List of Survival Items for an Outdoor Emergency Kit

Even a routine outing can become life-threatening when you’re unprepared, so invest in the gear on this list of survival items to create your own emergency backpack.

As a wilderness educator, I frequently hear of situations in which people could have benefited from an emergency backpack containing must-have survival gear. One such situation was the epic survival story of 16-year-old Autumn Veatch. In the summer of 2015, she was flying home to Washington from Montana with her step-grandparents when their small plane crashed in the North Cascades. Autumn survived the fiery wreck with bruises and burns; however, her step-grandparents didn’t make it. The blaze destroyed any tools and first-aid or survival kits that may have been in the plane.

Although she didn’t have any training to fall back on, Autumn remembered a few survival tips from TV programs she’d watched with her father years before. She remembered to head downhill until finding a stream, and then to follow the water downstream.

So, Autumn made her way out of the mountains by locating and following a stream, climbing down several waterfalls along the way, until the stream joined a larger creek. The water looked dirty, and Autumn didn’t have any purification tools. She decided not to drink it, since she didn’t want to get too sick to keep hiking. She spent the night on a sandbar, huddled in a sweatshirt, without shelter or fire. The temperature was so cold that she didn’t get any sleep. But the next day, Autumn continued to hike downhill. Eventually, the creek crossed a hiking trail that led her down to a highway and a trailhead, where she found some hikers. Autumn was then taken to a local hospital, where she was treated for dehydration and burns.

Autumn’s story is amazing and hopeful. She did her best with the circumstances in which she found herself. When she believed she wouldn’t make it, thoughts of family and friends motivated her to keep going. The will to live is a powerful factor in many emergencies. Despite not having any formal survival training, Autumn kept her wits and persevered. Unlike so many others, she made it out alive and returned to her family.

Autumn’s story illustrates a less-common survival situation where navigating out of the wilderness is preferred to surviving in place until help arrives. Had she stayed by the plane, she might have succumbed to hypothermia or dehydration, especially since searchers couldn’t find the wreck the first day. She made good choices, had luck on her side, and ultimately made it out alive without must-have survival gear. Imagine how vastly better her situation would’ve been with rudimentary knowledge of survival skills, or a survival kit on hand.

A good survival kit is extremely helpful for aiding in and preventing wilderness emergency situations. It should contain tools that help you meet your needs faster and can help keep you safe. Having must-have survival gear in a backpack can also combat feelings of anxiety or fear that may arise during outdoor emergencies, and by increasing feelings of empowerment. Survival kits come in many varieties, from pocket-sized tins to giant bug-out bags. At Alderleaf Wilderness College, we recommend keeping a small survival kit in your daypack, a medium-sized kit in your car, and a larger kit at home.

When putting together an outdoor survival kit, first consider your needs. What’s the climate and ecology of the wilderness area you’re venturing into? What kind of background knowledge or skills do you have? How portable does your kit need to be?

In choosing the contents of a kit, the most important things to consider are the standard survival priorities: shelter, water, fire, and food. Ideally, each tool in your kit should be able to satisfy multiple priorities, and each priority should be supported by multiple tools.

The following tools are considered must-have survival gear. This list of survival items addresses top priorities for wilderness survival. A bare-bones, ultralight survival kit should have at least the first three items (compass, knife, and two ways to start fire). All six items will produce a heavier, but still quite portable, kit.

Anything beyond the previous six items will add an element of comfort to a survival experience and increase the possibility of your holding on longer in the backcountry. But the following additional items will also add bulk and weight, so they should be chosen carefully. A large, heavy kit has a higher chance of being left home instead of being brought into the outdoors.

Several more objects that have a place on any list of survival items include a fishing line and hooks, sunscreen, a signaling mirror, a hat, and a packable set of rain gear.

Every person’s first-aid kit should vary according to their specific skill level and needs. The user must know how to apply all the materials.

A good rudimentary first-aid kit should contain basic adhesive strip bandages, a roll of medical gauze, a pressure bandage, anti-inflammatory pain killers (such as ibuprofen), over-the-counter antihistamine medication, medical tape or duct tape, and alcohol wipes or iodine.

A kit containing the above items will be small, relatively compact, and sufficient for anything that doesn’t call for hospitalization.

Other items to consider among your must-have survival gear are medications for chronic illnesses or personal health issues, an epinephrine pen if you have severe allergies, and herbal salves and remedies for minor medical needs.

Jason Knight is director and co-founder of Alderleaf Wilderness College in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. A seasoned wildlife biologist and wilderness educator, he’s the author of The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival.

Originally published as “Build Your Own Survival Kit” in the July/August 2023 issue of Grit magazine and regularly vetted for accuracy.