My Urban Get Home Bag! 50+ Miles, 3+ Days (🎒+💧+🔦+🔥+🍫+📻)

Welcome to the Urban survivor channel and in this video we’re going to be taking a look at my Urban Get Home bag for 2021. These are the contents of the kit!

Hip Belt Pockets

Top Zippered Compartment

Water Holder
💧 2x 1.5L water bottles

Outer Front Pocket

Front Zippered Compartment
🗺️ Local Maps
💵 $100 cash

Main Zippered Compartment

Hydration Compartment
🍫 Snickers Bar
👓 Contact Lenses
🔥 Wax Soaked Cotton Balls

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[BobanMisevic]

Since you almost got it right and invited suggestions it’s worth a comment .
1. Get military style poncho and 50 feet of paracord.
2. Keep leathrman, get rid of all other knifes including sill cock key. Leatherman players will open the door on faucets of commercial buildings.
3. Keep maps, find topographic map for your area and get decent compass. Get rid of books.
4. Buy 2 liter platypus water carrier, Sawyer mini fits on it and its reliable. Get rid of that water carrier (too heavy, reliability questionable). Get 2 smart water 1 liter bottles (Sawyer mini also fits on them)and they’re very tuff. That would make it 4 liters of water and it should be enough for your trip. I go trough 1 liter per 7 miles in below 72 weather, above that it’s more, above 84 it’s much more.
5. Get a buni style hat to protect your ears from sun and rain
6. Keep phone, charger and jackery power bank. Get rid of everything else. You have to be aware of your surrounding, can’t be distracted. People, rattlers, animals, etc. Hearing is one of your most important senses, why handicap your self.
7. Make a test run 🏃‍♂️ and make a video. That would be very interesting to see.

[warblerblue]

If your going to be carrying emergency cash, I would suggest turning some of the 20s into 1s, 5s and 10s to avoid paying too much or encountering a " no change-exact change" only situation.

[NobleSavage]

Good kit, did I miss a compass I see the maps. Question on why two box cutters instead of a decent knife or two. IMO, to much emphasis on electronics. I like a metal cup or small pot.

[creativepix]

Being in LA the most likely event requiring GHB would be an earthquake. Here’s a few tips for that scenario.
- I’d add to your gear: heavy duty leather gloves, and possibly a hard hat. Make sure you have good footwear.
- Plan for taking a lot of extra time getting home, maybe as much as 4 times as long due to: downed electrical cables, unstable structures, fires, rubble and avoiding unsafe areas (including gas stations).
- Plan your routes in advance (marked on maps), avoiding low areas if close to the coast, but also rivers/canal systems inland. - Yes to small compass (and practice using it). Note you may not recognise landmarks or even the town you live in.
- Treat all water sources as contaminated with sewage. Beef up hydration.
- Cell service will be down as will electrical, so no ATMs or cash registers. Carry cash in small denominations.
- Slim down electronics, go for equipment that use a single and standard batteries like AA or AAA. And carry plenty of spares (in a pinch you can reuse them across different devices) plus they should still be able to buy. I use AAA plus several 18650 rechargeable batteries at 3000mah each. I also carry a single cell charger that doubles as a battery bank. My flashlight uses these batteries and it can charge my smartphone. I use gaia gps on the phone with all maps and routes ‘downloaded’. In addition to laminated maps as a backup. Yes, GPS will still be working.
- Avoid devices with internal rechargeable batteries. Your USB cables are your biggest single point of failure. If they get wet you’re fried (not to mention getting dirty or just plain breaking). They are also weight.
- You will want to be light and fast, cut down on weight wherever possible.
- You will possibly not have time to read books (looking lost will make you a target), move fast and with purpose ...but they may help as fire fuel. Plan and know your escape routes.
- Yes to having food ready to eat. Do not plan stopping to cook or making camp. Keep moving. You may want to include caffeine pills for extra energy and alertness.
- But, just in case, have a lightweight tarp and necessary cordage. If you need to shelter, do so in the open not under structures.
- Add a lightweight plastic poncho as an extra wet weather layer. Personally I would add extra thermal layers.
- The small transistor radio is possibly the most important thing in your kit. Turn it on as soon as you move. With a sharpie write on to it the frequencies of local public announcement stations.
Maintain situational awareness, so do not wear headphones. Having it playing may also help categorize you as ‘friend’, or less of a target with strangers. Use updated news/information as currency/trade to navigate the social landscape.
Good luck!
PS. I live in a very earthquake prone area, in New Zealand, with the ‘big one’ expected to be over 8. In my case I would have a 70 mile walk over a very broken landscape. There was a big earthquake here a few years ago, and many lessons learned. Commuters here travel with a get home bag, and when they get home, at least a months worth of provisions.

