In a world where unexpected disasters and emergencies can strike at any moment, being equipped with the right knowledge and abilities is crucial. From building a fire to finding clean water, navigating without GPS to administering first aid, this comprehensive article will equip you with the essential survival skills list for when the SHTF (s*** hits the fan).
10 Survival Skills for SHTF Preparedness
When beginners start planning for a survival situation, one of the main things people focus on is supplies they’d need. Having a stocked supply of things like food, water, first aid and other items is obviously extremely important, but there’s more you need to consider when it comes to a survival skills list than just buying items.
Every survival prepper needs to realize that you may run out of supplies before the emergency is over. And there are times when services may not be available during an event, either – forcing you to do things like make repairs yourself.
With supplies, if you had a month’s worth of survival food in storage, that stockpile will only last so long. If the event lasts longer or is even possibly indefinite, then you’d be in trouble.
In an emergency, you couldn’t just order more food to your doorstep from the Internet. You’d have to know how to find it yourself. And if the stores were wiped of all supplies, you’d have to be able to provide food for yourself and your family from nature.
This is why it’s absolutely crucial to have a survival skills list when prepping for a SHTF situation. Having skills can apply to any survival need, whether that’s food, water, shelter, protection, or something else imperative to your ability to get by.
Below, you’re going to find ten of the top survival skills everyone needs to understand, practice and master long before a survival event takes place. Not only will these benefit you, but the skills themselves can be used to barter for supplies you may need in the future.
Survival Skill #1 – Hunting and Fishing
Hunting is one survival skill that would be extremely beneficial if you were to ever find yourself in an emergency situation. The ability to hunt is something that you’ll be able to use to provide nutritious food and even materials to your family.
One aspect of hunting that’s important to learn about and practice is tracking. Tracking is where you look at the footsteps created by an animal.
When tracking, you should be able to identify the type of animal and even figure out what direction it has gone in, as well as how long ago it passed by.
Tracking can be useful for different reasons, but the main one is hunting. Tracking the steps of a deer, for example, can lead you in the direction it went to help you hunt for it.
Knowing what animal left the prints can also help you determine the size of the animal and whether or not it’s worth the time to track it down.
To improve this skill, there are many guides online you can look at for memorization. You can print and laminate a guide as well to keep it in a bug out bag in case you ever need it. If you choose to practice your tracking skills out in nature, be sure to stay safe.
Animal Trapping Methods
Trapping is another aspect of hunting that would be a useful skill to learn. Trapping is where you use a mechanism to attract and trap your prey.
Hunting traps can be bought pre-built online. These traps are usually made of a sturdy metal material or nets. While these pre-built options are definitely among the easiest to use, they wouldn’t be a good option for a bug-out situation.
Most traps aren’t collapsible and easy to carry around with you. The majority of them are very heavy metal contraptions, with the exception of materials like nets.
The best option if you were ever out in the wilderness would be to build your own trap out of materials around you.
There are plenty of trapping methods that use simple survival materials like branches and rope, which you can make yourself using strips of bark off of a tree or dead plants. Trap builds that would be useful to you can be different depending on the region you live in.
Make sure that you know what kind of wildlife is around you before you begin building traps, so that you can plan accordingly.
There are plenty of guides to building primitive traps, like snares, that you can find online. Some of these can be bought in physical book form, while some are videos that you can follow along with.
Another great skill to learn in the hunting realm is fishing. Fishing is a great way to catch food, depending on your local environment.
If you live in a very dry area that wouldn’t have many reliable fishing sources, it might be better to focus your time on honing other skills. That being said, if you’re on the move during a survival situation, it would be a good skill to at least be familiar with.
Fishing Skills
The way most people fish today is with your standard fishing rod, usually standing on a dock or kayaking in a lake. This method is quite reliable, but may not always be the best option in survival situations.
