Emergency situations can occur in an instant without any warnings or foreshadowing. For this reason, many people have wisely decided to create bugout bags. However, before grabbing your bag and bugging out, make sure it has the best items for your family.

Bugging Out with Family: What to Pack

These backpack-style kits are typically filled with core items dedicated to a person’s (and family’s) survival during a crisis. From fire-making gear and shelter materials to long-life food products and water purification devices, they are loaded with lifesaving gear.

However, when bugging out (leaving your home due to a local threat), your spouse and children will be with you. They may not fully understand what’s transpiring as they are forced out of their home and thrust into uncertainty.

Because of this, it’s vital that you include five key items to help mitigate the stress. These items will help restore some semblance of normality to their lives when they are turned upside down.

Bugout Bags for Everyone

Your bag may have the most “stuff,” including the most important items for your and your family’s overall survival. But don’t neglect to supply your spouse and children with bags of their own. Each family member having their own bugout bag is important for numerous reasons.

First and foremost, all bags should carry survival basics. So, if one or two bags go missing or get stolen, you still have access to emergency essentials in the remaining bag(s).

Second, individual bags can carry personalized additions. For the children, it could be a comforting stuffed animal, blanket, or action figure. Likewise, for your spouse, it could be a sentimental item, favorite book, or clothing that they just couldn’t do without.

Finally, bugout bags for all family members give everyone the feeling that they are part of the family’s overall survival plan. They are also self-sufficient and able to tend to their own needs with their own stocked items and gear.

Sentimental Attachments

When abruptly ripped away from the norm of daily life and traveling far from home for an unknown amount of time, all people, including men, women, and children, will undoubtedly be scared.

To offer some sense of calmness during a crisis, carry items that hold a special place in your family’s hearts. These items could include family photos, a piece of heirloom jewelry, a sentimental article of clothing, or a special toy.

No matter how insignificant the item may mean to you, always save room for these comforting items. Keep in mind that survival is not always physical. Mental well-being is also a top priority. This helps lead to logical, informed decisions—not careless ones that may jeopardize overall safety.

Sentimental items can ground your family members, reassure them, and give them the focus they need to keep moving forward.

Family-Friendly Medical Kit

Everyone surely knows that a medical kit is a key component of a bugout bag. Injuries will happen when thrust into a chaotic situation, and you need to be prepared. However, when traveling with small children, a first aid kit can be a scary thing.

When a child has a small cut or scrape, and you open the bag to reveal scissors, gauze, sterile packs, and pain medicines, it may further their anxiety in an already stressful situation.

Instead, opt for a child-friendly kit that intrigues the youngsters rather than drives them away. These kits offer cute character stickers, bandages with designs or animal pictures, unintimidating gear, and bright, inviting colors. Best of all, the items inside are still authentic first aid items, so the entire family can use the kit if needed.

However, you should still maintain a robust medical kit for dire emergencies that a family-friendly kit cannot cover.

Time Passers

As mentioned earlier, carrying items used during downtime is crucial for your and your family’s mental well-being. Doing nothing during an emergency situation or survival crisis tends to make people’s minds race. This leads to worrying about their immediate future and beyond.

Additionally, a child’s mind needs constant stimulation. When they are bored with nothing to do, they may tend to get on their parents’ already fragile nerves. So, carrying items that help pass the time will be beneficial to everyone.

Playing cards, compact board games, books, coloring books, and puzzles can all work to make the endless hours of waiting until your next move much more bearable.

Remember, cell phone towers may be down during a crisis, or your personal devices may not be charged. So, don’t rely on these to help pass the time as you would in your daily life. It’s time to go “old school” and pack reliable, fun basics from times before the ever-present cellphone.

Tasty Survival Food

You can’t be picky during a survival situation. However, with some pre-planning, you can pack foods that offer both convenience while on the move and great taste at the same time.

Numerous options exist for “survival” food, including dehydrated, freeze-dried, pre-packed MREs, and long-life snacks and trail mixes.

Remember, not all foods are created equal in taste, texture, and flavor. It’s best to try a sampling of foods prior to packing them into your bags. In fact, don’t even mention to your family that they are survival-style foods. Just present it to them one night and gauge their reactions.

Additionally, there are some sweet treats that fit the criteria, such as freeze-dried ice cream, cookies, hard candies, and more. So, don’t forget these for the kids (and the parents, too; you deserve it.)

Water will and should be your drink of choice under emergency conditions—and daily life in general. However, numerous varieties of flavored powders to create fruit drinks, shelf-stable milk, and pouched drinks should be added to your bugout bag. These can bring a smile to the faces of kids and adults alike and offer an alternative to plain water.  

Bugging out is already stressful enough. But if you include the right items in your supplies, you can keep your family from literally bugging out.