Mistake # 1: Set and forget
Not training with your bag is a big mistake. If you don’t train, you might have bad gear that you don’t even know. In addition to that, you might be inexperienced with the gear.
When it comes to setting it up, it may take you longer if you’re not familiar with gear or you may damage something not knowing that.
Obviously you need maintain food or you need to charge batteries. During different seasons, you might want to add or take away certain gear. Therefore, set and forget is a big mistake.
Mistake #2: Having wrong type of bag
Most people expect to buy an all-in-one bag and it could be used in every place. That is a big mistake because the size of bag might not be right for specific travel or the color of bag might not match your environment.
Take for example, if you’re in the city, you may want to go gray man. If you live out in the middle of the woods, you may want to rock camo. if you live in the middle of desert, you might want to do desert camo or coyote brown.
Therefore, you need to adjust accordingly.
I see a lot of people using smaller bags as stuffing them more full than what they’re capable of carrying. So make sure that if you’re going to have more gear, you have a larger bag.
Please bring the right bag for the job
Mistake # 3: is strapping gear or weapons to the outside of your bag
Taking a carabiner and loading a cup or silverware on your bag are gonna be a snag risk. They’re going to make a lot of noise. Thus, stuff hanging off your bags are easy for someone to walk up and just steal real quick
Keep those things in mind
Also if you strap a weapon to your pack that’s just going to draw attention to yourself. so make sure that if you have a weapon, they should be secured on your body or secured in your bag
You don’t want someone coming up from behind your bag and pull in your knife off of your bag and stabbing you. You couldn’t feel them doing it
it also causes shifting weight. You don’t need anything swaying on your pack because that’s just gonna be harder on your back in the long run
Mistake # 4: Too many redundancies
Many people love to collect tactical knives. They tend to put many of them into their bag. The thing is you don’t need seven knives for seven different jobs.
You should choose one knife which can do four jobs. You don’t have much space and you cannot carry a heavy bag in the long travel. This is going to be a problem for you.
Lighter is faster and better. When you want to put anything in your bag, ask yourself this do you use it when you’re out ? is it necessary to your mission and how many do you truly need to accomplish the task ?
if you answer those questions honestly, you’re going to find a lot of things in your bag that you don’t need.
Mistake # 5: not having enough calories in your bag
The more you’re walking on foot, the more calories you’re going to burn. Add the weight of the bag to that and uneven terrain if you’re not walking on a street
I see people bringing out all tools and all other things to get calories but they don’t have the calories to sustain them until they get those systems in place
Most of us are not planning on delays reroutes, unplanned stops and extra person joining in the group so those things are also going to be a drain on your food supply
Another thing I see when it comes to not enough calories is just basically the wrong food. You’re packing tons of this type of food in your bag but it’s not very calorie dense
Make sure that you’re having stuff like oats protein, nuts berries or any energy chews stuff that’s going to give you the calories and the boost that you need of electrolytes to keep moving
Mistake #6: missing your personal identification
They are passports, IDs, Social Security card, birth certificates. So make sure you store them in a watertight container and make sure you have it on you because along the travel, you may have to prove your vehicle or prove that those are your kids or prove that you live where you say,
If you don’t have any form of identification, you’re most likely to get wrapped up and detained and questioned and that’s the last thing you want to do
When you’re using a bag in an emergency, you don’t want to be scrounging around and looking for all these different documents.
Mistake #7: is going to be your ability to move in inclement weather like rain
You’re going to need a bag cover. You’re going to want your electronics to be watertight or waterproof or in waterproof bags. You’re gonna want personal body wear like a rain suit poncho, waterproof boots anything like that
The ability to move in the rain means that you’re not going to have to stop set up your tent or your tarp and wait for the rain storms to pass or the snow storms to pass or whatever it is you can keep moving without having to worry about your gear being compromised or your worth being compromised
Ask yourself would you rather be stuck hunkering down for four days during a huge storm ? or would you still want the ability to be able to move if necessary ?
so make sure that you have these water proofing items and that you can move with your bag even when the weather is not the best.
