It goes without saying that survival kits are designed to help you survive for a short amount of time (usually a few days) during a crisis situation, which can include; a natural disaster, economic collapse, unexpected war/invasion, doomsday scenario, or any other emergency that may happen where you need to survive when something unexpected happens and your world is turned upside-down.
We typically buy or build a survival kit with the hope & expectation that we won’t ever actually need it, but it is far better to have it and not need it than it is to need it and not have it. Keeping a survival kit with you can quite literally mean the difference between life or death!
So, for that reason, we definitely recommend you have a survival kit ready at all times.
Remember that survival kits can often times be useful in fairly regular daily activities — not just dire situations. You might need them on a weekend camping trip, a long hike gone wrong, car crash, or hundreds of other reasons. Survival does not always mean an “end of days” situation, it can often times happen during a seemingly normal day for you.
Anyway, we have established that survival kits are very important and can be useful in a variety of scenarios. Now, the hard part is determining which is best for you. That can be a truly daunting task.
This is why we created our rankings of the “Best Survival Kits” with the intention of helping to simplify your decision!
A few things I want to make clear about these pre-made survival kits before we get too far into this…
They are not typically going to be made with the highest quality items. That should go without saying. Also, they probably aren’t going to contain everything you need since they are designed for general use rather than specific purposes.
Just being totally honest here!
These kits are mainly for convenience and simplicity for the casual prepper who just wants to be sure they have something to help keep them alive in a SHTF situation. This isn’t what we would consider your overall best option but it is absolutely much better than nothing!
If you want higher quality products and you want to make sure you have specific items that will be vital for your survival, then you need to build your own bug out bag. Honestly, if you want to take the time and effort to do it, you could probably build a better pack on your own for the same price or maybe even cheaper. As I said, these premade kits are mainly for convenience and peace of mind for the average person (not hardcore preppers).
I personally think it’s wise to have (at least) one of each, even for the more seasoned preppers. Put together your MAIN bail out bag/kit that you build yourself — this will be your go-to option in a disaster. But also have one of these convenient emergency survival kits that you store elsewhere. Maybe in your other vehicle, at work, in another residence, a secondary location, or whatever… Basically just have it as a backup in case you can’t get to your main BOB for any reason.
Anyway, I just wanted to elaborate on that a bit. So, without further ado, here you go:
Top Survival Kit Reviews
These aren’t necessarily ranked in any set order because some of them are designed for specific scenarios, a certain amount of people, different situations, etc…
However, most of them should more or less give you what you need in the vast majority of short-term survival situations.
Side-note: We actually recommend getting more than one of these to keep in different locations (home, work, vehicles) and/or for various potential situations that may occur. You can never be too prepared!
Okay, let’s get on with our top survival kit recommendations in 2024…
1) The 4 Person Survival Kit Deluxe from Survival Prep Warehouse
We really like this because it contains enough supplies for 4 people, which is great if you have a family or friends to take care of, and if it’s just you then you’ve got that much extra to keep you going!
This is a great grab & go survival kit with a good variety of items that may be useful in just about any situation.
It has a good combination of safety items, first aid supplies, hygiene, water, sleeping gear, and much more!
Though this is #1 on our list, we aren’t saying this is the best survival kit money can buy. Obviously you could always buy more & more items for your kit and/or get the highest quality products out there if you have the funds. Plus, every person has differing needs, so what you think is the best may not be what someone else does. However, with that in mind, we do rate this as our top option for the needs of the general public or a beginning prepper that is affordable for most people.
2) The Seventy2 Survival Pack from Uncharted Supply
This is a somewhat unique survival bag because it was specifically designed by a select group of survival experts. The kit includes a number of handy tools and offers detailed survival instructions for a number of emergency situations.
The Seventy2 Survival System has been given high praise from multiple publications and critics. They often rave over the design, quality, ease of use, and practical applications in real survival situations. It has been called the “world’s best 72-hour Survival Kit” in more than one instance.
Inside the seventy2 survival kit you will find everything from food, water, first aid — to lighting, electronics, air, vision, tools, warmth, and more!