[vgear]

Great review with great info. We're so glad that the Surge Redline Hydration Pack was able to accommodate the necessities for your get home essentials.

[baron]

Great video. The cookies and bars are a good idea for a no prep meal on the go. I'd suggest getting a roll of gorilla tape and wrap pieces of it around everything you can. It's good for patching and is a good fire starter. I have a 25 mile walk and am setting up to walk at least twice as far as you mentioned in your route planning. Everyone planning to walk should go out and survey their route at different times of the day and night, keeping in mind not everyone is welcome everywhere.

[tarinindell]

Im also im southern california. My setup is fairly similar.

I will say that there is always the possibility that you get home and it isnt home anymore. So i do like to include a few more robust items to help me cover my basic needs until i can figure things out.

I do keep a mora in there. Its important for me to have some sort of fixed blade knife, although i have been tempted to swap it out for the gerber strongarm. It can serve in a similar fashion to a crowbar in case you need to get into or out of someplace dangerous and doors arent really an option. Not gonna be doing much bushcraft, but i might be trapped in a room after an earthquake, or a family member might be, and id like the ability to free them if needed.

Additionally, i keep a military style poncho. It doesnt rain too often here, but i also dont want to sleep under the stars if i can avoid it. Im not planning to have to sleep outside, but id rather do it under the military style poncho rather than a thin plastic one.

And most importantly, i keep some sort of metal container. What if ypur sawyer gers compromised? What if you find some food you need to cook? You could easily include a metal bottle, or a mess tin, or even a folded aluminum pie tin to use in that scenario.

All of these items are fairly lightweight and multifunctional, and make inconvenient camping easier if you have to do it for more than a day.

Just food for thought.

[commonweakness]

Thanks for the video. I agree with what a lot of others have said (cut-resistant gloves, varied cash, better poncho and more meds just to name a few) but having lived in both large cities and in an arid climate I have a few thoughts. First lets look at when you would actually use this bag. Probably only when things have gone terribly wrong...so bad that you cannot Uber home (big earthquake, terrorist attack or major social unrest). In all three of those situations you may need to protect yourself and one can of pepper spray and two box cutters will not do the job. So at least get a solid knife and a stun gun or a Stinger tactical whip. Better yet, a real gun and some training. Also consider a powerful flashlight along with your headlamp. Wide brimmed hat and sun shirt would be great for the sun/heat. I would go with the 4 in 1 sillcock key. You do seem to be tech heavy. Assuming really bad things have happened I would drop the big battery along with the radio and other assorted plugs and get a good lightweight solar/crank radio that will allow you to charge your phone...then carry a small battery to get you 1+ charge. With these types of kits we tend to go too heavy. Drop the plant book or at least copy a few pages of the most common plants. Take only the maps you need and keep offline copies on your phone of the bigger area. If you end up needing a California map just buy, or steal, one. Being in an area that catches fire if a lightning bug farts I would have a better mask. At least a construction type mask to deal with smoke or tear gas. Also throw in a few bandanas and some paracord. Only you know what you are comfortable with and can afford, these are just my thoughts.

[phild]

50 miles, I've worked some distances from home, saw that for about a year when I was 30. The distance was mostly rural on US and state roads in Texas and Oklahoma.
50 miles across the LA basin after a disaster, has the makings of a TV movie.
My last job was 24 miles, would would be a straight through walk if I was closer to my prime. I'd done that many times in my 20's. 10 hours, including a couple stops.
Have you walked or run with your pack? I daily walk with a twenty pound pack while walking my dog 2-5 miles a day in the midwest. Even a light pack will change your speed, your balance and the impact on your feet.
Good luck, I hope you never need it.

[shovelhead]

Looks fine. Like all kits it is for your area and tasks and will evolve some. Thank you for showing it to us. Stay safe and stay warm

[daynegraves]

I would highly recommend trying out this trip sometime. Even if you have to do it in multiple chunks, only doing 6-8 miles in a day, and then picking up where you left off a few weeks later.

