The Best Survival Kits of 2024

The Emergency Zone 2-Person Urban Survival Bugout Bag was our Best Overall pick for the last iteration of this guide and it was so close to being the winner this time around as well. On paper, it has everything: a tube tent, Mylar sleeping bags, a workable knife, food and water, and a generous amount of cordage, all in a reasonably well-made backpack.

Unfortunately, the quality and selection of supplies included with the kit have changed since the last time we tested it. Its included tube tent is nothing more than a glorified trash bag with the bottom cut out of it, made with thin plastic that tears easily. It won’t do anything to keep you warm. And, even with the floor weighted down by large rocks, the thin walls of the tent were blown around in strong winds.

And then there’s the kit’s water bladder, which ships with a small handful of water purification packets, each only able to purify one liter—roughly half the capacity of the water bladder. While attempting to fill the bladder from a creek, Josh found that no matter what he did, he could not get the bladder to even fill to the one-liter line. Additionally, The knock-off Swiss Army knife that the kit ships with was of poor quality and arrived with a dull blade.

We really liked the Redfora Complete Earthquake Bag. It’s well made and comfortable to wear. However, what appeared to be PALS webbing on the outside wasn’t sized correctly. When Josh tried to hook on a MOLLE first-aid pouch, he discovered the PALS webbing wasn’t wide enough to accept the pouch’s straps.

The contents of the bag are neatly organized in well-labeled plastic zip bags, and the bag includes clear instructions and suggestions on what else to add to the kit. Each bag has a QR code that you can scan with your phone to view instructional videos. We recommend watching these videos before you need to use your kit, as the Internet may not be accessible or practical to use in an emergency.

Josh liked that the kit includes an actual Swiss army knife that comes out of the kit razor-sharp and is ready to use. Its first aid kit and flashlight were also of reasonable quality. We also appreciate the inclusion of a pair of work gloves for digging through rubble and other tasks, and chemical hand warmers.

As its name implies, this kit is designed to be used by four people. So, you’ll find four rain ponchos, four mylar blankets (which weren’t as nice as the ones our Best Overall pick comes packing), and so on. However, the food and water rations that come in this kit wouldn’t even be enough to keep two people up and running for 72 hours, let alone a family of four.

The kit’s lack of water is compounded by the fact that, while it should have shipped with a water bottle, it didn’t. This, however, can be remedied by including any water bottle you have kicking around the house. We were also unimpressed by the quality of its tube tent and, puzzled by some of the kit’s supplies and instructions. The instructions tell you to boil water to sterilize it, but the kit doesn’t include any way to do so. It includes a candle but doesn’t include any way to light it. The hygiene kit, which is well stocked, includes laundry detergent. But as water may be in short supply during an emergency, washing your clothes should be the last thing on your mind.

The Uncharted Supply Co. Seventy2 has a unique design. The backpack is essentially a giant dry bag with chest and hip straps. So, no matter the weather, everything inside of the bag will stay dry as a bone. Instead of everything being packed loose inside of the backpack, a large, pull-out insert that neatly organizes all of the included gear and has instructions printed all over the outside. Some will appreciate the neat organization and well-placed instructions. But the downside is that there isn’t a lot of extra room in the pack. Fortunately, this kit is pretty well stocked. The pack is heavy on your back, but not miserably so.

We were impressed by the quality of some of the kit’s items. It includes a Sawyer Mini water filter, which is one of the better water filters on the market since you can use it both as a survival straw or as an in-line water filter. The Sawyer Mini includes a water bladder that you can use to collect water and then screw onto the filter to squeeze water into the included Nalgene water bottle. The included multi-tool felt well-made and the blade was shaving sharp. An additional survival knife is included, which can be used with the kit’s ferro rod, to help in starting a fire. What’s more, the Seventy2 is the only kit we tested that includes an e-tool, which comes in handy for digging a latrine. You’ll also get a tube tent, an emergency blanket, 2 hand warmers, a knit cap, and a 2,400 calorie Datarex ration block (which, again, isn’t enough calories to comfortably see an adult through three days.).

What you don’t get, however, is any pre-packaged potable water. If you live in an arid environment and can’t find a water source in a timely manner, this is a serious problem, and a disappointing one, considering the considerable price this kit sells for. You could buy water packs to include in it, but as the pack has so little additional space in it, fitting them in could be an issue.

