On your journey, there may be no permission to make fire. In this case you can use a camping stove for cooking. You can find these in shops with camping accessories and outdoor equipment, but the small flame of the camping stove will hardly be enough to warm you and your friends. A warm meal warms you from the inside out. To warm yourself from the outside, you should spread a thick layer of dry leaves and grasses on the ground to isolate moisture and cold coming from the ground. With a good sleeping bag you can easily spend a comfortable night on this natural bed.
Overnight stay in the wilderness
Especially at night, the wilderness holds a breathtakingly diverse background noise, which acts like a therapy on our mind. But not only acoustically, but also visually the wilderness enchants with a night sky full of stars and shooting stars which would hardly be visible in the city due to the exposure. Basically the temperatures should be above 10 degrees and of course it is important that no precipitation is to be expected, because in the wilderness this becomes rather fast uncomfortable and even waterproof bivouac bag does not remain necessarily cuddly with strong precipitation. Generally, try to look for natural shelters such as ledges and caves for your survival camp bed. You can also build a tent by putting a rope or heavy-duty string between two trees, laying a tarpaulin over it and stabilizing it with stones or branches on the sides. A base under the sleeping bag makes sense in any case and an insulating mat is suitable to isolate cold and moisture from the ground. Make sure you don’t necessarily build your night quarters on an anthill and try not to spend the night near swamps, waters and puddles, as moisture attracts mosquitoes that can become quite uncomfortable. Also find out about dangerous wildlife, poisonous insects and snakes at your survival destination and add the necessary emergency gear to your outdoor equipment.
Orientation in nature
We all know the saying “Never wash without soap”. For city dwellers, this saying is often the only donkey’s bridge to derive the points of the compass. This is much easier with a compass, because the magnetic needle in a compass always points north-south. But how do you find your way if you don’t have a compass and a modern navigation device with you? Basically, there is a very simple principle: keep your eyes open and perceive your surroundings. As simple as that may sound – in the modern world, where navigators, smartphones and now even smartwatches permanently pull us from the real into the virtual world, it is no longer taken for granted that we consciously perceive our surroundings. Many young people can’t even find their way home in their hometown without a navigation device, whereas older generations can get by on motorways and roads without modern help, because they come from a time when it was necessary to keep their eyes open and remember paths and signage without modern navigation devices and smartphones. For people who are unfamiliar with nature and newcomers to the outdoor world, trees and landscapes simply resemble each other more than roads and houses. This is due to a superficial view of the terrain that it is imperative to train off.
If there is no compass in the outdoor equipment (which of course should not happen), you should first choose the sun as a reference point, because it rises in our latitudes in the east and stands at noon in the south and moves in the following hours until sunset towards the west. Also trees can help with the orientation, because usually the wind blows in Europe from western direction, which one can observe at the eastern inclination particularly at free standing trees and also moss grows on the weather side of the tree – thus western. An even simpler method is to look for prominent points on your survival trip. For example, a tree struck by lightning (you’ll often find coal here, too), bizarre rock formations and maybe even signs. If you want to leave the wilderness on your way there, it is advisable to take a look back in regular sections to make your way back more familiar.
A survival trip requires a lot of preparation and expertise. As a newcomer you should never be tempted by the thrill of irresponsible action. Take part in Survival trainings with experts and get to know new people on these Survival weekends who share the same interests with you and may even be there on your first independent cowboy vacations outdoor trip. With professional training and the right outdoor equipment, your unforgettable Survival trip will no longer be an obstacle.
