My personal experience leads me to think that the limiting factor in this scenario wouldn’t be our imaginations, so much as what’s available in your typical country general store and convenience store. I’ve had trouble finding Coleman fuel (or a reasonable substitute) in a large town right next to a state park (no stores in the park), and trouble finding something to replace an air mattress in an area with several campgrounds and at least two camp stores (that mostly catered to tin box campers). <br><br>Some things are easy- finding matches and lighters is a given, and in country stores you should find plenty of cordage, even if it’s just very long bootlaces (by city standards) or clothesline. Any general store is going to have a decent knife or two, and you could probably come up with a cheap women’s compact for a mirror- if the makeup can be easily disposed of to make a little storage, so much the better... if not, you might consider breaking the hinge. Without a camping store or surplus store, though, I think you’d be very lucky to find a whistle, or any way to purify water other than boiling, or a compass. In many towns your only hope of finding a compass is as an accessory in a store that carries auto parts. <br><br>I’m old enough to really appreciate “disposable” water bottles. When I started backpacking, we had to seek out either specialty Austrian-made polyethylene water bottles or genuine army-surplus plastic canteens. There were many imitations of the army canteen, some hard to tell from the real thing, and they all leaked from the cap- not a big deal if you’re carrying it upright, but a huge deal if you’re sleeping with it to keep it from freezing at night. Modern disposable water bottles are lighter in weight and seem almost as sturdy. Evian bottles in particular are designed to crush lengthwise for recycling, to a compact disk with a neck, and in a pinch can be crushed to save space and “re-inflated” to 80-90 percent of their capacity several times as needed. This can increase your water carrying capacity in a small pack without taking up much room.<br><br>Shower curtains make fine groundcloths and are not bad as a one-man bivouac tarp in a pinch.<br><br>IMHO, if you want the scenario to be a test only for cost and not also for availability, then you have to include a local surplus store as well- and that, in itself, solves many of the cost problems.<br>