One of the best ways to prepare for survival is camping. I'm not talking about glamping or campervans, but the scout style camping.
The scouts have decades of experience of this, and they have adapted the camping to children, so it's a good idea to follow their plans.
The boy scouts start by camping at the "cub scout resident camp". It's a place where it's safe to practice getting the tent up and living outside, but with the safety backup in place. There are also adults and older scouts who are responsible for seeing that all the kids' needs are met.
You might not have the luxury of accessing this kind of "practice camp" facilities, and it's not necessary either. You can find the closest camping site and practice getting your tent up there. Don't ever go out camping over-night without having built up your tent at least a couple of times!
Then they advance to camping trips in the wilderness, still accompanied by adults. One by one these "safety wheels" are cut out, until the boys - or young men - are able to take longer hiking trips living in a tent all by themselves.
You should go by the same way.
You start by hiking and making short day trips, to get used to moving in the wilderness and carrying a backpack.
Then make a fire, enjoy a meal prepared by that fire, and extinguish it properly and carefully, and go home.
Then you spend a night or two outside.
Then a weekend, a week, a month even.
You add time a little at a time, and get used to the first level before you advance.
The same with everything else.
When you are comfortable in your home forest camping a week in the summer, start expanding the seasonal camping - first autumn, then spring, then winter.
First you will carry all your water and food with you, and then start gradually adding some "wild food" and "wild water" to your practice, , until you can live off the forest during the summer.
First you'll take with you all the necessities and reasonable comfort and cut it gradually, slowly, until you have only the essential necessities with you. What that is, is yours to decide.
Always have a backup plan. Don't go "cold turkey". Be sure to have enough clean water with you before you try purifying "wild water". Be sure that you have enough food, if your foraging and hunting doesn't work. Have a tent with you the first times you plan building a shelter, to have a backup reserve if it doesn't work. Leave these out only when you are 100% sure of that you can purify the water, find yourself enough to eat and build yourself a shelter.
It is not necessary to go that far, but if you wish to be a survivalist and not "just" a camper, you might want to at least try surviving with nothing but your field axe and a fire steel :-D
(Don't count on the fire steel before you are 100% certain that you can use it. Having seen a couple of videos doesn't count. Start some 100 fires with it, outside, in shine, in rain, in wind and sleet...)
The goal is a total self-sufficiency living without modern luxuries and be able to satisfy your four most eminent needs - and IN THIS ORDER: SHELTER, WATER/FIRE, FOOD.
(Many survival shows are extremely focused on food.)
This is some good advice about that
Then you need to become very apt about
*first aid and health care in wilderness and
*navigation and communication in the wilderness.
You need to know quite a lot about how to act in an emergency situation, how you will find your way, how you will signal to rescuers where you are etc. etc.
The scouts have decades of experience of this, and they have adapted the camping to children, so it's a good idea to follow their plans.
The boy scouts start by camping at the "cub scout resident camp". It's a place where it's safe to practice getting the tent up and living outside, but with the safety backup in place. There are also adults and older scouts who are responsible for seeing that all the kids' needs are met.
You might not have the luxury of accessing this kind of "practice camp" facilities, and it's not necessary either. You can find the closest camping site and practice getting your tent up there. Don't ever go out camping over-night without having built up your tent at least a couple of times!
Then they advance to camping trips in the wilderness, still accompanied by adults. One by one these "safety wheels" are cut out, until the boys - or young men - are able to take longer hiking trips living in a tent all by themselves.
You should go by the same way.
You start by hiking and making short day trips, to get used to moving in the wilderness and carrying a backpack.
Then make a fire, enjoy a meal prepared by that fire, and extinguish it properly and carefully, and go home.
Then you spend a night or two outside.
Then a weekend, a week, a month even.
You add time a little at a time, and get used to the first level before you advance.
The same with everything else.
When you are comfortable in your home forest camping a week in the summer, start expanding the seasonal camping - first autumn, then spring, then winter.
First you will carry all your water and food with you, and then start gradually adding some "wild food" and "wild water" to your practice, , until you can live off the forest during the summer.
First you'll take with you all the necessities and reasonable comfort and cut it gradually, slowly, until you have only the essential necessities with you. What that is, is yours to decide.
Always have a backup plan. Don't go "cold turkey". Be sure to have enough clean water with you before you try purifying "wild water". Be sure that you have enough food, if your foraging and hunting doesn't work. Have a tent with you the first times you plan building a shelter, to have a backup reserve if it doesn't work. Leave these out only when you are 100% sure of that you can purify the water, find yourself enough to eat and build yourself a shelter.
It is not necessary to go that far, but if you wish to be a survivalist and not "just" a camper, you might want to at least try surviving with nothing but your field axe and a fire steel :-D
(Don't count on the fire steel before you are 100% certain that you can use it. Having seen a couple of videos doesn't count. Start some 100 fires with it, outside, in shine, in rain, in wind and sleet...)
The goal is a total self-sufficiency living without modern luxuries and be able to satisfy your four most eminent needs - and IN THIS ORDER: SHELTER, WATER/FIRE, FOOD.
(Many survival shows are extremely focused on food.)
This is some good advice about that
Then you need to become very apt about
*first aid and health care in wilderness and
*navigation and communication in the wilderness.
You need to know quite a lot about how to act in an emergency situation, how you will find your way, how you will signal to rescuers where you are etc. etc.
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