5 Tips for Wilderness Survival

Whether you are headed off on a camping trip, a kayaking journey, or a long hike on your own to get back to nature and out into the wilderness, away from civilization and modern technology and distractions for a while, you should have some wilderness survival skills in order to stay safe no matter where you go.

Check out the five tips for wilderness survival below before you head off on your next wild adventure.

1. Be Able to Build a Shelter

When you are out in the wild, you never know when you will need to make a shelter from what nature provides. Therefore, learn how to create a lean-to that will provide you with warmth and safety at night, as well as protection from the weather. Learn how to use everything from pine needles to create bedding, to leaves and limbs to create insulation. The key is to know how to make a shelter for yourself with ease, no matter where you are.

2. Have Access to Clean Water

Without clean water, you will inevitably perish, so in order to survive in the wilderness, you will need to know how to construct a rain catcher, as well as have tools for purifying any water that you find. Chemical treatments like iodine tablets, as well as filtering pumps, are great items to bring along with you. When you don’t have these items, however, you can boil the water to kill off pathogens before you ingest it.

3. Pack Some Knives for Protection and Use

A good knife is necessary for everything from protection from wild animals or other humans you encounter, to building a shelter and more. Therefore, bring along some fixed blade knives that you can use throughout your journey whenever necessary.

4. Know How to Start a Fire

Knowing how to start a fire is yet another necessary survival skill that you will need if you are going to be heading out into the wilderness. You will need to build a fire to stay warm, to dry off your clothing, to boil your water, and to cook food. To make it easier to build a fire that will do all of these things for you and more, you should pack several different fire-starting tools. These could include steel and flint, matches, and a lighter. Just be aware that, if the weather is not cooperating, it could be hard to build a fire, so practice doing so in different conditions. And practice starting a fire using friction as well, just in case.

5. Know What to Eat

There is only so much food that you can pack before you run out of it or the food goes bad, so you will need to bring a reference source that will tell you what wild plants are safe to eat and which ones should be avoided.

If you keep the above tips in mind before you head off on an exciting and unforgettable journey into the wilderness, you can ensure your survival and safety.

photo credit: Quiet Lakeside Night via photopin (license)