3) Emergency Zone Family Prep 72 Hour Survival Kit
Another one that is great for whole family (4 person) prepping. We tend to like these because there’s a good chance that it will NOT just be YOU in an emergency situation. You likely have family, friends, neighbors, or just people you meet along the way to help.
This is a multi-purpose survival kit designed to prepare you and/or your family for virtually any emergency scenario or disaster — whether you are bugging out to a shelter or staying indoors. This short term emergency kit can help prepare your family for a hurricane, earthquake, tornado, wild fire, blizzard, evacuation, and much more!
Also, even if it is just you, then you will have that much extra to keep yourself alive. So, it’s a win/win no matter how you look at it.
4) The Emergency Essentials Deluxe Food, Water & Gear Pack
This Quality Survival Standards (QSS) Certified pack provides the three absolutely critical components you need in an emergency situation: food, water & survival gear.
Plus, it offers a large, heavy-duty backpack to store and carry it all in.
The survival kit includes a minimum of 1,800 calories and 40 grams of protein per person, per day. In fact, the nine prep-in-pouch meals and granola snack included in this kit provide much more than this with 2,080 calories and 99 grams of protein per person, per day.
With nourishment like this, you’re in a better position to survive and thrive during a crisis situation — something very few emergency kit brands can claim.
Not to mention the six cans of ultra-purified water (lasting up to 50 years) to supplement your water supply and 16 other items, including: multi-function tools, headlamp, first aid kit, and more to help keep you safe and protected.
5) Urban Survival Go Bag by Emergency Zone
This discrete, non-tactical urban survival 72-hour bug out / go bag is designed to prepare you for any emergency event or disaster — whether you are bugging out, or hunkering down.
One of the rare backpacks that meets FEMA’s list of basic supplies that should be in every emergency kit.
6) The Complete Emergency Bag — For Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Floods & Other Disasters
This is among the best sellers on Amazon for “Home Emergency Survival Kits” so you can obviously be sure it is a solid option with so many people buying it.
Its claim is to provide you with everything you will need to keep you safe, warm, and fed during a natural disaster.
7) EMDMAK Outdoor Emergency Survival Kit
Perfect for most outdoor enthusiasts & those who are confident in catching your own food and boiling off your own water.
It’s cheap, small, simple, and easy to use. However, you will need some skills beforehand to make it work for you in a survival situation.
This is best used as a complimentary kit to some of the others on this list, and/or for those of you with exceptional wilderness survival skills looking for a few things to help you out.
Otherwise it is a very affordable and convenient kit to carry when camping, hiking, hunting, climbing, and so on.
8) Wise Food Emergency Survival Backpack
If you are looking for one of the overall best survival kits in the world for the vast majority of potential emergency situations, you will be hard pressed to find one much better than this!
Most survival bags are meant for roughly 3 days, but this one is designed to last 5 days with the essentials to get you through the worst.
It contains plenty of food, drink, first aid, hygiene, safety, heating, cooking, and a whole lot more. This is an all-in-one survival & emergency kit in a convenient backpack to grab and go.
9) Essential 2-Person Survival Kit from Sustain Supply Co.
This is more of a “bug-in bag” equipped with premium disaster preparedness supplies for 2 people to survive during that crucial first 72 hour time frame after disaster strikes.
It contains critical items for two people to survive a crisis with first aid, nutrition, hygiene, lighting, fire-starters, blankets, and much more — Giving you basically everything you’ll need in order to wait it out for a few days during an emergency.
While it is mainly intended for use when sheltering inside your home, it is easily transportable in the event of an evacuation order, or the need to bug out.
10) The GETREADYNOW Personal Emergency Car Kit
This kit is great for storing in your cars in case of a break-down, getting stuck in a blizzard, accident, or whatever else might happen to keep you stranded in your vehicle.
This is an excellent car emergency kit! It is perfect for keeping you and your loved ones warm, dry, and safe inside your car during the worst scenarios.
It’s compact design allows it to conveniently fit under the seat, in the pockets behind seats, trunk, or almost anywhere else inside your vehicle.
Honorable Mentions for Emergency Survival Kits
These are the ones that didn’t quite make our top 10 best survival kits rankings, but they are still VERY good options, and could be the best solutions for you depending on your particular needs or potential emergency situation you’ll need to survive in.
