You’re planning to go camping, which is smart. A back-to-nature adventure is an excellent way to relax, have fun, and get in some practical survival training time. Yet, like all survival skills, it helps if you pack right. Sure, you can last eating peanuts for protein, but who wouldn’t rather have a nice hot meal? Bringing your propane camping stove along can turn a cold meal into a piping hot delicacy.

Moreover, you can also use propane to stay warm, which is particularly useful when all the wood nearby is wet, or fires are prohibited. How much propane do you need? I’ll answer all your burning propane questions and help you find the right cookstove for your wild mealtimes.

How long does a camping propane tank last? Disposable propane tanks hold fourteen to sixteen ounces so that they will last for approximately two hours. Alternately a standard propane tank holds around twenty pounds of propane and will last eighteen to twenty hours. Naturally, the way you burn the fuel matters. A lower flame will use less propane. 

How Long Does Propane Last

There are two vital questions about how long propane tanks last for camping. First, you need to know how long you can cook or heat with this fuel. Secondly, how long does the gas last when not in use? Fortunately, these are both simple enough questions to answer.

Cooking with propane is one of the safer ways to make a meal outdoors. Not only does the gas burn clean, but you can get a high-quality camping stove like the Coleman Triton from Amazon. The innovative design on this double cooktop helps shield any wind or debris from getting into your food. Plus, you’ll have plenty of space to prepare two dishes at once and plenty of power at upwards of twenty-two hundred BTUs. Get a Triton by clicking here. 

Using Propane

Using a gallon of propane at a mid to high setting will buy you about an hour. Although you may get as much as two hours of heat or flames for cooking, assume that you’ll only have about sixty minutes. Plan and stock up accordingly.

If you plant buy disposable smaller bottles, they will typically hold fourteen to sixteen ounces. That’s about a gallon. Hence each cylinder will buy you an hour. Alternately the larger twenty-pound tanks hold enough propane for around eighteen to twenty hours of use.

Depending on the outflow, and how high you turn up the heat, you could get as much as twice the time. However, proper planning means budgeting for minimum effectiveness. Never assume you’ll get lucky.

Leaving Propane Alone

Assuming you’ve stocked up on propane canisters, then you may not need them all. Anyone with a car should recognize that most gasses don’t last forever. In optimal conditions, they’ll store for one to three years at best. Overbuying can be wasteful.

Is the same true of propane? Well, no. Propane, unlike other fuels, doesn’t go bad in the canisters. You should always heed manufacturer and distributor expiration dates, but the fuel itself won’t go off.

It’s incredibly important to make sure your storage containers don’t get contaminated, or leaky. I’ll cover the proper storage in a moment. However, assuming nothing goes wrong, you’ll have that fuel around until you need to use it.

Storing Propane That Lasts for Camping

Presumably, you’re planning to stock a few propane tanks away so they’ll last in case of an emergency. Proper propane storage is essential. There are a few crucial tips for keeping your tanks safe while you stock them away for your next camping adventure or SHTF scenario.

Always store your propane tanks outdoors. It’s not safe to keep them in enclosed spaces. Make sure you keep them somewhere they aren’t going to get rained on and perform regular safety evaluations.

Your tanks should be rust and dent-free. Likewise, check any hoses and all the essential fixtures for cracks, leaks, and other damage. It’s okay to place tanks under an awning, but not inside a storage building during the summer heat.

Use a cool, dry location for proper tank storage. Additionally, make certain there’s plenty of ventilation for your tanks. Air movement is essential in case of any leaks.  Keep the tanks upright and on a stable, flat surface that won’t collect any water.

How Long/How Much

It helps if you know how long it will take you to cook a given meal, and how many of those meals you plan to make. The length of time it takes you to prepare will tell you how much precious propane you need to do that job. Although cooking times vary, stick to assuming the longest probable time is what will happen, and you may have extra leftover.

Choose a smaller camping stove like the Willor Portable with piezo ignition and adjustable valve to help use less gas while cooking. The single, windproof burner is ideal for making small meals and conserving fuel. Plus, it’s incredibly lightweight and portable, which will save you space and energy as well. Check the reviews on Amazon right here. 

