Survive!: Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere – Alive

Many books focus on the specific skills that you need to hike/camp and/or survive in the outback, but these skills are just one part of what you need. In our opinion you need five things to safely travel through the outback on a routine trip:

1) the right physical conditioning to make sure you can endure the outdoor activities
2) the right planning and preparation to make sure you know what you are getting into
3) the right gear to make sure you have the proper gear for the season, weather, environment
4) the right knowledge to make sure you understand how to do what you need to do
5) the right skills – since academically knowing how to use a bow drill does not mean that you can actually start a fire with one in the wild if you have never even tried it before

To make it through a survival situation you need these five things plus two more:

6) the right mental attitude the will to live and get through whatever is thrown at you
7) luck something that you cannot control

Thats where Les Strouds book comes in. This is an outdoor survival book not just a bush craft book – like so many other books on the market. It is specifically focused on the skills and mental attitude that you need to get yourself out of an unexpected survival situation. Consequently, the book is laid out in a very linear fashion – focusing on the order that you should follow to prepare for and to survive an unanticipated emergency situation. This also leads to the largest difference between Les Strouds book and many others his book is focused on getting out of the back country alive and as quickly as possible not how to live off the grid in the wilderness as a way of life. Although many of the skills between these two activities are similar (or the same), the end goal of using them (and where/how you expend your energy) is significantly different.

The book has sections on:
Trip Planning and Preparation
Survival Kits
Psychological Aspects of Survival
Signaling
Water
Fire
Shelter
Food
Survival Travel and Navigation
Dangers and Hazards
Weather
Clothing
Survival First Aid
Essential Survival Skills
When Disaster Strikes Close to Home
Checklists
Personal Survival Kit Checklist
Complete Survival Kit Checklist
Vehicle Survival Kit Checklist
First Aid Kit Checklist
Home Survival Kit Checklist

One thing that we really like is – because of Les Strouds Survivorman TV show (7 seasons 57 1-hour episodes as of December 2015) you can not only read this book but you can actually see Les put his skills to use in a wide variety of situations and environments around the world. This gives you a chance to really get a detailed feel for what the book covers. The book has 373 pages, measures 5 x 1 x 8 inches and weighs 1 pound.

Survival guides often end up with a lot of the superfluous “fun” tidbits and often only apply in idyllic long-term scenarios. You simply don’t need to know 100 different knots, how tan a hide, and build a bow and arrow when you twist your ankle on your overnight backpacking journey turning it into a three day crawl. You don’t need to know the intricacies of pressure flaking an arrowhead and carving out a canoe when you’re in the aftermath of a tornado. And so on and so on. Lots of those things are great fun and great hobbies but for 99.99% of the ways and places you’ll end up in a true survival situation you just will never use 99.99% of it. Les Stroud’s book is arguably guilty of this in some ways too, as the long term isn’t completely ignored (hey, you never know!). However, the keyword in the title is most definitely “Essential”. A lot of the fluff is left out here, and in its place is common sense tips about knowing where you are and where you are going. He has been to every corner of the world and learned from local experts but he’s not trying to write an encyclopedia of knowledge here. The vast majority of this book is practical information that can be applied across the board in a wide variety of scenarios. And most notably it also focuses on the self and psychological self that most books ignore. It isn’t perfect, and shouldn’t be your only source of information. But it is the perfect foundation that can apply to the active backpacker lost in the woods or the obese coach potato caught in a natural disaster suddenly. His patented zones of assessment alone should be known by all. A very worthwhile and confidence building read.

Lets be completely honest, this is NOT the type of book that comes with every single bit of information on every single topic. This is a book that is easily digestible and usable to help you prepare for any type of situation. If you are familiar with the show, then you will be a fan of this book because Les Stroud’s personality seeps through every page. You learn what you need and more without feeling overwhelmed with information. This helps the material stick, be memorable and actually useful. I would highly recommend to anyone that is a fan of Les, anyone a fan of the show, and anyone who wants to have a book that can prepare them for most situations without having to read 1000 pages. It’s perfect for the average hiker, backpacker, camper, etc.

I own several survival guides , and i rank this up there as one of the best. It is full of good information, as well as examples of the author, or others using these skills in a real life situation. Les’s personality comes thru in the book just as it does on tv and its a fun, as well as informative read. One example would be talk of fire starting devices, and while he goes over some of the traditional ones, and carries several he says you cant beat a lighter for a quick start. No banging rocks on your knife, no rubbing sticks together bring a good lighter and some vasoline cotton balls. I think to many survival gurus these days are to focused on traditional or what id call reenactor survival, forgetting about simple modern methods of doing things, not playing mountain man. Im not trying to knock traditional bushcraft, but id like to see more stuff geared towards day hikers, and others who may be thrust into a situation , not in the woods hoping to play daniel boone.

This book was highly recommended by a the youtuber “Survival Lilly” whom I subscribe to on the site. I decided to give it a try even though I already have 10 or more books on the subject and I’m glad I did. This book reads more like an actual book than many of the others I own, which could be considered a pro or a con to some. I was really surprised by how much new info that I hadn’t run across in my library of others. Most other books just reiterate the same stuff over and over, and there’s a little of that here as well, but I think this would be the perfect book for someone that only wanted a one book solution.

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