Both of the below are absolutely worthy of being included in our main list above. However, we tried to provide a good mixture of different types of survivals kits for various potential threats, and that means we can’t list all options in each category.
These both are at least somewhat similar to other options listed above, which is why they didn’t make the cut, but we felt they were certainly worth mentioning and could very well be the right choice for you.
* Premium Family Emergency Survival Kit
A disaster preparedness kit built to keep a family of four going for that critical 72 hour period. This 4-person emergency go bag contains the supplies most likely needed to survive the worst of disasters. If you have a family – or even friends/neighbors – that you will need to help take care of in the event of an emergency, this is an option to consider!
* Mayday Deluxe Home Emergency Kit
This is great for sheltering in your home (aka bugging-in) during a natural disaster or virtually any other emergency. It’s often referred to as a Earthquake/Hurricane kit, but it’s great for most any general SHTF situation where you might need to stay put inside your house.
BONUS: Free Survival Kit!
* Survival Grenade
This is a small, easy to carry, survival kit with 15 important survival items wrapped up into a “grenade” shape. It can be clipped onto your belt, bag, or wherever. Best of all, it is FREE! You just pay for shipping.
Are these the highest quality items? No. But they are certainly better than nothing and this kit is so compact & lightweight that it can be carried on you pretty much all the time. Considering you aren’t paying for anything except the small shipping costs, I think it’s certainly worth getting.
Still not sure which option is the best for you?
We totally understand! This isn’t an easy decision to make and it’s not something you should take lightly. So, below we have included some more information that will hopefully help you find the right choice.
Buyer’s Guide for How to Choose a Survival Kit
Experts agree that the first few days (roughly 72 hours) after a disaster strikes, getting lost somewhere, or whatever emergency situation you are in is the most critical for survival, so having a kit designed to help keep you alive during that time frame can be the key difference between life and death.
When it comes to wilderness survival, the most common reasons for needing to be rescued are fatigue, errors in judgment, insufficient equipment, clothing, experience, and unexpected weather conditions. Having a survival kit ready at all times can help you counteract many of these variables.
Keeping survival kits with you (or easily accessible) is very important. This means having them stored in your home, vehicle, and office at all times. As well as taking one with you when you are traveling, hiking, camping, or anything else.
There’s no denying the advantages of having a survival kit handy, but choosing the best kit(s) for you is a little bit harder of a decision. We’ve given you several great options above, but which ones you actually get will largely depend on a number of factors which are typically the size, cost, and primary use.
In this buying guide we will give you more information on each in order to help you find the absolute best survival kits for you and your family…
Primary Use
Obviously it is important to know what you expect to need your survival kit for so that you can have the appropriate items you may need when an emergency happens.
Think about where you live or where you are going, and the primary threats to that area — whether natural disasters or man-made. Are hurricanes, tornadoes, or wildfires common? Is there a possible war on the horizon? Are you going into a place where an extended survival situation is a real possibility? Do you foresee an economic collapse or zombie apocalypse? And so on… You get the point!
Every scenario is going to be different. Each of them would more or less require some of the same things (food, water, first aid, etc) but also many different things for specific survival situations. For example, you probably don’t need a fire starter or a tent when you are hunkered down in a basement but you would absolutely want those things if you were out in the wild.
Certain survival bags are primarily designed for the possibility of your car breaking down in the middle of nowhere or getting stuck in a blizzard. Others are mainly designed to give you enough supplies to survive for at least 72 hours in the event of a power outage or natural disaster.
Some are just for one person, some are made for two people, and others are created for the whole family. Again, you have to decide whether you expect to need supplies only for yourself or for multiple people.
If you are going on a hike or some other outdoor adventure then you probably don’t want to be carrying a vast amount of equipment and supplies as it’s going to be too heavy. So, you’ll want to carry an emergency kit that is relatively light weight and contains only the most essential survival gear for the potential of being stranded outdoors for a period of time.
In this situation you would mostly want to have the items needed to find your own food and water – as well as prepare them – and build a shelter. Things such as a knife, fire starter, fishing line, water filtration bottle, tarp, blanket, rope, compass, and other items of that type would be ideal.