List of Stovetop Cooking Times

• It takes ten to fifteen minutes to boil a quart of water. Assume it will take a quarter of a gallon of fuel or fifteen minutes for tea, or water to make pasta and boiled eggs. Then add the cooking time for your dish.
• Soup will heat up in about five minutes if it’s premade.
• Pasta and hard-boiled eggs both take around ten minutes once the water is heated.
• Bacon takes two to twelve minutes per side and needs to be flipped. So double your cook time based on the first side.
• Steamed vegetables take three to fifteen minutes depending on the type and how ‘floppy’ you want them. Greens take the least time while dense starchy veggies like carrots, beets, and turnips take the longest.
• Burger patties (thawed beef or turkey) take two to five minutes per side.
• Boiling potatoes, once the water is rolling, takes about fifteen minutes. This works for fingerlings, small red potatoes, and cubed (cut up bite-size) potatoes. For fuel conservation reasons, I don’t recommend using large whole potatoes on a propane cookstove.

Once you know what you plan to cook, then you can estimate how many gallons of propane you need per day. Reheating food or scrambling eggs takes less time than making mashed potatoes from scratch. In general, assume water liquids will boil in about fifteen minutes, and most other basic stovetop meals in pots or pans will take fifteen minutes per dish.

Warming Up With Propane

Using propane to heat the outdoors seems like a lousy way to make your fuel last. Instead, I recommend a small, portable indoor safe heater for camping and personal emergency use. It’s more fuel-efficient. Plus, you stay warm longer indoors for obvious reasons.

I recommend the Mr. Heater F215100 MH4B Little Buddy for camping or smaller bedrooms. Although it requires a four-by-four-inch square for proper ventilation, you don’t lose much heat. Moreover, a one-pound disposable propane cylinder should last you around five and a half hours. That’s enough to get some sleep even in the coldest disaster. Click here to learn more on Amazon. 

If you use your heater on its low setting and close your vent when you turn the heater off, you can maintain moderate indoor temperature for quite a while with very little propane use. Additionally, try to use it only when you absolutely need heat. During the daytime, bundle up and keep on the move to stay warm.

Meanwhile, at night, wrap up in blankets and stay near your heat source. Try to time it so you can get sleep while the heater is running. It will help you avoid body cramps and wasted energy.

Propane Safety Helps it Last

When transporting your long-lasting propane tanks, make sure you keep them upright in an open area like a truck bed. Don’t lay the containers down on their sides or let them roll around. Furthermore, you should make sure all the valves are in the off position.

Never refill a damaged tank. Propane has an additive that makes it stink like rotten eggs. If you can smell the gas, there’s a leak. You should not use a leaking tank.

Additionally, whenever possible, refill your undamaged tanks in the summer. The prices tend to drop while others aren’t using as much propane as they do in colder months. You can save a lot of money with good timing.

All propane tanks need to stay cool. Never store or move them anywhere over a hundred and twenty degrees. Similarly, you need to keep the tank itself away from heat sources, fires, and sparks. That means no smoking around your containers. Following basic safety protocols will help your propane tanks last and avoid injuries and accidents.

 

Final Thoughts

Using a long-lasting, safe fuel source like propane for camping will help you get the most out of your experience. Spending time outdoors doing survival activities as fun, like cooking with propane stoves or backpacking, enables you to prepare for real survival scenarios. Plus, it’s a great way to unwind while testing your equipment.

Instead of disposable propane bottles, get the longer-lasting refillable variety. You’ll save money, and refilling them is simple. The video above gives you tips on how to make the most of refillable propane tanks safely.

Propane doesn’t go off, so properly stored tanks can last you a lot longer than gasoline and other fuels that expire. More importantly, propane is less toxic and burns at a lower temperature than other flammable gasses, which makes it a better choice for the newbie prepper.

 

 

You’ve seen space blankets before. Those wonders of DuPont and NASA ingenuity are made from incredibly thin Mylar, but they look like aluminum foil at first glance. So what’s the big difference? Aren’t they just basically the same thing? Unfortunately, no, they’re not the same. However, there are some ingenious ways you can use aluminum to help keep you warm in the winter. Even though it makes a poor blanket, shiny foil is excellent at helping keep out heat when appropriately used. I’ll help you learn some of the uses for foil and explain why you need Mylar blankets for emergency warmth outdoors.

Shiny Foil Blankets Won’t Keep You Warm

You may have seen food wrapped in shiny foil to keep it warm, but if you’re paying attention, it doesn’t help for very long. Sadly, though foil has outstanding reflective qualities, the closer you wrap something in it, the less it helps keep heat in. Foil is a lousy heat insulator.

Although it makes an okay substitute for a Faraday cage in a pinch, keeping out electromagnetic signals is hardly the same thing as keeping heat inside. Realistically, any wrapping will help hold heat in for a few minutes or a couple of hours. Foil, however, is better at reflecting than insulating against heat loss.

