Personnel Recovery Directorate deals with 'what-if' factor
United States Army Africa Additionally, they'll give travelers a small survival kit and a personal locator beacon. Travelers are urged to get a small but complete first aid kit from ...
<http://www.usaraf.army.mil/NEWS/NEWS_110801_PRD_SURVIVAL.html>

I would hope that one could travel in relative safety in North America without completing basic SERE training.....Never go anywhere without an appropriate FAK.

1. I never lost anything in Africa so I don't want/need/desire to go back.

2. I really don't want to go anywhere I "need" my SERE course for - at least not in the course of daily life.

3. Do not travel to places where rape, torture, mutilation by machete, mob mentality and death for being there are deemed normal everyday events. (Note, this includes parts of DC, LA, Chicago and NJ)

Thank you very much, but no thanks, think I'll stay where I speak the language, know the customs, and don't have to keep my head on a swivel 24/7.

JBMat you left out parts of Detroit.

Explanation for everything that happens on The Dark Continent: "TIA" (This Is Africa).

I am curious about the survival and first aid kits. This article does not provide any detail.

Jeanette Isabelle

I doubt they would differ in any significant details from the kits one would assemble using the guidance provided on this site or many other competent authorities - adjusted for local conditions, of course.

When I went to Belize, I needed my survival gear (including FAK) to fit in a relatively small fanny pack. Something that small was the only realistic option, given the way we went about doing things - spontaneous kayak adventures, spur of the moment bike rides, etc.

Building a proper FAK for travel is not rocket science. This site provides a lot of good advice for a FAK, and then you modify a little for local conditions. Regardless of how well equipped you are, you're probably going to be lacking. You have to have the knowledge to improvise.

Also, I find myself taking fewer risks when I travel. For example, in the U.S., I might kayak out a half a mile and then jump into the water. Heck no, I'm not doing that in another country.

Some tangential thoughts:

I assume this is an exaggeration since it is coming from a fellow forum member. We are always prepared, after all, for anything from power outage to alien invasion. But I have come across people who were actually afraid to go to not just the especially bad areas of these locations, but these locations themselves. (As many of you know, DC, LA, Chicago, etc. can be quite safe and comfortable.) I wonder whether it was because they grew up in small towns, and they just never picked up the sort of common sense that any inner urban 10-year-old would have. As a consequence, they can't tell safe from unsafe, and everything looks scary to them.

If this theory is correct, is there a way to teach urban survival skills? Some guide books offer rigid advice that borders on the ridiculous, or so I've heard. This sort of "common sense" seems to be more fluid and dynamic, and cannot be codified easily and distilled into words or rules. The biggest asset seems to be how to tell when something isn't right. To me this seems like a skill that has to be acquired from experience and exposure. Maybe the "computer" for this skill really works at the subconscious or intuitive level. In other words, just as a city slicker can easily get into trouble in the outdoors because he can't recognize dangerous weather changes, can't start a fire, etc., so an outdoorsman can get into trouble in the city.

So what do you guys think? Teachable skills or not?

Da Bing

Yes, urban survival skills are teachable. I don't think the method for learning urban survival skills is all that much different than learning nature survival skills. For each, a limited amount of knowledge can be obtained from reading a computer screen or from listening to a lecture. Both urban survival and nature survival require a substantial amount of "street knowledge" that can only be obtaining from just doing it.