What Is A Get Home Bag?
A Get Home Bag is a small survival pack filled with emergency essentials and goodies that will allow you to get home in the event of an emergency.
Smaller than its big brother (or sister), the Bug out Bag, this kit is part of your emergency preparedness plan that will make your trek home a little less stressful. A get-home bag will come in hand if you find yourself away from home when the SHTF. For most of us, this crap storm will hit while we’re at work.
For that reason, my GHB plan is based for the most part on a “what if something happens” while I’m at the gig.
The ideal scenario (as if there is an ideal scenario for a disaster) is one where you may find yourself unable to drive home from work. The car won’t start(EMP?), you ran the tank dry and don’t have the cash to buy gas, an earthquake or flash flood knocked out the roads home.
Whatever went down has left you on foot for most if not all of your journey home, a great time to have a GHB as part of your emergency action plan!
What Makes A Great Get Home Bag?
There’s a healthy debate online regarding which backpacks or bags should be used as a GHB. Camp A believes a Tactical Backpack is a no-no. The thought here is that “tactical” look military, military looks prepared, and prepared means you have stuff the unprepared want thus making you a target.
Camp A feels strongly our GHBs should be the most laid-back under-the-radar bag one can find. Bags such as laptop messenger bags or couriers bags come highly recommended.
Camp B says to hang the looks and go for the most tactical useful gear you can buy. Camp B believes that in the event of a major incident a guy walking down the street with a Wal-Mart bag in his hand will appear to have “something” making himself just as much a target as the guy with an Alice pack dripping with gear.
Bag Choices
Messenger Bags
There are plenty of great-looking awesome courier bags out there. Let’s face it, looks aren’t everything when it comes to getting home in the event of a disaster.
I’ve used a shoulder messenger bag as a get-home bag and have narrowed my choice of the best messenger bag for our application down to two.
Maxpedition Glen Eagle Messenger Bag and the 5.11 Rush Delivery Messenger Bag
I’ve tried both bags, and they’re great. Both bags will hold a 17” laptop and extra gear for a long hump home. Both bags may allow you to slip past the unprepared who may think you’re some geek trying to get home with his laptop and view porn and not some uber-prepared dude with essential survival equipment.
Both bags are extremely durable and pretty much have the same specs. Both kits allow you to carry a handgun in secret concealed carry compartments (access to your pistol is much faster in the 5.11).
Click Here For Maxpedition Glen Eagle Specs
Based on the non-military look, the 5.11 would probably not be your best choice. While the webbing does allow for the attachment of extra modules, it does have a slight tactical look to it.
The one this bag has that the Glen Eagle does it a water bottle holder. Water would be a great thing to have on you hump back home.
While I usually carry a Glen Eagle around as a laptop or airline carry-on bag, the 5.11 would be my choice of messenger bags that can be used as a get-home bag.
Back Packs
Going with the “I don’t care about looking military” theme, my GHB of choice is the Maxpedition Monsoon Gear. Why did I choose this bag?
Confidentially, I’m a Maxpedition Junkie. Aside from that, they put together a tough functional product that they stand behind.
The Monsoon is already my everyday carry bag. I don’t leave home without it. This bag has multiple attachment points that allow me to trick this thing out to my personal specs.
Personal Additions:
- 1-Anemone Pouch
- 1-Roly Poly Dump Pouch
The Anemone pouch finds itself in my bag as a means to carry small but vital stuff such as my good old-fashioned flint and steel fire starter and multi-use tool.
The Roly Poly Dump Pouch is part of my water strategy.
Maxpedition sells a dedicated water bottle holder but I find it a bit pricey and bulky when it comes to an EDC bag. The Roly Poly bag, on the other hand, allows me to carry a bag rolled up neat little shell for EDC.
When it goes down, I plan to unroll this bag and insert a water bottle as a means of carrying extra H2O.
What’s In My Get Home Bag?
I packed my GHB based on a few basic survival categories. Water, Food, and Shelter.
Water
Water is the most important thing I’m could ever carry. I know my fat ass can go a few days without food, companionship or whiskey but I know I won’t last very long without water. My hike home could take a day at best, possibly two.
My water strategy includes:
- 1-Camel Bak Bladder
- 3-Water Purification Straws (2-Seychelles Pure water straws 1-Life Straw Personal Water Filter)
- 4-1 Gallon bottles of water
- 2- Bottles Water Purification Tablets
- 12-Datrex Emergency Water Pouches
You may have noticed I have more than one of everything with the exception of the Camel Bak.
My plan is to keep water in the car and in my cubicle. In the event of an emergency, I can fill my Camel Bak in the relative privacy of my cubicle, if that’s not possible, I can fill up from my supplies in my car if I’m forced to light out of the building.
I have 3 water purification straws. One Seychelles straw hangs ten on my key chain which I place in the same place all day every day when I come to work. The remaining straws are in my bag which will be the second thing I grab when it’s time to boogie.