To better understand foil, you only need to look at cooking. Despite all the legends that spring up, the science doesn’t support any of that mythos. Shared knowledge and common sense aren’t always the same thing.

Shiny Side Vs. Dull Side of Aluminum Foil

Anyone who cooks has heard the age-old debate about the shiny Vs. the dull side of the foil. You probably know someone who insists that one side is nonstick. Allow me to help clarify the issue with a little help from and some basic science.

First, there is such a thing as a nonstick foil. However, you have to buy it specifically. In that case, the dull side is labeled, so you know it’s the nonstick surface.

Otherwise, there’s no unique quality that keeps food or anything else from sticking to the foil. Regular aluminum foil is not treated with a nonstick substance on either side. The shine of the metal doesn’t affect this even a little bit.

Shiny Side of Foil in Cooking and Warming

As for ordinary foil and the shine on one side, this happens during the milling process. One side of the foil is in contact with another metal surface during creation. This is the dull side. Meanwhile, the half that’s not touching anything stays shinier.

To be perfectly clear, there is no right side of the regular foil to use. According to Readers Digest and Reynolds Wrap, the side of the foil you use does not affect cooking. Shiny side out or in, it does not significantly impact the cooking time, temperature, or how the food bakes.

Additionally, shine doesn’t insulate cooked food any better after you finish cooking. The same goes for your body. You are made of meat (muscle tissue), fat, bone, and all the same ‘ingredients’ as any animal.

When you cook with foil, it only affects one part of cooking. A foil cover keeps in natural moisture. Hence you can avoid making something too crispy or brown on top while you’re still heating the inside. That’s all it does.

Shiny Aluminum Foil Keeps Some Heat Out

While foil makes a loud and mostly useless jacket material, there is a heat-related use for the inexpensive aluminum sheeting that can help prevent heat transfer. Apply it to your windows in the summertime. The minuscule insulating quality won’t help, but the light and heat reflection will.

Make no mistake; aluminum foil is no match for dual-paned gas-filled windows. However, in a pinch, you can use it to help keep the temperature stable indoors during the warmer months. You’ll need foil and double-sided tape for this trick.

Place a layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil on the inside of the window, and add a layer of bubble wrap over it. The combination of the air trapped inside the pockets and the foil resisting the heat will help keep your home cooler in the summertime.

Similarly, in winter, you can swap out that foil for large bubble wrap to help hold in the heat. That’s a subject for a different article. The moral of the story is that foil isn’t good at keeping heat inside of anything, but it will reflect outside temperature away.

A Deadly Mistake

Using foil to try to warm yourself in winter might be the last mistake you ever make. Shiny aluminum foil can help hold a pocket of air in place, retaining moisture and temperature. However, the effect won’t last forever.

If you think foil holds heat well, you only need to take a foil cover off something that’s was in the oven a minute ago. Unless you touch the pan or release hot steam on yourself, you probably won’t feel the heat. Trapping a pocket of air is an efficient way to maintain a constant temperature, but use a better insulator.

A camo print pack of Titan Two-Sided Emergency Mylar Survival Blankets from Amazon will keep a whole family warm. Skip the extra weight, and lack of insulation foil gives and do the job right instead. Plus, a good Mylar blanket is compact and takes up about as much space as a few folded tissues. You can have them delivered when you order here. 

 

Mylar is Not Shiny Aluminum Foil

It’s an easy mistake to think that shiny aluminum foil and Mylar are the same things, but the difference is night and day. Sure, they look alike because both are silver and reflective. Both also make a lot of noise when crinkled or moved. That’s where the similarity ends.

Developed by NASA in 1964, Mylar blankets used an existing technology from DuPont to create a less-than-thirty micron thick film that helps you retain up to ninety percent of your body heat.

Also known as BoPET (Biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate) or polyester film, the tensile strength of Mylar and heat-retaining qualities were initially used for something different. Mylar isn’t gas permeable. Hence it’s used in food packaging to this day. Whenever you open a yogurt cup or another shiny sealed container, that’s not aluminum foil keeping out mold spores and oxygen.

Though you should never seal yourself in like food, as long as it has a breathing hole, Mylar makes a great human-cover as well. Try a Tact Bivvy 2.0 Emergency Sleeping Bag for cold camping. Don’t let the name fool you, ‘reflective polyester film is the same as Mylar. The only difference is that “Mylar” is a trademarked brand name like “Q-tip.” You’ll love how warm and dry it keeps you by any name. Check the reviews here on Amazon.