The length of fishing rods would make them extremely inconvenient to carry around during an emergency, unless they’re the collapsible kind. Even with a durable, collapsible rod, you should still make sure you have backup methods in case it were to ever break.
One example of an alternate method would be spearfishing. Spearfishing is exactly what it sounds like – fishing with a spear. This method is good for a bug out event because it doesn’t require anything you couldn’t find in nature.
There are many methods to creating a spear, but one of the most popular includes breaking down a rock into a teardrop-like shape, with a very pointy end and sharp edges, and then attaching it to a long and sturdy wooden stick, usually using natural cordage that’s made out of dead plants or wooden strips off of a rotting tree.
One more method many people use that doesn’t require any tools is fishing by hand, which literally just entails grabbing fish and taking them out of the water.
Both of these alternate skills would take some practice to master, so look up tips and tricks and practice, if you’d like.
Hunting Techniques
Another part of hunting is shooting. This is what most people think of when they think of hunting. Shooting for hunting would be a very good skill to learn, as it’s one of the best and easiest methods.
How you can practice hunting by shooting depends on the area you live in. Hunting laws can be tricky – not every place has the same ones.
Make sure you keep yourself educated on the guidelines for your location when you’re planning to do anything regarding guns, including hunting.
You can also use archery as a way to hunt. Using a bow and arrow is a good option because unlike guns with bullets, the ammunition is reusable.
Another good thing about a bow and arrow is that it’s fairly easy to make one yourself so you don’t have to rely on a pre-bought mechanism.
The most important thing about honing your hunting skills is to make sure you do it legally. In different areas, some animals are legal to hunt and some aren’t – and some hunting can only be done at certain times of the year.
Some traps are legal and some aren’t, as well. Laws also may change based on new legislation. You can also read online research and watch videos instead of actively practicing hunting to avoid trouble.
Survival Skill #2 – Self Defense
Self defense is a very important skill to have during a survival situation. In a prolonged survival event, you most likely won’t have the luxury of calling the police to have them come defend you.
People may be a threat for many reasons in the case of a long-term emergency. If disaster were to strike, many people would be willing to fight or even worse to steal your food, clothes, supplies, shelter, etc.
Even back in 2020, people would shove and hit others in grocery stores over toilet paper. Weapons, and knowing how to use them, are an obvious and reliable way to defend yourself.
Defending Yourself with Weapons
A weapon doesn’t even necessarily have to be something like a gun or a knife – it can be something as simple as a wooden staff or a heavy rock. And there are numerous non-lethal ways to defend yourself, too.
To practice self defense, there are many things you can do. There are countless videos on the internet that will teach you more primitive self-defense tools, and there are even courses you can take.
You can also practice by going to places like shooting ranges or regular self-defense training classes. Self-defense will most likely focus more on unarmed, solely physical self defense techniques like martial arts.
You may also need to defend yourself from vicious animals that are trying to attack you. You can use self defense tactics on them or use your hunting skills to defend you and your group.
Survival Skill #3 – Shelter Building
To survive in a SHTF situation, it’ll be extremely important for you to have shelter. Evacuating your home during a survival situation can be extremely scary if you don’t know how to deal with it.
You need shelter to stay safe from the elements. And during an emergency situation, it’s possible that the emergency could be related to or affect the weather. This is one reason it’s so important to be able to have shelter when you bug out.
One easy way to get shelter when you bug out is by simply camping out in another building. Depending on the nature of the emergency, your own home may or may not be destroyed after you leave.
Other homes in the area probably would be as well, but some buildings might still be intact a few streets or miles away.
If you come across an abandoned building, such as a home or business, you could use it as a shelter for you and your group.
This does come with risks though – the building may not be stable or you could run into an awkward situation where the original owners return to their property and might not be too friendly with strangers.
Shelter Methods to Survive
The other option is to learn to build your own shelters. Learning to build a shelter will be very beneficial in many situations, for example if all buildings are demolished or you’re in nature with no buildings around you.