Anyway, you get the point. It’s important to know where you are and where you are going in order to assess the most likely threats, and what you might need to survive them. Selecting the best kit for you requires an understanding of the major scenarios you are most likely going to need it for.
A good exercise is to create a list of 10 items you would absolutely need in the event of a natural disaster or extended period of time without electricity or access to food & water. Then, make a list of another 25 or so things you would additionally like to have on hand in this situation. Doing this should give you a solid base for narrowing down what you need.
Of course, it is impossible for any of us to know exactly what is going to happen and when, which is why we highly recommend keeping multiple survival kits ready in various locations for different potential situations.
Size
The size of your emergency backpack is also important to your buying decision because they come in a wide range of different shapes & sizes, which are often dependent upon the situation that you are going to be needing it for and how many people you are expecting to be needing to care for in your group. You might be on your own or you might be keeping your entire family alive. For these reasons, size is a huge factor.
Small kits can often fit in the seat pockets of your car and the largest might fill an entire duffel bag. However, the most common emergency survival kits are roughly the size of a regular backpack.
The right size for you will largely depend on where you plan to store it, how many people you want it to supply, and what situation you expect to need it for. Many things can happen while you are in your home, your vehicle, or out in the wild — so you have to be prepared for various individual circumstances.
What it all boils down to is that you need to be smart and decide on what you are likely to need. For your home, you can keep the biggest and most varied pack possible. If you are going hiking, you can’t be carrying an extra heavy backpack. And everything in-between. Therefore, you mainly want to ensure you are picking a size that matches the disaster your prepared for, the location it will be stored in, and the activity that you are doing.
You also need to be mindful of the number of people your survival kit will be providing for in case of emergency, or if each person needs their own pack.
Again, you are likely going to need more than one! That is just the reality of prepping.
Cost
Clearly cost is going to vary quite a bit from one solution to another, and the items included. Some of the most expensive survival kits on the market right now can easily run $1,000 or even a lot more.
The more affordable solutions are generally the ones that will be able to fit into a backpack, and you will be able to carry with you. These will usually be filled with only the most vital items for a short term survival situation. All of our top rankings above are in this category.
Cost is something that only you can decide on as we don’t know your budget. We recommend choosing an option that not only fits your budget but also gives you a solid range of supplies you may need in the vast majority of emergency situations. We believe the options listed above should be affordable for most people in addition to providing all of the essential items in the vast majority of potential disaster preps.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Where Should I Store My Survival Bag?
Ideally, if at all possible, we recommend you keep it in a cool, dry place that is easily accessible. This will allow you to maximize the shelf life of the perishable goods contained in many kits such as food and water as well as allowing you to grab the kit on short notice when you really need it.
Otherwise some good locations include; the kitchen, closet near the front door, basement, or another frequented & easily accessible area in your house.
We don’t recommend the garage because they are not typically climate controlled, and they can often become piled up with all sorts of items, which may make it hard to find your survival kit in a panic mode.
What Is Most Important To My Survival?
That is a very hard question to answer because there are so many variables and differing situations you might be in.
For example; If you are trying to wait out a natural disaster inside your home then the most important thing to your survival is probably going to be a good supply of food and water to ride it out. If you are stranded out in the wild then you’ll probably need fire and shelter as a matter of importance.
In the vast majority of cases it is important to at the very minimum have a water filtration system, fire-starter, fishing line, knife, some sort of shelter or at least a blanket, and some food to at least keep you going in the beginning.
Again, it really depends on a virtually unlimited amount of potential factors, so it’s nearly impossible to say for sure.
Generally speaking, food & water are going to be the first and most vital things you need when facing any prolonged disaster. After that it is shelter and the ability to start a fire.
What Do People Mean When They Say, SHTF?
Well, the acronym SHTF typically stands for when “Shit Hits the Fan!” In other words, it refers to when things go terribly wrong and you need to go straight into survival mode. This is the situation when it is most crucial for you to have a survival plan in place and a kit to help you execute it.
Conclusion
We sincerely hope that you have learned a lot of very useful tips in this post, and you are able to choose the best survival kit for you.
Our stance is that it’s not a matter of if you will need it, but WHEN it will end up saving your life!