 

Shiny Foil Won’t Warm You But…

For urban survivalists, skip the shiny foil, there’s a much better solution to help keep you warm. You may not know this, but homeless people hit on a grand urban solution for heat insulation long ago. Balled up pieces of paper will help hold in the heat.

In the coldest parts of winter, it’s not uncommon to find street people in cities like New York and Chicago dropping little balls of newspaper or junk mail. For the same reason, homeless people traditionally sleep inside cardboard boxes. It keeps them off the cold ground and holds a layer of warm air around them at night.

As strange as it seems, the paper is an exceptional insulator. Those little papery cardboard wraps on your to-go coffee are there for a good reason. Convection, conduction, and radiation are all problems in colder temperatures, and the solution to all of them is the same. You can even get recycled paper home insulation, though it’s been treated to prevent mold, mildew, and pests.

Polyester Film is Still the Best

Of all the inexpensive heat holding solutions, shiny aluminum foil is dreck, and paper is alright. Still, Mylar is the best solution out there right now. Instead of wasting your time on aluminum, get a high-quality Mylar solution instead.

For outdoor treks, I suggest grabbing a Prepared 4X Emergency Poncho from Amazon. In addition to keeping you warm while you sleep, it’s a superb, lightweight, and durable solution on the go. These twenty-four micron thick Mylar ponchos fit in your pocket or cover your whole body. Plus, your hands are available for other activities. Learn more by clicking here. 

Final Thoughts

Shiny aluminum foil is the fool’s gold of emergency survival heat solutions. It looks good, but it’s not what you were hoping for when you noticed it. There are many superior solutions out there.

For better information on emergency survival blankets, check out the superb video above by Far North Bushcraft and Survival. Lonnie debunks some of the misconceptions about survival blankets and shows you how to survive the cold realistically.

You’re not a baked potato, so please don’t wrap yourself in foil. Get a Mylar emergency blanket instead.

 

A fire may be one of the worst experiences someone might ever face. Being in one is terrible due to the panic and fear of dying, and losing everything that you own may be equally worse. Not for the material loss but the loss of things that are part of your memory. That along with the things that are hard to replace can cause you a lot of trouble and headache. It’s hard to get them all back when you can get them back.

So, for this reason, many people create a strategy. This way they know what to do and can ensure that the important things will be protected and taken care of. After all, house fires are sort of common. Not only that but with the current climate changes, certain natural disasters involving fires may become more recurrent than ever.

That made me wonder, what to grab in case of fire? In case of fire, you should grab important documents, objects, and anything that you can’t replace or it’d be too expensive to do it like jewelry. The best thing that you can do is make a list of these items and have them at a specific location, so it’s easier for you to grab them.

Here you can see a list to get you started, then, below you can see a better explanation of each item.

• Pets
• I.D and social security
• Passport
• Flash drive or hard drive with your backup data
• Emergency bag
• Financial documents
• Personal documents

You must make a list, so you’re prepared when things happen. You don’t want to be in a moment like this not knowing what to do. Losing time here can make a whole lot of difference. Now, it’s also important to point out that this list assumes that you’ve made sure that your whole family is out. Otherwise, they’re the ones that you should worry about getting out of the house.

Pets

The first thing that you should worry about is about getting all the living creatures out of the house. Now, considering that you’ve taken the kids out of the house if you have any, the next thing is to get the pets out as well. It’s even a good idea to give them basic training if you can for this kind of situation, so they don’t get in the way. You should get them fast but be careful to not waste too much time trying to grab them and lose valuable time.

Pets are even less resistant to toxic smoke compared to humans. This means that you can waste too much time and let them inhale that. That’s also why it’s such a good idea to give them basic training. This would make them even alert you if something happens. You can look up online on how to do this, it’ll take only a few minutes every day.

So, make sure to grab your pets in case of fire. Remember that it’s a good idea to train them in this situation. If you’re talking about pets other than dogs, maybe you should consider having an exit strategy for them to make things faster for both of you.

I.D and Social Security Number

Another very important thing is to remember important documents like your I.D and your social security. These are crucial documents because otherwise, you can’t be identified and be able to access other documents in your bank and so on. So, always remember to get your I.D and social security and take them with you.

A great idea that many people execute is to get a fireproof document bad. In it, you could put your I.D card and social security. It’ll make that much easier for you to grab them and also safer. There’s a chance that it’ll even resist the fire in case you’re not fast enough to get them.

These documents are one of the most important that you have, so do not leave them behind. You should look for a fireproof bag that withstands high-temperature for a long period. The Fullive Fireproof Document Bag is a great option for you. Just remember to leave in an easy-to-reach place. Get yours here.