There are a plethora of different shelter-building techniques that use nothing but materials you can find outdoors. There’s also shelters for many different climates, like deserts and frigid areas.
Teepees and lean-tos are some of the most popular primitive shelters, each one having a foundation built from wood. Insulation for natural shelters can range from things like straw to leaves, grass, etc.
Shelter building is an easy thing to practice at home. Just research and what type of shelter you want to try to build, and gather materials outdoors to create it.
Different shelters can have different benefits depending on environmental factors, so practice building a variety so that you can be best equipped to handle a situation where you have no home to come back to in a survival situation.
Survival Skill #4 – First Aid
First aid is a skill that could save you or someone in your group’s life. Many survivalists have a first-aid kit as part of their bug out bags.
These kits usually include very helpful materials like bandages, rubbing alcohol wipes, painkillers, and more.
Having a kit like this would definitely be beneficial for awhile. It’s a good idea to either pre-pack your own custom one or buy a pre-made one for your survival stash.
However, in order for it to actually benefit you, you need to make sure you educate yourself on how to use each of the materials.
Not only do you have to know what the materials do, but you need to know what types of injuries or illnesses to use them for.
And since there might not be doctors available to diagnose any ailments, you should research how to recognize symptoms of the most common illnesses and injuries and how to treat them accordingly with the kit.
Herbal first aid is another survival skill you’ll want to master. Herbal first aid can be especially helpful during a survival situation because herbs are abundant in nature, making them a good long-term survival option.
It’s especially good to know about herbal first-aid because if the emergency lasts long enough, you’ll eventually run out of supplies in your first aid kit. Aloe vera is one example of herbal first-aid that is very commonly used even outside of survival situations.
Herbal Remedies
Aloe vera is commonly used on injuries, sunburn being one example. This plant is an anti-inflammatory herbal medicine you can use to soothe irritation. Garlic is another natural form of medicine that is good for fighting illnesses.
It’s been proven to fight things like E. coli and many other things that could get you very sick in a bug out situation. Aside from these two examples, there are many different plants you can find in nature that can provide you with some form of medical benefit.
There are plenty of books that teach about the art of herbal medicine, and tons of information online including videos on how to gather these herbs and use them.
Another good thing to learn about when you’re building up your herbal first aid skills is differentiating plants from other dangerous ones.
Not every plant you’ll find will be safe to eat or touch. It’s very possible that one plant with medicinal benefits may look like another that isn’t so good for your health.
You need to make sure you know the dangerous lookalikes of the good plants so that you can avoid additional ailment.
Survival Skill #5 – Foraging, Livestock and Growing Food
One of the scariest parts of survival can be food scarcity. Modern technology has been able to save lots of energy that we’d be using if we didn’t have things like cars, fast food, grocery stores, etc.
In a survival event, many of these modern technologies will fizzle out. You’ll no longer be able to make a quick stop at the local market to pick up some eggs and vegetables. Instead, you’ll have to get it the natural way.
Foraging is one simple way you can obtain food during a survival situation. Foraging is where you find food in nature – this could be things like apples from a tree or berries from a bush.
This method of gathering food can be very reliable if you live in an area with lots of natural resources. Make sure that before you practice foraging, you research what natural food sources you can find in your region.
Another thing you’ll want to research prior to foraging is how to tell what’s dangerous and what’s not. For example, some edible mushrooms look very similar to ones that are dangerous or even deadly.
It’s also easy for dangerous berries to look like edible ones, so make sure you’re vigilant and research how to tell wild plants apart. One other way to gather food during a survival event is to grow your own food.
Successful Gardening
Growing your own food on your own property can be better than foraging in most cases, because you can have quicker access to the plants, as well as choose what foods you grow.
Starting a garden before any sort of emergency strikes is a good idea because it’ll give your plants more time to grow and begin producing food so that you’ll be prepared if anything happens.
