Getting Started With Survival

I see a lot of posts on the various forums where people ask how they should get started.  I see advice on this topic that ranges from good to downright dangerous.

To understand how you should get started, you first need to understand the "hierarchy" behind survival.  What things you should worry about first, second, third, and so on.  I'm not going to talk about actual "buy this, avoid that"


First, let me tell you what The hierarchy (unless climate conditions are at extremes) is: Air, Water, Food, Shelter, Self Defense, and finally Medical care (unless there is a dangerous pre-existing problem in which case it moves upward as appropriate).

The hierarchy for times when climate conditions are at extremes is: Air, Shelter, Water, Food, Self Defense, and finally Medical Care (but again this item can move up as appropriate).

With that information as a basis, if you want to begin preparing, then start "close to home" with problems you are likely to face, and then move out to less and less likely issues from there.

I have a post where I talked about "Prep Levels" that was meant to put a sort of "DEFCON" (which stands for Defense Condition) kind of feel to preparedness.

It does you no good to have lots of weapons and ammo if you can't survive a simple grid failure without help due to lack of food and water.

So focus "close to home" ... or at the center of the graphic below ... and move out to each step from there, helping yourself to become more and more prepared.

Here's the thing.  This whole "survival" deal is so situation dependent that actually giving you a good beginners survival guide is fairly difficult.  However if you focus on "PL1" level "survival" and being prepared for that, then you will be more ready for a PL2 event.  Again, see the post where I talked about "Prep Levels" to get an understanding of how this can be done.

Not only that, but it becomes easier to understand how to survive the specific situations you are likely to encounter and thus be much more ready for your specific type of survival scenario should you need it.  What I am saying here is that instead of telling you exactly what you should and should not need, instead, I am hoping to help you to become is prepared in the best way for you without mucking up the waters telling you what works best for me.

My background and skills are different than yours, my strengths and weaknesses are different than yours.  Therefore, the things I should do are by necessity different than what you should do.

If you have any questions about your specific situation let me know and I'll be glad to help.