A survival-focused bug out bag list with an accompanying guide and PDF checklist.
BY SEAN GOLD, UPDATED:
July 1, 2024
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Our bag out bag list is one of our most shared resources and will help you gather all the needed items for short-term survival on the move. Creating your bug out bag is a personal process that varies based on where you live, your experience, and potential disasters.
I’ve been building bug out bags for years and tuned my own to tackle a variety of threats both big and small. A bug out bag is designed for “bugging out”, but I also use mine for home-based preparedness. A good ‘go bag’ can help with any emergency plan or survival kit.
When you need to evacuate your home you won’t have much time. Hopefully, you’ve planned for this exact situation and have a bug out bag for each family member to grab and go.
If not, you’ve found the right place. We have the most comprehensive bug out bag guide on the web to get you ready to survive whatever is thrown your way. With gear suggestions fitting any budget, in-depth reviews and comparisons for all survival gear we suggest, and downloadable or printable checklists- we have your bug out bag list covered.
These are the essential items that most experts agree are needed in a bug out bag. Further down in this guide we list out what we suggest but do not consider essential. Those items are good for specific situations, but the following gear is needed as a bare minimum:
The bag itself has to hold all the essential gear and any other survival gear you want to carry. Weight and volume can become an issue with smaller bags, plus you will want to pack your bag like a professional backpacker.
Many people find selecting a backpack to be a very personal process. We talk more about this in our best survival backpack review, and we go over capacity and carry weight targets for bug out bags specifically. After you select a bag, it’s time to move on to the survival basics.
Water weighs 8.35 pounds per gallon (or 1 kilogram per liter for the rest of the world). Anyone familiar with backpacking can tell you that this is not very forgiving when you need to carry water on the go.
Carrying water is not just a weight concern, but also a packing problem. A gallon of water takes up 231 cubic inches- which is a huge displacement compared to your survival gear. You’ll want to carry water containers and ways to treat water on the go so you don’t have to carry as much with you. The best water container to use? A simple stainless steel water bottle.
This will allow you to boil water- the most reliable purification method that only requires access to fire. Insulated bottles like Yeti and Thermos will fight against you and plastic will melt, so simple single-walled steel is best. I also carry bagged water, but that’s not essential so you’ll find it further down in our suggestions.
Next in the order of survival priorities is food. Because this is a mobile kit, we suggest food that works best on the move.
Neither of these options requires any sort of stove or cooking, which makes them ideal for moving quickly to your bug out location or evacuation meet-up point. They are low-weight and high-calorie but aren’t stellar on the nutrition front. The bottom line is that these will keep you moving.
Being able to get covered is important for surviving a wide range of environments or potential weather scenarios. At the very least, a durable but lightweight tarp can keep you dry, and a bivy and survival blanket can keep you warm.
Your gear can get bulky and heavy once you start considering tents, which is a big reason we don’t consider traditional tents essential.
Changes of clothes are always important for any sort of evacuation kit. Clothes help keep you protected from the elements, and keeping them dry and clean will help with hygiene and health.
Safety often goes overlooked in survival situations, but you want to keep your ears, eyes, airway, and hands safe and protected with PPE. We consider gloves essential (a few types), along with an N95. You’ll find the eye protection and earplugs further down in situation-specific gear. We don’t list gas masks at all, because even though we find them valuable- we don’t think they have a place in a bug out bag unless the CBRN event is already happening. Instead, we list them in kits specific to those events.
Roll your shirt, undies, and socks into a skivvy roll to condense them for packing and make them easy to grab on the go.
You’ll need fire resources to stay warm, cook food, purify water, and provide light. I keep my fire kit packed with stuff and have over 6 ways to start a fire. But, you don’t need my kit- you need what’s best for your situation.
You’ll want a primary way to start a fire (typically, people pick a lighter since they are simple and fast). Then, just like the “Two is One and One is None” rule suggests, you’ll want a low-tech backup (usually matches or a ferro rod).
Navigation and communication are both important to stay informed and to make it to your bug out location expediently.
An emergency radio is one of the more versatile building blocks of a bug out bag- it can inform, entertain, charge other electronic equipment, and even be a flashlight. Besides this, all of the navigation and communication essentials are relatively low-tech.