If you wait to start a garden after a survival situation unfolds, you’ll be waiting for weeks to months to have any produce. Different regions have unique climates and soil, so make sure you keep this in mind when you’re planning to start your garden.
Research what kind of crops do well in your local area, as well as what season you’re supposed to plant them in.
Also make sure you learn how to take care of the plants – some need to be in sunlight while some don’t, some can do well with being watered all over while some may wilt or mold if you get water on their leaves. It all depends on the specific plant.
Managing Livestock
One more food source during an emergency can be livestock. Raising livestock is an excellent source of things like milk, eggs, and even meat.
The food you can get from livestock will be rich in protein, which is very important to fuel your body and keep your muscles healthy.
Having livestock isn’t as easy as throwing a couple of cows in your backyard and expecting everything to go smoothly.
You need to be extensively knowledgeable on how to take care of your animals if you want to keep them and your group healthy during a survival situation. Something you need to make sure you research is how to feed your livestock.
Feeding them the right food will keep them healthy, meaning the food they produce for you will be healthy as well. Another thing you need to know is how to protect them.
Stray animals may be hungrier during an emergency if humans are hunting their prey as well, making your livestock more susceptible to being harmed.
You also need to know how to protect them from succumbing to extreme weather conditions. If they become ill, you probably won’t be able to call a farm animal veterinarian, so treating their illness will fall on your shoulders.
One more thing you need to think about is whether or not you have room to house livestock, and if so, how much. You’ll also need to know how to gather food from them, like how to milk a cow, and also how to gather meat.
Survival Skill #6 – Sewing and Textiles
Learning to sew is a skill that can be very helpful in your survival skill list. You can use fabrics and textiles to create many different items that will provide comfort and protection to yourself and your family.
One way you can use this skill is by making clothes. Sturdy clothes are essential for protecting your skin. In an emergency situation, you could face rough environments that the clothes you have on you may not be able to handle.
All it takes is one fall or brushing up against something sharp to rip a huge hole in your clothing, leaving your skin exposed and vulnerable to the elements.
When you’re facing a survival event and bugging out, it’s very possible you’ll end up venturing into somewhere with no roads or pathways.
This means you’ll come into contact with tons of different plants when walking. If you don’t have something to protect your skin, especially your legs, you run the risk of brushing against a plant that could irritate your skin badly, like poison ivy.
Clothes are also important for protecting your body from extreme weather conditions. In certain types of weather, the clothing you wear can determine your health – for example, you need to be bundled up and warm during cold weather, but wear lightweight long-sleeved clothing in the heat to avoid heat stroke and sunburns.
Sewing Skills
Since clothing will wear down in bad conditions, so it’s important to know how to make new ones and how to work with a plethora of different textiles. If you’re in an emergency, you may not just find loose fabric hanging around – you might have to make do with a blanket or curtains.
You should also learn how to make things that will make your shelter more comfortable, like blankets for warmth, curtains for privacy and stealth, and even pillows.
You should also learn how to repair and mend things with holes in them to increase the longevity of your items.
To sew in a survival situation, if you’re at home, you could use a non-electric sewing machine, like a treadle powered one or a hand-crank one. You can also use an on-the-go sewing kit.
You can even learn to hand-crochet in case you’re ever in a dire situation with no way to sew. This is a way to make things using only your hands, and yarn if you have it. If you don’t, you can use fabric to crochet instead.
Survival Skill #7 – Fire Building
Fire building is another essential in your skill survival list. Being able to build a long-lasting fire can keep you and your group warm to avoid suffering from cold-related ailments like hypothermia.
Building fires can also help you be able to cook, which is important when dealing with meat. Eating raw meat can pose a serious threat to your health, so using the heat from a fire to cook it thoroughly is essential.
Having a fire going near your shelter can also keep bugs away, which can also keep you safe. Mosquitoes especially detest fire, keeping you safe from any diseases they might carry such as West Nile or malaria.