If I can’t get to the ride, I have the Datrex pouches that I will empty into the Camel Bak as the situation allows. That’s not a lot of water. That’s where the straws and purification tabs will come in handy.
Food
The trek home may only take between 24-48 hours but that’s no reason to not pack food. A disaster is a dynamic thing, that short walk could turn into a major odyssey. Who knows, I may get a message from the old lady telling me she’s bugging out (no not leaving me) to our back up spot.
My Food Strategy Includes:
- 3-Mountain Home Pro Pak (2-service pouches)
- 1-Package Datrex 3600 Calorie Food Bars
- 5-Packets Cliff Shot Energy Gel Packets
- Chuckles Candy
Mountain Home Pro Pak
I reckon I could get away with the Datrex bars but I’m going to be real about it. If I’m walking, I’m miserable, something hot or at the very least tasty will go a long way to ease my little one-person pity party.
Scrambled Eggs and Bacon taste a hell of a lot better than the dry, coconut comfort offered by Datrex
Datrex 3600 Calorie Food Bars
Why so much food? I’m packing a little extra food in the form of lightweight food bars just in case. Just in case water needed to re-hydrate the Pro Paks is scarce.
Just in case my walk is tougher and longer than I had hoped it would be and I’ve run through my freeze-dried goodness.
Cliff Shots
I carry Cliff Shots in my emergency preparedness bag as well as my cubicle because they tend to juice me up when I feel a bonk out coming on.
These little energy gel shots don’t go down as easy as they could but they still do the trick and give me the energy to get things done whether that be at work or out and about getting it done.
First Aid
My first aid concept has evolved over the past several months. First aid to me was once based on a Maxpedition (what else would I carry) F.I.G.H.T. pouch chock full of everything one would need from boo-boos to massive trauma.
It didn’t take me too long to reckon this was too much gear for a GHB. I still have the F.I.G.H.T. pouch but it’s hooked to my Bug out Bag. I’m trying to get home, not run a M.A.S.H. unit here.
I scaled back the first aid concept does include a smaller trauma kit in the form of an Individual Operator Chest Pouch offered by Rescue Essentials. This tight little pouch is attached to the front of my Monsoon Gearslinger via PALS webbing.
The IOCP also doubles as my range trauma kit includes:
IOCP Contents:
Contents:
- 1 Tactical First Aid Chest Pouch Black
- 1 SOFTT-W Generation 3 Tourniquet Black
- 1 H & H Wound Seal (for Penetrating and Exit Wounds)
- 1 H & H Primed Gauze Bandage
- 1 H & H Thin Cinch Bandage
- 1 Nasopharyngeal 28 Fr airway w/ lubricant
- 1 Pair Triton Grip TE Black Nitrile Gloves (L)
- 1 5.5″ EMT Shears
- 1 Roll 2″ x 10yds Surgical Tape
- 1 Mini Sharpie Marker
- 1 Combat Casualty Card-Laminated
- 1 Black Safety Pin
My non-trauma components are carried in and on my bag in the Anemone pouch and the interior pockets of my gearslinger
Shelter
I have two options for my shelter strategy.
There’s a chance I’m going to have to chill out and camp. My shelter component is light but I believe robust enough to get me through a night or two depending on the weather.
Option A
- 1-Tube Tent
- 2- Space Blankets
- 150’ Roll Rothco Paracord
The concept here is simple. I plan to build a shelter using the tube tent and/or the space blankets. While not the most comfortable digs on the planet, I will at least be able to stay relatively dry and warm by building a shelter with the help of the paracord.
Option B
This option is probably a better choice than option A but adds weight to my kit. In addition to the paracord and space blankets, Option B includes a British Individual Protection Kit.
This kit weighs in at 2LBS. The IPK is a shelter in a bag that includes:
- 1-Heavy Duty 5’x9’ Tarp
- 6-10” Aluminum Stakes
- 55’ Paracord
This kit can be used to build a more durable shelter than my tube tent option.
What’s the best choice? Why make a choice?
I have an IPK in the trunk of the car. If I’m able to get to the car, I can grab and go. No need to add to my EDC weight while keeping the tube tent option in the bag ready to go in the event I’m running with the herd ahead of a fire-breathing monster or enemy invasion force. With my bag packed out, I thought I have squared away and ready to go. That was until the day my GHB strategy was tested on a small scale.
I dropped my car off at the shop before work and got a ride in thinking said the ride would take me back to my car about 3 of miles away. My ride decided not to show up. I could have called a cab or another ride but thought this would be the perfect time to try out my bag. I filled the Camel Bak and the water bottles and set out.
The first thing I noticed was my shoes wouldn’t be up for the challenge of a full walk home nor would business casual attire. If the SHTF scenario I planned for happened on casual Friday, I would be OK. In order to solve this problem, I decided I would keep a good pair of jeans and walking shoes or boots in the trunk of my car at all times as well as in my cubicle (thankfully I have a large cube).
One way or another I’m hoping I’ll be able to change out of my Steve Maddens and Dockers before heading home after a disaster.
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