1 day ago
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to survive the great outdoors? It's one of those questions I ask myself, along with whether I would make it in the zombie apocalypse. But after I came across Downtown-Side-3010's question in this Reddit thread about sharing lesser-known survival skills, the replies had me really questioning whether I would. But who knows! Maybe now, with this information in mind, I might? Here are some interesting and helpful survival tips people shared:
1. "To roughly estimate daylight hours left, a hand held fully extended towards the sun, with the thumb tucked in and not visible, equals approximately 1 hour. Each handspan of 4 fingers from the sun to the horizon equals an hour; each finger roughly represents 15 minutes. It's not perfect, but it'll get you dang close."
2. "The spark from an empty lighter can start a fire if you spark fine enough materials, like the cotton off your socks, cat tail fluff, or even certain mushrooms like chaga. Scraping a small pile of plastic off with a blade can help catch a spark. Rubbing chocolate on the underside of an aluminum can will polish it and make it reflective enough to signal with and even start a fire. You can also ball up water in a clear plastic bag to create a magnifying lens effect to make a fire. Fire is important."
"Be careful heating rocks in a fire though — they can explode!"
3. "Duct tape is also a great fire extender/starter. It burns well and long enough to get a fire started in most conditions."
4. "Most conifer trees (trees with needles, such as pine) have a flammable resin that can be used as a reliable way to start fires. Scrape the bark with a sharp rock or collect the resin with a stick, and it can be used like a match. Even better, look for a dead pine, and quite often the branches will be soaked in this resin."
5. "Knots... seriously underestimated skill. Bowline, clove Hitch, anchor Hitch, figure 8, noose, and the double fisherman's knot."
6. "Using any transparent container to treat nasty water. Eight hours of UV will kill bacteria and viruses. When I go out, I usually take a full gallon of water: my two single-wall 1-quart steel bottles and a 2-quart plastic juice bottle. I can boil for quick needs and solarize all day to prepare for the next."
7. "That time/energy management is just as important, if not more so, than your actual skills. You'll have to learn to plan things to be efficient in both time and energy. If you go looking for food, look for wood, tinder, and other useful plants at the same time. If you find food, don't just eat a little and move on. Take as much as you can and keep looking for food. Bring all of that stuff to your shelter and go back for more if you can. Save the latter half of your day for ‘camp work.’ Make sure your shelter is ready, cook your food, boil water, break down firewood, process food for tomorrow, and preserve anything you can. You'll be much better off if your day-to-day isn't a mad scramble to solve problems as they occur."
10. "Being economical with movement. I've seen and heard of people making sure they don't sweat and taking time and care to not burn up all their energy. Seems super effective and will make it easier to regulate your temperature."
11. "Dead air space can save your life. If you're caught out and about unprepared in the cold, you can stuff your clothing with ideally cattail fluff, but non-poisonous leaves work as well. Might not be the most comfortable night outside, but freezing to death is worse. The urban version is to stuff balled-up newspaper into your clothes. Anything you can use to create micro-pockets of non-moving (dead) air space will trap the heat that emanates from your body."
12. "Knowing how to preserve food long-term without refrigeration. Smoking/curing meat, pickling fish, canning vegetables, dehydrating fruit, drying herbs. There's a YouTube channel called Simple Living Alaska that goes into it. I had no idea eggs could be preserved long-term until I watched the video."
13. "I think trapping is a key skill for survival. Anything that walks, flies, or swims can be trapped."
14. "Insects taste decent, dry-roasted if you don't have any seasoning. If you really have trouble getting something down, you can prep a pleasant chaser like berry juice and just plug your nose, wolf 'em, and wash it all down with the juice. Some tree barks (like maple) make a pretty good tea, too, if berries aren't available. If you get them especially dry and crunchy, you can grind them up and add them to soup, too. Ditto with crustacean shells."
15. "Escape bearing and aiming off. Escape bearing is when you intentionally look up the very general direction civilization is in. And how to get direction from the sun. So if you get lost, you know that going southwest will lead you to train tracks after X distance and Y days. Even if you have no map or anything else. The second is aiming off. Basic navigation, but many don't know it. You don't aim directly at a target, for example, a bridge. You aim off to one side so you know where to search. If you aim right by 300 meters, the bridge is almost guaranteed to be on your left. If you aim for the target directly and miss by 50 meters, you don't know if you need to search on the left or right."
16. "How to meditate or calm yourself down. So you can think, not smell like fear, and get your brain and body to rest fully in a shorter period of time. Panic will hurt your body, and you will make poor choices."
17. "If you’re caught in a rip current, or if you're having a hard time in the ocean for whatever reason. Just float on your back, don’t panic, and wave your arms until someone comes to help. You can float for a long time even if you’re not a strong swimmer."
18. "CPR. I’m a nurse, and it’s mind-boggling how few people in public know CPR. I’ve done CPR in a casino before, a freaking packed casino, and my boyfriend and I were the only two who knew CPR. We did CPR just the two of us, and all security could do was get the AED machine. It took forever for EMS to show up. Don’t call yourself a ‘survivalist’ if you won’t even bother to take a CPR class at your local fire station or wherever."
19. And lastly, "There are what are called ‘rules of three’ for surviving in terms of decreasing intensity, as long as you have the major needs met. You can survive about three minutes without air or in freezing water. You can survive about three hours exposed to extreme environments without shelter, hot or cold. You can survive three days without water. You can potentially survive up to three weeks without food. That said, it’s all a generalization and NOT scientifically accurate, as there are variables to consider, and everybody is different as well."
Do you find these survival tips helpful? Any to share of your own? Let us know in the comments! Or, if you prefer to remain anonymous, you can fill out the form below.
Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
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