Fires can also provide you with a light source, helping you keep your eye out for any predators around the area. The light can also help you navigate around your shelter without tripping over something you wouldn’t have been able to see in the dark.
Fire Essentials
One thing you need to know about fire building is what materials to use. You’ll need to gather tinder, kindling, and a fuel source. All three are different and can be made up of a variety of materials.
You also need to know how to gather the materials safely. For example, if you needed logs to fuel the fire, you’d need to know how to chop a tree down to use the wood without letting the tree fall on you, someone else, or your shelter.
Another thing you should know about fire building is the types of fires you can build. Building a fire doesn’t just mean throwing a bunch of wood together and igniting it – there are many methods you can learn about building that have specific purposes.
Some fire builds are best suited for cooking or boiling water. Some are best for providing warmth near your shelter to protect you from the cold. Others are designed specifically to be underground for stealth purposes.
Learning about all of these different methods and their uses can help you know how and where to apply your skills if the time comes. The last thing you should educate yourself about is fire safety.
Dealing with fire is not always intuitive and can cause serious problems if you’re not careful. Learn how to avoid physical injuries as well as accidentally setting your belongings or shelter on fire.
Survival Skill #8 – Cooking
Cooking is an essential skill to know for survival because supplying your body with fuel is extremely important. In a survival event, you won’t have access to the modern methods that we’ve gotten used to over the past few decades, like ovens, stoves, microwaves, grills, etc.
Because of this, you need to know alternate ways you can cook that won’t require machinery or electricity. There are many different ways to do this, and all of them can be done with materials you can find in nature.
The first method you should learn to cook with is fire. As mentioned in the fire building section, there are many types of fire builds that are solely meant for cooking.
There are some builds that are designed for you to stick the food straight into the fire, some that are designed to hang food over, and more.
Wilderness Cooking
In some builds, you can stick a large hot stone into the fire and use it as a makeshift stove. You can also use fire to smoke meats. Another method to learn is solar cooking. A solar cooker is a contraption that uses reflective materials and the sun to cook food.
You can buy a pre-made one or make one of your own at home. Since solar cookers are usually pretty big, this wouldn’t be a good method to rely on for bugging out. However, it would be good for homestead cooking.
Also, if you learn how to make one yourself, you might be able to find materials near your shelter, especially if you’re in a more urban area with stores. Dehydrating your food is another good method to learn to use for cooking during a survival event.
Dehydrated food like meat, fruits, vegetables, etc. can last longer if you can keep them wrapped up and stored in your bag. For example, let’s say you find a whole bunch of apples while on the go.
Food Preservation
Instead of only being able to eat a few at that time, you can grab a bunch and dehydrate the slices to provide nutrients for days. The same process works for a hunted animal – you can dehydrate the meat and store it in your bug out bag to rehydrate it with clean water over heat on the following days.
There are a few different ways to dehydrate food, but the main ones you should learn would be air drying and sun drying, as those are the ones you’d be most likely to use in a survival situation.
Sun drying foods will be more time-efficient because the sunshine will provide heat to the foods. Think of it like water – a pot of boiling water will evaporate quicker than if you were to fill a pot with still, cool water and just leave it there.
There are also machines that can dehydrate food for you. These machines are powered by electricity, though, and wouldn’t be very useful in an emergency unless you had a power source to turn it on, like a generator.
However, since dehydrated food can last multiple months if you store it correctly, you could use one of these machines to dehydrate food to keep in your survival supplies stash or bug out bags in storage.
Survival Skill #9 – Water Purification
Having clean water is an essential of your survival skill list. You simply can’t survive if you don’t have water, so you absolutely need to know how to sterilize your water from any source in an emergency.
In a survival event, it’s very likely that the power could shut off for long periods of time. If this occurs, your water from the tap will no longer be safe to drink. The water purification plants need electricity to run, and if they don’t have power, the water will be contaminated.
Drinking contaminated water is extremely dangerous – you could get many different ailments from infected water. Plus, it’s possible that normal healthcare facilities won’t be running properly either – so getting medical care may be impossible, therefore making the dangers of getting sick even worse.