The Judy Move Max ships in a custom backpack, which is essentially just a dry bag with straps. The bag also has chest and hip straps (though the hip strap is more like a gut strap) and is pretty comfy, weighing in at only 15 pounds, supplies included.

Inside the bag, the gear is divided into three cardboard boxes. While we appreciate the neat organization, cardboard boxes are a terrible idea in the field, even if they are stored in a dry bag. They will inevitably get smooshed or wet. We were impressed with the included high-quality multi-tool, It has big handles that are easy to grip and, its knife is razor-sharp. The included radio/flashlight combo is just okay. You can’t manually tune in to a frequency. Instead, you just have up and down scan buttons. What is cool about it is that it has a USB-A port for charging a phone. The unit itself recharges with a micro USB connection. As such, recharging the radio/flashlight will be an issue if the power goes out.

The Mover Max comes with seven New Millenium meal replacement bars: a brand that isn’t on the Coast Guard approval list like Datrex and SOS. Emergency rations are almost always made with nothing but fat and sugar, so they’re usually pretty good. These… were not. The Mover Max also includes 14 4.227 fluid ounces SOS water packets, for a total of 59.178 fluid ounces. That’s around a half day’s worth of water, for one person.

This kit provides minimal shelter and options for warmth: ponchos, emergency Mylar blankets, and hand warmers come as part of the kit. Unfortunately, you’ll have a hard time turning the poncho into a shelter because there is no included cordage other than duct tape. There are no tools to start a fire or any way to gather and treat water.

We really wanted to like the Everlit 72-Hour 3 Person Earthquake Emergency Kit. However, it has a number of problems, starting with its low-quality military-style bag with an American flag patch that screams, “I’m a prepper, I have good stuff to steal!” During testing, the fully-loaded backpack dug uncomfortably into Josh’s shoulders.

You’ll find some good stuff inside, however. The kit includes two tube tents, along with ponchos and emergency blankets, plus a generous amount of paracord. There’s a proper ferro rod, a sharp knife to use it with and, it is the only product in this guide with a first-aid kit that includes a tourniquet. The included metal whistles are awesome, making a loud and consistent noise. And its crank radio/flashlight can pick up weather band stations.

Additionally, the Everlit comes packing two 3,600 calorie SOS ration blocks, which don’t have as long a shelf life as Datrex blocks do, but taste great. It also includes 24 4.227 fluid ounce SOS water packets, providing just under what one person needs for a day.

We were pleased to see that this kit comes with 50 water purification tablets, which can treat up to 25 quarts of water. That no water bottle is provided to use the tablets with, was disappointing. So were its poor quality multitool and wire pull saw.

The Emergency Zone two-person kit wasn’t the worst product we tested for this guide, so we figured their four-person kit would be pretty good as well.

We were wrong.

Emergency Zone four-person kit includes two packs. The first pack contains the same supplies as the company’s two-person kit, The second includes extra food, water, and shelter.

You could redistribute the contents of the two bags to make things more equal. But, no matter how you stack it, your survival gear will be spread across two bags: what if you and your survival partner are separated? If they’re injured, who will carry the second bag?

Josh was also irked by the fact that the flashlight and radio in the main pack were of noticeably lower quality than Emergency Zone’s two-person kit. The weather band radio is so small and cheap that it wouldn’t take much effort to crush it in your hand and, its included batteries were of poor quality as well.

The My First Family Four Person 72-Hour Survival Kit includes a lot of food and water, compared to the other emergency kits in this guide: four 2,400-calorie Datrex bars, along with 24 packets of Datrex emergency water, for a total of about a gallon of water, which is enough fluids for one person, for one day. Datrex is the best overall ration block in terms of taste and durability, so it’s always a good sign when the brand is included. Its first-aid kit is generously sized and it was one of the few kits in this guide to include a water bottle. Unfortunately, no water purification tablets or any other way to purify water in the field were included. That it lacked the means to start a fire also disappointed us.

A number of other important supplies were also left out of this kit. While there are four ponchos, Mylar emergency blankets, and four chemical body warmers, there is no tent, cordage, or radio. That the cheap knife the kit ships with had a dull blade lowered Josh’s opinion of this bag even further.

Let’s talk about the kit’s backpack: It’s lousy.

Despite being filled with a heavy load of survival goods, the bag felt loose and floppy and didn’t offer Josh’s back any support. The backpack lacks an internal frame, chest, or hip straps to help mitigate the weight of its contents. Its shoulder straps are thin and caused all the weight of the water and food to dig into Josh’s shoulders.