Passport

You may have no intention of leaving the country right now, but grabbing your passport with you it’s important. Actually, any official identification document is important and should be taken with you. It’s important to make sure that you grab everything that helps identify yourself. So, put the passport in the fireproof bag alongside the I.D card and social security. This way, you only need to go for one.

Now, this is also important because you never know when you’re going to have to leave the country. In an SHTF situation, you’re still likely going to need to have a passport to cross borders. This is why is so important that you do grab yours and make sure that it’s with you at all times. Also, if you leave outside of your country, then it becomes more important than the I.D.

So, make sure to think about all of these documents. Your passport is important no matter if you’re an expat or you may need to leave the country. Always have with you in case of fire. It’s an important document and there’s some bureaucracy to get a new one.

Flash Drive Or Hard Drive

Nowadays we’re digitalizing nearly everything. This means that an important portion of our lives is digital. We have photos, files, important documents, messages, you name it. Everything is somehow stored as a digital file. That makes it even more important to have backups of all these data. This is when having a flash drive or a hard drive will be valuable to you.

The first thing that you must do is to make sure that you do the backup of your data. Store only the important files that you cannot lose. This means official documents, important email, and personal stuff that you can’t replace. The average smartphone users use up to 5GB of data a month, so you might have more than you think.

So, make sure that you have a flash drive or a hard drive with all your important files. A nice tip is to put the flash drive or the hard drive inside a fireproof safe. It’ll make things much safer. You can set it up in a place that it’s easy to access and leave the house. The SentrySafe SFW123DSB Fireproof Safe is the best fireproof safe in the market. Check it out here.

Emergency Bag

Have you heard of emergency bags? These are great for anyone that wants to be prepared for anything. It’s just a bag with everything that you’ll need to survive and get out of SHTF situations. In it, you can include all the important things that you want to take with you and tools to help you survive. You can include weapons, food, and water bottles.

Make sure to get a big bag that fits everything that you need to take with you. Remember to give priority to your immediate necessities, so you’re not taking too much weight with you. After all, you don’t want to slow down and waste valuable time because the bag is too heavy.

So, make sure to prepare an emergency bag. Make a list of all the important objects for you, and put them in the bag. The Emergency Zone Bug Out Bag is a great emergency bag. It comes with everything you’ll need to put your stuff in it. Take a look here.

Financial Documents

Your credit card, bank account information, and insurance documents are important. This means that you should also remember to grab them in case of fire. After all, getting them back and trying to prove your rights may be a pain in the ass later. This means that the best that you can do is to make sure that you store all of these in a safe location.

Then, make sure that they’re easy to access. You could also train the situation, so you know where is everything and what to do in the case of a fire. This may sound even silly but it’s important.

So, just make sure to not forget your insurance documents, credit cards, and bank account documents.

Personal Documents

Some things aren’t worth a penny, but they’re irreplaceable to use. These are the photos, gifts, objects, letters. Anything that has an important meaning to you and that you can recover in the case of a fire.

Those personal documents should go with you as well. This means that you should grab them. If you have them already separated in one place is even better.

So, make a list, put them in one place, and train how to grab everything on time. Once you accomplish this, you’re good to go.

Final Thoughts

These are what you should grab in case of fire. Make sure that you do not leave anything important behind. Especially the things that you can’t replace and the thing that will help you rebuild your life.

 

We often don’t take seriously how important it is to protect our bodies, especially our skins, from the sun. It can cause all sorts of diseases, especially skin cancer. Now, when you spend hours hiking, walking into the woods, or camping protecting your head against the sun is vital. This is exactly what most preppers do or will do at some point. Camping may be used as training or even as a way to connect with nature. So, having sun hats is a part of your prepping strategy.

Imagine walking on an open field for a long time under the sun. It can not only be stressful and tiresome but also painful. The sun burning the skin and dehydrating the body is not exactly the idea of a fun time. So, the best that prepper can do is to look for ways to protect themselves against the hot temperatures.

Looking for different options got me thinking, do Sun hats keep you cool? Sun hats keep you cool if you wear one that allows your skin to breathe and has a light fabric to make your head cooler. Wearing sun hats may sound counterintuitive since you’re putting on fabric, but you’re not making the skin hotter. You’re actually protecting it against the sun as people do in the desert when they wear a tunic.

So, if you want to know how to choose a sun hat that will keep you cool and will last you a long time, especially when you’re in an SHTF situation, keep reading below.