My friend and I planned a route similar to yours a while back, and it was a really good experience to actually do the route with my gear, to get a feel for my setup and plan. I changed some of the contents of my bag, and definitely changed some of my clothes. A shirt I really liked I learned would rub and chafe when it had a backpack on it, and I had to find a different one in my wardrobe that was also light and comfortable, but didn't have that issue.

The only other thought would be to pare down the kit as much as you can, as every bit of weight will add up really fast, especially if you aren't accustomed to doing long hikes with a heavy backpack.

[keepcalmprepon]

Nice set-up; I'd add a small titanium trowel and a couple of individually wrapped dude wipes, I'd swap out the lotion sunscreen for a small stick mineral based sunscreen (lighter in weight and way less messy to apply), a pair of swim goggles if the air has irritating particulates in it, and a roll of lifesavers. You might also want to consider getting an unlined, single-wall stainless steel water bottle - you can boil water in that if needed.

[davidgraemesmith]

Depending on the scenario that gets you walking home it could be advantageous to travel from 18:00 through to 06:00 and rest up during daylight hours when most other people are active, also either go with the flow of people in heavily populated routes or completely avoid roads etc and follow railroads and rivers (back when I was homeless people didn't see me because I was nocturnal, I ate and kept clean at work)

[g.victorpaulson]

Bro, glad to see you have an ACTUAL GHB, instead of that silly fanny pack kit you displayed recently. THIS is more like it. Much more well thought out. Good work.

[jlai]

Great kit! I can tell you have thought through many things you have included. I also live in the same region so I appreciate seeing the items you have included in your kit so I can compare to what I’ve been doing.

As a fellow urban prepper, I can understand your thinking. However, I’ve come to realize one of the problems with many of my attempts to put together an urban get/home kit is including too much weight, unnecessary redundancy, and irrelevant items for an urban setting. For example, do I really need 3 different cutting tools for a 10 hour walk home? When I’ve actually put on my kits, I often find it’s way too much weight for what I would practically want to carry if I was forced to walk home.

In order to try to cut weight from my pack, I’ve learned a lot from studying the pack kits of long-distract hikers (through-hikers) and packing tips from minimalist travelers. These are individuals who have learned how to walk and travel vast distances often with just what they can carry on their back! They have done it and realized that every once of weight is going to be an addition burden they have to carry every step of the way.

Hikers who are walking great distances in the wilderness often just carry a small pocket knife and find they don’t need any other cutting tool. I know this is prepper blasphemy, but I think it’s worth learning from people who have hiked literally hundreds of miles in the wild without the need to carry a heavy burden of knives. I think it’s even more true in an urban setting where you are not going to be doing any bushcrafting to survive.

Along the same lines, I love your inclusion of a cell phone battery, but you want to think about how much weight your battieries take. Maybe the larger one you should keep in your car, but you may consider whether you want to carry both with you in your pack. Keep in mind that in an urban setting, if you really need to, you can probably stop at a coffee shop or market and get permission to charge up your phone and batter for an hour or so while you rest, get a snack, and rehydrate.

Same can be said of water. In an urban setting, there should be many places you can refill along the way: you have smartly brought cash so you can buy water along the way or just ask or offer money to a homeowner to use their water hose. So you really may want to consider whether you are carrying too much water.

Speaking of money, you should consider exchanging your $20’s in for small bills and a little change in case you need to pay for things or offer a homeowner a $1 to refill your water.

[dsiwok]

Just a few more items that'll save space, weight, and cost:
1) I'd add a travel bidet (nozzle fits onto any disposable water bottle). 2-3 days is a long time to hold it in . . .
2) Propel powdered drink mix (electrolytes) and fruit strips will provide an extra boost of energy and take up minimal room.
3) I also include ramen spice packs to create a hearty broth (works for meal replacement)

[brucefluth]

I suggest putting some coffee filters in your pack to pre-filter water to get the larger sediment out. 😎

[gregsmith]

Thanks again for good advise on a go pack! I also pack first aid bag for cuts and a tourniquet in case of big oops. But excellent contents! Happy New Year as well!

[philp]

Just some thoughts: Small pry bar. Imodium AD. Ibuprofen. Heavier gloves. Grayl filter bottle (over the Sawyer). POM OC. Better poncho. There would be a couple other items I’d prefer but those are specific to the individual.

[UrbanSurvivor]

What do you think of my Urban Get Home Bag for 2021?