lot.
Use your head, and include anything you want, or need, so long as you can justify it. The subject of this article, the Get-Home bag, is one that is kept either near your person or in your vehicle whenever you leave home or the immediate area around it. A Get-Home bag is optimized to get you back home, not away from home. It sounds like a pedantic, mincing descriptor, but as a concept there are important considerations in such a scenario that you should plan for accordingly. The pack itself is an important consideration but less precious than its contents, and that is where our discussion centers. For me, that bag is the Maxpedition Condor-II backpack.
But depending on what your requirements are, a fully loaded pack can weigh 50 pounds or more. A properly fitted backpack can spread the weight evenly on your body to help avoid injury and ease fatigue. Although it has ‘military’ right in the name, this Reebow Tactical Backpack could easily pass as a standard work or school backpack. The sheer number of pockets, sleeves and clips is what draws us this way.
A widespread disaster where you’re forced to ditch your vehicle to hike home. Yes, and there is one, a get home bag is a basic survival tool. I always have several hundred feet of this with me. When used with the grommet corner space blanket above, it can build a quick shelter. Since it’s a 7 strand nylon construction, that lighter is also good to seal the cut ends to keep them from fraying.
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