WILDERNESS HACKS

KNOWLEDGE OF BASIC SURVIVAL PRINCIPLES

Knowledge is the basis for almost every successful survival skill. You can get it from reading books, listening to the advice and stories of others, and watching the actions of others. However, the most important way to gain true knowledge of survival principles is trial and error with your own two hands. No method of learning takes the place of hands-on, personal experience. Your options in a survival scenario will ultimately depend on your understanding of basic survival principles that surround shelter, water, fire, and food.

INNOVATIVE THINKING

I've often said that innovation is the most important survival skill. Innovation can be defined in survival as creatively using available resources to execute a plan formulated using pre-existing survival knowledge. At the end of the day, the application of survival principles is only limited by your ability to creatively use them.

EXPLOITING AVAILABLE RESOURCES

Available resources are anything natural or manmade, from leaves and sticks to trash bottles and windshield wipers. Everything is potentially a survival resource that you can exploit, with knowledge and creativity, to get what you need. In this book, we explore hundreds of everyday items that can be modified, repurposed, reused, reshaped, rebuilt, or recycled to meet some kind of basic human survival need.

THREE THOUSAND FAILURES

Some of the hacks featured in this book are tips and tricks I've absorbed throughout my lifelong study of survival; I learned them from other people and from watching others in the field. I've picked up all sorts of hacks from friends, family, students, and other survival enthusiasts. I'm always on the lookout for a fun, new, and creative survival hack.

However, many of the following 200-plus survival hacks are also the result of more than 3,000 failed attempts. Some, such as the Make a Fire Pipe hack in Chapter 3, took more than 20 tries to get right. If I had quit working on a hack idea at the first failed attempt, this book would be about five pages long.

The 200-plus hacks listed in the following pages are proven to work. I've successfully practiced them all. Each of them is an actionable lesson in survival; you can go into your backyard and practice them right now. Many can be executed in the comfort of your.

home or garage, and certainly you can use them on your next camping trip.

THE MORE YOU HACK

As you study, practice, and use these 200-plus hacks from everyday

objects, you're bound to learn more about survival principles and how

to creatively meet basic survival needs. This knowledge will lead to

new "hack" ideas that I want to hear about! E-mail your hack ideas to

[email protected]. Who knows, your hack could make it into

the next volume of Survival Hacks.