A Hat Protects Your Head From UV Rays

The main reason to wear a sun hat under high temperatures is that it protects your head against UV rays. This is important not only to your health, but it also helps you resist when it’s really hot outside. This extra protection will give you more strength to walk long distances when you’re outside.

Now, you may discard this and think that you don’t need sun hats. After all, you have a pretty good resistance when it comes to hot weather. Maybe you live a few minutes from the beach and are used to high temperatures. Still, you’ll soon realize that you need sun hats and protect your skin like everyone else.

Also, you’re a prepper and you need to be ready for tough climates. You cannot go into certain weather conditions without the equipment to survive. So, you need to choose a sun hat that will keep you cool, especially when it’s really hot outside.

Look for a hat that offers this extra UV rays protection. The Bayinbulak Fishing Sun Hat is a great option for you. It’ll protect you against UV rays and enable you to walk long distances under hot weather conditions. Get yours here.

It Needs Ventilation

Sun hats do keep you cool, but you need to look for models that will allow your skin to breathe. This is why it’s so important to pick the right hat for you. In a survival situation, you won’t be able to get another one or decide to go hatless.

You’ll need a hat that protects your head at all times and helps you keep your body temperature under control. If you need to take long walks one day under extreme hot weather, the sun hat may be the tool that will help you make the trip.

So, what you must do is to make sure that the hat has a light fabric and a design that helps keep your head cool. It’s also a good idea to have more than one sun hat so you can vary function-wise. It’s also good to remember that the sun hat will keep you cool, but you can look for other accessories and tools to help you survive hot weather.

The Mesh Keep You Fresh

You must have a hat with a great mesh in your collection. A sun hat with a mesh that keeps you fresh is important to be able to withstand the hot temperature. All you have to do is to check out if the sun that you’re considering getting has a mesh that will keep you cool.

You can look for the inside of the hat or make sure that the models have one by reading the description. The important thing is that you do get a sun hat with a mesh. Certain models don’t have one and are still great, but consider getting one that has it just in case.

So, look for the mesh that will keep your head even fresher. In a survival situation, it’s important to be ready for aby climate. The Super Wide Brim Sun Hat is a great sun hat with a high-quality mesh that keeps your entire body cooler. The fabric and design are also great, so you should consider them. Grab yours here.

It Can Also Keep Your Neck Cool

Another reason to get a sun hat as a prepper is that it keeps your neck cool. Way too often we look at sun hats and hats in general and think of them as accessories that at best, protect your head. Now, they’re much more than that. Sun hats can also keep your neck cool. They’ll protect your neck from the sun’s rays.

It’s important to look for a model that has wide edges and that covers enough space to protect your neck effectively. Still, most models of sun hats will get the job done. Make sure to test it out and maybe wear it, if you can, to make sure that you’ll get that extra neck protection.

Protecting as much as you can of your upper body from the sun will keep you cool, healthy, and will increase your resistance to the sun. The perfect hat for this is the Home Prefer Men’s UPF 50+ Sun Protection Cap. Take a look here.

Your Scalp Needs Protection

We always view hats as these accessories that we wear for style or to protect the head. Still, we hardly think of how important it is to protect our scalp. A large portion of skin cancer happens on the scalp, and that also happens in large part because we left this area unprotected. We remember to apply sun blockers on every part of our bodies, but we neglect the scalp.

This is why it’s so important that you remember to wear a sun hat. Now, think about it. One important part about prepping is to remember to take care of your basic health. Otherwise, you won’t survive much longer. This is why it’s important to care about those things.

So, make sure to protect your scalp. The best way to do this is to wear sun hats of high quality and that you can trust like the one recommended here. You must prep the right way for every situation that may arise.

Certain Hats Will Make It Hotter

You may ask yourself why it’s so important to wear a sun hat. Not only that but also why it’s important to wear a good-quality one. The reason is simple. Bad-quality hats will make your head hotter. They’ll make your entire body hotter in a bad way.

The problem is that they don’t have a ventilation design and a high-quality mesh. This makes them accumulate the hot air and the temperature that is outside. That accumulates the air like the hat was cooking your head in a vapor. This can be terrible since it can even cause a fever. You certainly don’t want that when you’re out there in the wilderness.

So, make sure to get a high-quality sun hat that will make you cooler and keep you that way. The EINSKEY Sun Hat is a great choice for you. It’s another great model of a sun hat, especially for preppers. It suits your lifestyle and will help you when you need it. Take a peek here.

