SHELTER: Essential Items For Your “Bug Out Bag”

Items that give you shelter during an emergency or bug-out situation are crucial to your survival. One of your main goals in a survival situation is to maintain your core body temperature and not let it get too high or too low. Shelter can mean providing shade in extreme heat situations to help lower your core body temperature. On the other hand, shelter can mean keeping your body warm and protecting yourself from wind, rain, snow, and freezing temperatures. In all of these situations, having the tools to create a shelter is vital to your survival.

☑️TODAY’S TASK: Find at LEAST 1 of these items and add it to your bag. Even just adding a blanket and/or extra pair of clothes will be better than having nothing at all during a survival situation.

• BLANKET OR SHEET - Just find any blanket or sheet you have at your house right now. If the blanket takes up too much space in your bag, then store it right next to your “Bug Out Bag”. If your bag isn’t a plastic bag, then you can roll up your blanket and tie it to your bag if you have some kind of rope.

• EXTRA PAIR OF CLOTHES - In the event that either your clothes become wet OR you need an extra layer of warmth, an extra pair of clothing will be very important to have. Be sure to include an extra pair of underwear and socks. Since you’re limited on space in your bags, we recommend choosing a long sleeve shirt and pants. Then if the weather is cold you’re prepared. If the weather is hot, you just cut the sleeves on the shirt and cut the pants to make shorts. VERY IMPORTANT, store you clothes in a ziplock bag to help keep them from getting wet if you should get rained on in a bug out situation.

• SLEEPING BAG - If you already have a sleeping bag, then store it next to your “Bug Out Bag”.

• PONCHO - Part of keeping you warm is keeping you dry in cooler weather.

☑️AFTER YOU HAVE SOME OF THE ABOVE ITEMS, ADD THE FOLLOWING ITEMS TO ENHANCE YOUR “BUG OUT BAGS”:

• EMERGENCY BLANKET - These are great compact solutions.

• EMERGENCY SLEEPING BAG - Where space is limited, Emergency Sleeping Bags are a great alternative to a regular sleeping bag.

• HEAVY DUTY EMERGENCY SURVIVAL BLANKET THAT DOUBLES AS A TARP - We love this multifunctional emergency blanket because besides being a blanket, it has grommets so it can double as a shelter as well.

• PARACORD - Has many uses but specifically important when it comes to building a shelter with the heavy duty survival blanket/tarp.

• SLEEPING PAD - There are lots of great sleeping pads for camping but one thing you have to keep in mind is that if you are in a bugging out situation, you’re not going to want a large, heavy sleeping pad to slow you down. We would suggest to have a good quality sleeping pad near your bug out bag and bring it with you IF you’re able to either drive OR have a wagon to pull your stuff. Then attach to your “Bug Out Bag” a lighter weight alternative.

• REFLECTIVE BUBBLE PACK INSULATION ROLL -You can find a 24ft x 25ft roll and cut it to sections that would be about 5ft . You would have 5 sleeping pads out of 1 roll and most of your upper body could rest on it. This is a lightweight alternative to the traditional bulky sleeping pads.

• FOLDABLE FOAM CAMPING PADS - This is another great lightweight alternative to the traditional heavy sleeping pads. This one is a bit bulkier than the last solution, however, it’s still lightweight and you could tie it to your “Bug Out Bag”.

• FREE STANDING TENT - Extremely important to have a freestanding tent so you’re not dependent upon stakes and trees to hold up the tent.

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