Whenever you read different survival articles or videos, you come across warnings like “it is not for the faint-hearted.” This is partially true since surviving there requires adequate preparation. It may be fun. However, you need to have some experience to enjoy the fun aspects.
Before you pack up everything and set for your wild adventure, you must learn some skills to service there. Surviving in the wild is more complex than you think. Things can easily go wrong fast and woe unto you if you are unprepared for what is ahead.
Once you have all the relevant techniques and skills, everything gets smoother. So, to make everything easy, here are some things you need to know. Once you learn and master all the basic techniques and skills, you can go and have some fun.
Here are 5 Essential Survival Techniques for Thriving in The Wild
1. Preparing Meals in the Wild
If you want to make it out in the wild, one of the techniques you must learn is how to prepare your meal. The fun of survival ventures and camping is figuring out how to prepare meals with limited resources.
There is a lot to eat in the wild, and you can survive for a long time without running out of food. The challenge is preparing the foods effectively to meet your needs. To do so, you need all the essentials for food preparations. You need a fire, cooking essentials, a knife, etc.
One of the things you need to prepare the food is the knife. Buy a multi-purpose survival knife perfect for cutting, slicing, and picking fruits. A perfect survival knife must be made of durable materials, rust-free, always sharp, and must have an anti-bacterial surface to ensure you are always safe.
The knife can help you skin game meat, cut fruits, make fire, and fulfill other needs. This is why you need the most suitable knife for these roles.
2. Fire Making Techniques
Cold is one of the greatest threats you must learn to deal with when living in the wild. It does not matter whether you have a tent, RV, or a log cabin. The fire is essential for warmth and meal preparation. Fire preparation is easy when camping in hot and dry areas. All you need is some twigs, dry leaves, and a matchbox. Things are different when camping in cold and rainy areas.
The wood is always wet in such places, and you will hardly get some dry twigs and leaves to light the fire. It takes more than a matchbox to make a fire in such areas. Therefore, ensure you know how to prepare the fire with small dry wood and other essentials like an ax and lighter or kerosene. Once you know how to prepare a fire, most of your problems are solved.
For comprehensive learning and preparations, master fire preparation through friction, magnifying glass, flint, and steel.
3. Making a Shelter
Before you even learn how to prepare a fire or cut and hunt wild food, you must learn how to create a shelter. There is a probability that the ground you are camping on will always be moist and dumped. So, how do you ensure your shelter is warm and safe?
Erecting a tent is not a big challenge. Your biggest concern is to ensure it is safe from winds and water. Select the perfect spot before setting up your tent or building a house. A raised and flat ground will suffice.
Set it up amidst trees and bushes to avoid the effects of the winds. A flat ground between trees is perfect since you can sleep without worrying about strains and high winds. Also, ensure the hooks and anchors are firm in the ground.
4. Techniques to Purify Water
Whenever you are in the wild, you must know how much danger you face from drinking water. Despite some appearing pure and clean, they have germs. You can easily get waterborne diseases from drinking water from any wild sources.
Before you purify water for drinking, learn to locate a cleaner source and then purify it. Purifying water is simple, especially with a portable filtration system. Your main goal is to try and locate a cleaner source to boost the purifier’s effectiveness at removing all germs.
After purification, the water is still not fully clean for drinking or cooking. Filter through a cloth for extra safety. The cloth traps tiny rock particles, which can harm your stomach or lead to appendix complications.
5. Navigating Through the Land
Digital maps are popular but sometimes challenging to use in the wilderness. Most of these routes are not on Google Maps; hence, you must figure out how to get around. This is where old techniques come in handy.
Learn how to use a compass, paper, or digital maps to navigate accurately. Secondly, you must know how to mark the trail to get back without getting lost. Trail marking can help you in moments of danger since you can easily find your way to safety.
Besides the compass and maps, carry a spray can or marker to trails on rocks and woods. The marked trails are also essential for search and rescue crews. Observation skills are also handy in locating special landmarks, i.e., stones and certain trees, to help you get around.
Wrapping up
Surviving in the wild is much easier when you are prepared and have the best survival skills and techniques. Begin by learning the basics like making shelter and fire, preparing food, learning navigation, and water purification. These are just a few basic skills; you need to learn more.
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