A Lightweight Hat Will Also Protect Your Eyes

We’ve talked extensively on how the hat will keep your head cool. We’ve also talked about how the hat can keep your neck cool as well. Now, what we didn’t mention yet is that the sun hat will be beneficial to all your facial features. A lightweight hat will also protect your eyes.

The reason is simple. The hat will protect your eyes from the sun rays like sunglass does but differently. The sun hat will not allow your eyes to get a direct focus on the sun rays. This makes them more protected when wearing sunglasses. This is one more important thing about your health that you should pay attention to.

So, since the pupils and the retina will be affected by the sunray, the best that you can do is to wear the right kind of hat to improve your current protection.

Final Thoughts

So, sun hats do keep you cool. All you have to do on your end is to choose which one you want from the above suggestions. Then, you’re guaranteed to cover all grounds and make sure that you have every tool in a prepper arsenal. Just make sure that the sun hat is high-quality and that the design works for you.

As kids, we’ve all wanted to camp in our backyards at some point. The thrill of camping was so big that even though you wouldn’t be in the wild, it’d still create an amazing experience. Now, as adults, camping in your backyard may still be an important experience but for different reasons. You get the chance to simulate some of the conditions that you’d experience in a survival situation.

This can be the opportunity to learn a valuable lesson on prepping. The only problem is that as much as it’s a somewhat controlled environment, you still have to question how safe it is. After all, camping in your backyard may provide all sorts of obstacles and potential danger.

That was made me question, is it safe to camp in your backyard? It is safe to camp in your backyard as long as you’re an adult or the kids are being monitored by an adult. In the case of simulation of a prepping scenario, it’s safe as long as the environment and obstacles are under your control.

With that said, you should consider camping in your backyard, especially if you’re a prepper. This is the perfect situation to simulate a few possible scenarios and try to recreate things to the best of your abilities. This is the moment that you would be able to brush up on your skills and learn new ones.

Now, it’s important that you know the pros and cons and how this experiment can help you. This is why you should make sure to read this ‘til the end. You’ll get all the information that you need to understand how camping in your backyard is not only safe but advisable for you.

Try To Recreate Survival Situations

The first advantage and the reason that you should camp in your backyard is that it’s great to recreate survival situations that you might face when SHTF. The first thing that you should do to establish are ground rules. This means things like you can’t get into the house or you need to limit your access to food and water. Just don’t go too overboard with this since it might be dangerous for your health.

Now, you must plan out these situations first. Think about the different scenarios that are likely to happen. For instance, no matter the disaster, there are resources and services that you won’t have at your disposal. So, you should plan for them. As you progress, you may even act out a scenario that you have to set up your tent.

All of these simulations will prepare you for anything that might come your way. The important thing is to make sure that you’ll have the equipment to create the perfect simulation. This means that you need a survival knife, tent, bags, water, food, lantern, and more. The Coleman Sundome Tent is the best tent that you can find to recreate survival situations. It’s durable and resistant. Get you’re here.

Practice Prepping

Another reason that you should camp in your backyard is that it’s a safe place to practice prepping. Obviously, you have a bug-in and a bug-out plan, but you should learn what to do in case you find yourself without a base for a few days. This is when camping in your backyard will become the ultimate training. It’s a controlled environment that you still can practice the essential skills that you’re going to need.

The challenge should consist of restricting your access to modern society privileges like cooking food in your home or getting something that it’s ready to be consumed. You should challenge yourself to depend on nothing but yourself. This means no processed food or dependent on your home’s facility. As long as you’re doing this, you’ll be practicing prepping as a true master would.

So, make sure that you practice prepping while camping in your backyard. Again, it’s safe to camp in your backyard, so you don’t need to worry about it. Unless you live in a place with wildlife in your surroundings. That’s the only exception that you should be concerned about. Also, this is all assuming that you’re an adult. Kids should not camp unsupervised no matter what.

Learn Survival Skills

Camping, in general, it’s great for anyone in any situation or location because it helps you learn survival skills. Even if you don’t want to do any prepping, which is a mistake, you still can profit from learning survival skills. We never know when we’re going to need it, and if you do need it, it’ll be too late to learn them. So, the best that you can do is to learn the most important survival skills to make sure you can make it through the night.

The first thing that you should know is that you won’t last without shelter. So, that’s the first thing that you must learn. So, go ahead and learn either how to make a tent out of nothing or how to make sure that a place is safe to stay. You don’t want to get inside the wrong cave.

Then, you need to learn basic hunting skills and how to find water. Once you do those things, learn how to start a fire and cook what you’ve hunted. At last, you should learn how to fight and where’s east and west. You don’t want to get lost in a wild place. The great news is that man of those things you can learn from camping.