Many people have water filters at home that they pour tap water into to sterilize it, but not all of these will be fit for contaminated water.
If you’re going to use one of these, make sure it can filter out diseases and keep in mind, you won’t always be able to reorder clean filters.
There are also other things you can pack in your survival storage for water purification. Many people like to stock up on water filter straws, because these are specifically designed to be used in nature when you can’t find clean water.
Water Purification Methods
There are also water bottles designed to filter your water as you fill them, as well as water-purifying tabs that you just plop into a container of water.
Before you get any sort of water-filtering product, make sure you do extensive research to make sure it will actually keep you protected from unsafe particles in your water.
You can also boil the water. You’ll need something to hold the water in, and something metal will do best. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a pot either – a metal water bottle would also work.
There are specific fire-building methods designed to boil water. Most fire builds will hang the pot over the flame, but some are designed in a way where you just stick the metal container straight into the fire.
Make sure you learn how to build these different fire methods and stay safe while doing so. You can also purify water in a way where you’ll never have to rely on a product from the modern world.
It’s good to know how to do any skill in the wild without pre-made materials, as these things could always get lost or broken.
To purify water without using non-nature items, you can build a filter that cleans the water through natural materials.
There are different kinds of these filters, but usually they’ll use sand, charcoal, and rocks. Some people build these using a more simple contraption like through a littered water bottle, while some build more elaborate filters.
Since there are different variations of primitive water filters, research the different materials used and practice making some yourself.
Survival Skill #10 – Navigation
Knowing how to navigate during a survival event is extremely important. Without modern technology like navigation apps or GPS, you need to know different navigation methods.
Without being able to navigate, it will be easy to get lost. This is especially true if you’re moving through an area that all looks the same, like the woods.
There won’t be street signs in nature to keep you on track, so you need alternate ways to stay on the right path.
One way you can navigate in a survival situation is by using a compass. There are many compasses that are built specifically for the harsh conditions that you’d face in an outdoors environment.
Many of these compasses come on a bracelet to keep it accessible to you at all times. Some of them even double as a whistle, so you can communicate with others if you get lost.
This would be good for those in groups and families to make sure you can stay together. Using a compass is generally easy and pretty self explanatory, but you need to make sure that when you’re learning to navigate with one that you’re aware of problems you may face with it.
For example, compasses can mess up readings or just flat out stop working properly if you’re around something magnetic, as it disturbs the mechanism the item uses to show you directions.
Another way you can navigate is by using landmarks. Familiar landmarks can be used to remember the location you came from or recognize where you’re going. Tall objects like statues and monuments are best as they’re easy to see from a distance.
Navigation Methods
One other method of navigation you should learn about is using traditional paper maps. Learn how to read a map and locate where you are.
Also learn about how to take care of a map during a survival situation, such as laminating it to protect it from water and weather elements.
You also might be in a situation where you don’t have any of these things. In a dense forest, it’d be hard to spot any landmarks. If you were to lose your compass or map, you’d still need to know how to navigate.
You can make sure that you’ll always know what direction to go by learning how to navigate using only nature. The stars and the sun are both some ways you can tell what direction you’re going in.
By knowing what survival skills you’ll need to master for self-reliance in a SHTF event, you’ll be well prepared to keep you and your loved ones safe.
There will be no need to panic because even if supplies run out, you’ll know what to do to thrive in even the worst circumstances.
Wilderness Survival Skills
Conclusion: Being Prepared for Anything
Having a comprehensive survival skills list is essential for preparing for unexpected emergencies. From basic first aid and fire-starting techniques to foraging and self-defense, acquiring these skills can make all the difference when the SHTF.
By honing these abilities and regularly practicing them, you can increase your chances of staying safe and secure in challenging situations.
So, take the time to study and practice these survival skills – you never know when they might come in handy!
