My Urban Survival Tin

My urban survival tin, as promised in the article on building your own survival kit. This tin is meant to include items that will help you through a Tier 1 incident. That means an event that is minor enough not to include the need for Tier 2 items and takes place on the scale of the city you are in at that time.

Examples of possible events are that you’ve been robbed and now have no wallet and phone on you, you tripped and hurt yourself, you’ve torn your jacket, the button popped of your pants, your car was stolen or you’re stuck in an office building after the electricity went of and you need to survive the cold night ahead. Those and more events can be tackled using this tin. You could also go spear hunting for stray dogs for example, just saying.

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Contents of the Urban Survival Tin

This is a list of all the items I’ve packed into my urban survival tin. For your convenience I’ve linked some of the items to the product on Amazon in order of appearance.

At first I dropped the idea of carry on storage because I couldn’t fit a USB stick in there, but than I realized that not only does every desktop computer take SD cards nowadays, also cameras and laptops do. So I stuck one in. The size depends on what you think you’ll need. Mine doesn’t have to be that large since I use it for carrying around three files. One heavily encrypted file with very important personal data, one unencrypted file with all the important numbers to organisations I might want to contact, like life insurance, my work, my wife’s work, etc. and another encrypted file holding my Google Contacts.

I didn’t include everything you’d expect

As much as it is informative to go over what is in this tin, its good to know what is not, and why. This is a small list of the items I intentionally left out.

A fishing kit. I expect that anybody seen fishing will become prey as soon as he or she caught a fish. You attract to much attention to yourself. Remember, there aren’t that many watering holes in the city.

Tinder. I didn’t include tinder since cities are stuffed with tinder. There’s paper everywhere you look. You can use carpets, parts of vehicles like the fuel or the manual for example.

Whistle. I do see plenty of use for one in a forest, but none in a city.

Some type of saw. I do see the need for it, but couldn’t fit one. Might later if I find one that works and fits in the tin, although it will most likely be part of my Tier 2 pack.

Flashlight. I suggest you safe the space and make it part of your EDC by hanging it of your key chain.

Did I forget anything building my urban survival tin? I’d love to hear what your thoughts are. so please leave a comment below and tell me what you think.

Until next time, Kain