Slowly Increase Difficulty

You shouldn’t recreate the worst possible scenario in your first camping experiment. It’ll be too hard and chances are that you’re going to quit before even getting started. The best that you can do is to slowly increase difficulty. This means only restricting yourself to some resources but not all of them. Otherwise, you’ll set yourself up to fail. This is not why you’re doing this.

To make sure that you succeed, you must set yourself up to success. This means creating a situation that challenges you enough for you to learn and grow, but not too much that you feel overwhelmed and quit. The balance is a little hard to find, but you must evaluate your current knowledge and skills to make sure what you can handle.

All, you have to do is make it challenging enough to get you out of your comfort zone. Start by restricting certain food and water, but don’t starve yourself or spend the night without shelter. You must do it all safely.

So, remember to slowly increase difficulty but not too much that you’ll quit. If you do this, you’ll soon find yourself handling harder things that you’re currently capable of. Not only that but you’ll also be able to handle things better than other people if you find yourself in an SHTF scenario.

Make Sure You Have The Right Equipment

You don’t want all this practice to go to waste. So, the best that you can do is to make sure that you have the right equipment that you’ll need. Otherwise, you won’t be training in the best way and will not learn everything that you need to. That why you should jot down everything that you’ll need like a tent, sleeping bags, a lantern, food, etc.

It’s also a good idea to have a tactical knife or a swiss knife. Now, you may think that you don’t need those in your backyard, but they’re going to be necessary when you’re in a survival situation, and that’s exactly what you’re going to be creating there. So, you must have all the equipment. Even the ones that you may not use in your backyard.

Having the equipment and getting familiar with survival skills are things that everyone should take the time to do. They can be the difference between staying alive or not. So, do make sure that you have, for instance, a proper knife. The Gerber Bear Grylls Ultimate Knife is the best for both beginners and advanced preppers. Take a look here.

Take The Time To Master Your Tools

Having a gun means nothing if you don’t know how to aim and shoot. So, you should take the time to master your tools. It means nothing to have the biggest weapon of them all if you don’t master it. If you don’t control it, someone else will. That’s why you must learn how to use every tool that you have for this situation. We’re talking about tactical knives, lanterns, tents, lighter, and anything else that you’re including in your tool kit.

The important thing is that you make sure that you know how to use everything. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you need to use something you have no idea of how to use. For instance, starting a fire is not that difficult, but it can get harder depending on the situation. So, make sure to practice it multiple times. Remember, you won’t ever have the perfect conditions, so count on that.

If you do take the time to master your tools and plan for every possible scenario, you’re way ahead of the curve. Your chances of survival increase significantly. So, master everything that you have.

Camp At Least Once A Month

Your survival skills can get rusty. It’s important to make sure that you’re always ready for anything that can happen. Now, the best way to do this is to keep a regular schedule for your camping training. This means camping once a month in your backyard. Then, you can vary by camping outside in a park or even the woods.

The point is that you should camp once a month since you’re doing it in your backyard. This won’t take too much effort since it’s in your home. Now, before you think you don’t need to think about it. Do you want to need all those survival skills and not remember what to do? It’s important to learn everything to the point that it’s all on autopilot for you.

You don’t want to need to build a tent, start a fire, or find natural resources and be trying to remember how to do any of those things. If it’s second nature to you, you’ll see that you’re more likely to survive. So, make sure to camp once a month to keep everything fresh in your mind.

Pre-Establish When You Can Quit

The Navy Seals noticed that when we feel like we’ve given our 100% and can do it anymore, we’ve often done only 40% of our maximum capacity. This means that our brains are used to quitting no matter who we are. This also means that there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Now, the best solution for that is to pre-establish when you can quit. If you say to yourself that you’re only going to quit if it’s a life and death situation, you won’t quit when things get uncomfortable because you didn’t bring food that you love. In a survival situation, you won’t be able to choose what you want to eat. You’ll have to make the best of what you have at that moment.

So, it’s crucial to the success of this experiment that you decide before you get started when you’re going to quit. This is the best solution to make sure that you don’t quit too early, and that you stretch yourself and improve your resistance. This is how you build the mental power to become a master prepper and get ready for anything.

Final Thoughts

So, it is safe to camp in your backyard. Not only that but you should totally do it to practice prepping and survival skills. You must make sure that you can handle tough situations and know how to handle them. You’re probably not going to be able to learn them afterward. So, practice now and make sure that you simulate all the possible scenarios so you’re ready for everything.