By the Navigation Team The smartphone in your pocket is one of the most powerful navigation tools ever created, capable of pinpointing your location, mapping a route, and guiding you turn by turn anywhere in the world. Add satellite messengers and specialized apps, and modern technology gives the outdoors traveler capabilities that would have seemed … Read more
By the Field Skills Team Long before satellites and compasses, people crossed oceans and continents using nothing but the sky, the land, and careful observation. Those natural navigation skills still work, and they become priceless on the day your compass is lost and your phone is dead. Reading direction from the natural world will rarely … Read more
By the Navigation Team A dedicated GPS device can be a wonderful navigation tool, pinpointing your location anywhere on earth with remarkable accuracy. It can also lull you into a dangerous dependence, because the moment its batteries die or it fails, a person who relied on it entirely is suddenly lost. The key to using … Read more
By the Navigation Team A GPS is wonderful right up until the battery dies, the signal drops in a canyon, or the device takes a swim in a creek. When that happens, the person who can read a topographic map and shoot a bearing with a compass is found and safe, while the person who … Read more
By the Medical Team In a survival or remote situation, the threat that most people never plan for is not a dramatic injury. It is the slow, ordinary danger of illness and infection. A minor wound that turns septic, a stomach bug that spirals into dangerous dehydration, or a respiratory infection with no doctor to … Read more
By the Field Skills Team The best first aid kit is the one you have with you, but sooner or later someone gets hurt when the kit is back at camp, in the other vehicle, or long since used up. Knowing how to improvise care from what your surroundings provide is the skill that fills … Read more
By the Medical Team Basic first aid handles the cuts, sprains, and burns of everyday life. But preparedness has to reckon with the harder scenario: a serious injury when professional help is delayed by a disaster, a remote location, or an overwhelmed system. In those minutes, the difference between a good outcome and a tragedy … Read more
By the Medical Team Ask a room of preppers who among them could stop a serious bleed, restart a stopped heart, or clear a blocked airway, and far fewer hands go up than should. We stockpile food and debate gear endlessly, yet a medical emergency is one of the most likely things any of us … Read more
By the Gear Team A reliable way to cook and boil water is a fundamental survival and preparedness capability, and the range of stove technologies available today means there is a good option for nearly every situation. From tiny backpacking burners to wood-burning stoves that run on twigs, each type has its strengths, its ideal … Read more
By the Homestead Team When the grid goes down or you are living off it, cooking becomes a genuine challenge, and how efficiently you cook determines how long your fuel lasts. A prepper who can cook a meal on a handful of twigs, or finish it with no fuel at all, stretches limited resources far … Read more