Get free maps online (quads) and/or from your state DOT/travel department (highway maps) and learn how to use them with a compass, setting your magnetic declination ahead of time.
First aid is common sense for any survival kit, including your bag. Don’t go straight for a trauma kit unless you are trained and experienced. Starting with a basic med kit and adding IFAK components as your first aid skills improve is a good path for beginners.
Self-defense is always a high priority, and that priority is easily supported as crime historically increases drastically during widespread disasters. Even during non-emergencies, security, and self-protection consistently show up as the top focus of most risk analysis.
Bug out bags are what you make them, so if you choose not to include a firearm, that’s perfectly fine. We consider them essential. If you include firearms in your plan, you should be trained, regularly practice at the range, and follow common-sense safety measures using gun locks and safes.
Hygiene (and sanitation) are often underrated when it comes to survival. They are the areas that can undermine all of your preparedness if you choose to neglect them. Keep your body healthy by keeping you and your gear clean (especially dishes and utensils).
An emergency waste sanitation plan is important for any survival situation, even though we don’t consider any of the gear to be essential (catholes don’t technically require gear). Don’t let sanitation be the Achilles heel of your preparedness plan.
At the very least, you should have a copy of your emergency plan, some cash, and writing utensils ready to go. Motivational items belong in this category, so feel free to add family photos, small but important personal belongings, and anything else that can help you get through tough situations.
This gear may not be essential by definition, but adding any of these to your bug out bag will improve your bag’s versatility for even more situations. You won’t be able to fit it all in your bag, so you’ll need to keep an eye on weight and space.
A perfect bug out bag doesn’t exist- what is right for you depends on your situation and risk tolerance. That said, we have as close to perfect of a starting point for you: our comprehensive checklist.
Our latest update to the checklist added and removed a few items, changed the formatting to use less ink to print, made the checkboxes easier to see when you checked them off, and added category colors from the prepper color coding guide.
Our checklist is available as both a pdf download and as a Google Sheets/Excel file where you can check off items yourself, and even add and subtract items from the checklist.
If you are looking for the simplest way to print and use the checklist above, download our printable PDF version. It is two pages long on 8.5″ x 11″ paper and makes creating a bug out bag extremely easy. Once you open the bug out bag PDF checklist in your browser, you can either print it directly or save it through your browser.
If you are looking for a comprehensive way to track your bug out bag contents, open our Excel / Google Sheets version. The sheet is sharable, and you just need to copy it to your own Google Sheets account or download it to Excel to edit it. We also keep the best-reviewed item for each category linked to simplify shopping for any equipment you may find yourself missing.
If you want to check the boxes or adjust any of the items in the focus areas, you’ll need to open the sheet in a new browser tab and select “Make a Copy” in the File menu.
If you are looking for a comprehensive way to track your EDC loadout, open our Excel / Google Sheets version. The sheet is sharable, and you just need to copy it to your own Google Sheets account or download it to Excel to edit it. We also keep links to our reviews for each category to simplify shopping for any equipment you may find yourself missing.
Bug out bags go by many different names, including:
Despite the many names, they all have the same purpose: preparedness for survival regardless of your location. You might see other bags related to survival elsewhere, but those are technically bug out bag variations and not quite the same.
Survival tools, food, and water are the cornerstones of these kits that are designed to sustain you as you execute your emergency plan. They are individual kits, meaning that even in a family, you spread food and water storage across each person’s bug out bag rather than storing it all in one or two large kits. There are many varieties of bug out bags – but they all are built with survival on the go in mind.
There are a few variations of bug out bags designed for different functions:
There are also variations that focus on individuals and pets:
The main point is that you can make a bug out bag for anyone, any situation, and for any length of time. Bug out plans are meant to bring you versatility, and the wide variety of kits you can build using the plan reflects this.
Now that you have completed a bug out bag and are ready to be prepared on the go, you can take it up one notch further.
You won’t always have the luxury of being nearby your survival kit or even your bug out bag. That is where Everyday Carry comes into play. Just a few extra items combined with some situational awareness can allow you to be prepared for many situations at any given time. Follow our EDC guide here: Everyday Carry.
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