Many people want to be more prepared when it comes to every day life and being ready if a huge accident or emergency takes place.  There are many great survival kits and emergency preparedness kits out there but buying a simple first aid kit and actually being ready for any given potential emergency situation.  While it’s fairly common for emergency kits to be aimed at giving you all you need for at least 72 hours, there are several things that need to be considered before deciding on the perfect survival kit for you.  Perhaps the most important early distinction is realizing that a 72 hour urban survival kit is going to look a lot different than a kit designed for surviving in the wilderness.

Part of the reason that determining use is so important is that you have different options when creating an emergency 3 day kit for your home and in creating one that must be portable, say for your vehicle.  The reason that so many people focus on this element of time is simple: it takes time for search parties to be organized in the wilderness, and it takes time for a disaster relief response to be set up by the government.  If you are a complete beginner to survival, emergency preparedness, or any related topic then I strongly recommend Neil Strauss’s book Emergency.  If nothing else, his description of how the government views disasters and what basic “truths” come with survival training are eye opening.  The long and short of it?  You’re on your own for 24 to 72 hours.

That’s a sobering reality and makes picking the right 3 day survival kit critical.  You have to assume that you’re on your own in the beginning, so you need kits that are practical, complete, and can help you stay alive and safe for as long as possible to give you the best chance of surviving and to give you the best chance of either being found for rescue or for being in good shape when help finally comes from disaster relief.

So step one to finding a good 72 hour survival kit is simple: Are you looking at a home survival kit or travel survival kit?

This is a critical question because there is going to be a huge difference between the two.  A home survival kit should be a lot more than just a kit.  Think giant tote filled with survival gear.  This doesn’t mean you can be wasteful – quite the contrary and especially if you have a family.  You want three days of water (think a gallon per person per day), portable toilets for disposing of waste, and many other items that would not go with a portable kit.  While people’s needs are going to be a little bit different, consider this checklist for home kits:

• Minimum three days water for everyone, more if room allows
• Portable toilets
• Medical supplies
• Propane or kerosene camp oven for preparing food
• Canned goods or MREs (make sure to rotate out old canned goods for new ones before expiration dates)
• Water purification tablets
• Heavy duty flashlight with extra batteries
• Knife
• Defense materials

While some of these items are important in wilderness survival, as well, you’re not going to have 20 gallons of water stuck in the back of your car every time you have a road trip.  However the best 72 hour traveling survival kits will include first aid items, multi-use survival tools, a good survival knife, as well as matches and materials to purify water.  Consider things like trash bags and emergency mylar blankets which can be condensed to take up very little space but which can be huge for building shelters, keeping warm and dry, and strongly increase your strength and chance of surviving in time for help to arrive.

Keep these things in mind when choosing your 72-hour survival kit and you’ll be happy that you did if the time ever comes to survive through an emergency.