If you draw a 70 mile radius circle around my house then you will have a good idea of the type of traveling I do without staying overnight. Yep, it sucks, but that is the nature of my line of work. Sometimes I have absolutely no idea where I will be during the course of a day. This area includes five major cities, the Cumberland plateau, the Tennessee Valley and the Appilachian mountains. I suppose that you could call me a commuter. <br><br>I have a soft-sided lunchbox that has three rather large outer compartments (and a false bottom) that I keep gear in. One pocket is dedicated to the stuff I carry at all times, but cannot carry on my person while at work. Its the standard "dont leave home without it collection". Other than that; its not possible to carry everything so I have broken it down to shelter, water, first aid and personal protection. Rations play no role in my choice of survival gear even though I carry everything in a lunchbox. The food is just to give me energy though the workday. It takes a long time to die of starvation. <br><br>The shelter choices include: two 55 gallon drum liners, a space blanket, a very small glass bottle of naptha to refill my zippo, a ranger rick style pocket lantern full of naptha.<br><br>The water choices include: a glass eye dropper bottle full of clorox, 3 small pouches of activated carbon with a mesh container (aquarium filter cartridge replacements), some coffee filters, a one cup flask<br><br>The first aid choices are simply a small first aid kit that I keep adding extra supplies and specialized supplies to. Burn supplies and eye drops are important to people who weld often. <br><br>As for personal protection....I dont think I would feel safe with a tank in some of the places I have to go. Im not going to try to fool myself by thinking that anything less than a large caliber handgun constitutes self defense. The critters in the woods dont scare me, but people sometimes do.<br><br>I carry many more "little" things along these lines in addition to these items, but you get the idea. The criteria are that it fits in my lunchbox's outter pockets and doesnt weigh it down excessively. <br><br>I keep some extra "common-sense" type stuff in my vehicles but I try not to over-do it. <br><br>I'll use this opportunity to speak on lighters since it was brought up. This opinion is common among weldors but probably doesnt really apply to everyone else. Butane lighters of any variety and welding machines (or cutting torches) are a bad combination. Steel melts at 2850 degrees F. Imagine what happens to any butane lighter when a ball of molten steel hits it. Most people carry lighters next to their heart or in a front pocket. I really dont want any explosions in either location. I'm not sure which would be worse This is why you see so many construction workers with zippo lighters instead of cheap plastic butane lighters.