Top 10 Skills Every Prepper Should Learn

Skills Over Stuff

Here's a truth most gear-focused preppers don't want to hear: a person with skills and no gear will outlast a person with gear and no skills, every single time.

You can't carry enough supplies to last forever. But you CAN learn skills that let you improvise, adapt, and provide for yourself and others indefinitely. These are the 10 most important.

1. Fire Starting

Fire provides warmth, water purification, cooking, signaling, and morale. Master multiple methods:

• Lighter and matches (always carry)
• Ferro rod and steel
• Bow drill and hand drill (friction fire)
• Magnifying lens / solar ignition
• Learn to find and prepare natural tinder in wet conditions

Practice: Start a fire in the rain using only natural materials. If you can do that, you own this skill.

2. Water Sourcing & Purification

Finding and making water safe to drink:

• Identify water sources (streams, springs, rain, dew, transpiration)
• Filter with improvised materials (sand, charcoal, cloth)
• Purify through boiling, chemical treatment, and solar disinfection
• Build a basic solar still

Practice: Find and purify water from a natural source on your next hike.

3. Navigation

GPS dies. Phones die. Maps and compasses don't:

• Read a topographic map
• Use a baseplate compass for bearings and triangulation
• Navigate by sun, stars, and natural indicators
• Pace counting for distance estimation
• Pre-plan routes on paper maps for your area

Practice: Navigate to a destination 2+ miles away using only a map and compass.

4. First Aid & Trauma Care

Be your own first responder:

• Hemorrhage control (tourniquet, wound packing, pressure)
• CPR and rescue breathing
• Splinting fractures and immobilizing injuries
• Treating burns, hypothermia, and heat stroke
• Wound cleaning and closure
• Recognizing signs of infection, shock, and internal injury

Practice: Take a Stop the Bleed class, CPR course, and Wilderness First Aid.

5. Food Procurement

Three paths to food when stores are empty:

Foraging

• Learn 10-15 edible plants in your region (start with dandelion, cattail, wild onion, plantain)
• NEVER eat anything you can't 100% identify
• Get a regional field guide

Hunting & Trapping

• Basic snare construction (figure-4 deadfall, simple wire snare)
• Fishing with improvised hooks and line
• Cleaning and processing game

Gardening

• Grow a garden NOW — you can't learn this during a crisis
• Focus on calorie-dense crops: potatoes, beans, squash, corn
• Save seeds from open-pollinated (non-hybrid) varieties

6. Food Preservation

Growing or catching food means nothing if it spoils:

• Canning (water bath and pressure canning)
• Dehydrating (sun-drying, electric dehydrator, smoking)
• Fermentation (sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles)
• Salt curing and smoking meats
• Root cellaring for long-term fresh storage

7. Mechanical & Repair Skills

When you can't call a plumber, electrician, or mechanic:

• Basic plumbing (shut-offs, pipe repair, water heater maintenance)
• Electrical fundamentals (safely working with 12V systems, solar panels, generators)
• Small engine repair (chainsaws, generators, lawn equipment)
• Vehicle maintenance (oil, brakes, tires, battery, belts)
• Sewing and clothing repair

8. Communication

Stay informed and connected when the grid fails:

• HAM radio operation (get your Technician license)
• Antenna building and optimization
• Morse code basics
• Signal methods (mirror, smoke, ground-to-air)

9. Self-Defense

Your last line of protection:

• Situational awareness (this alone prevents 90% of confrontations)
• Basic hand-to-hand fundamentals
• Firearm safety, operation, and maintenance
• De-escalation techniques
• Home defense planning

10. Mental Resilience

The most underrated survival skill:

• Stress management under pressure
• Decision-making when tired, hungry, and scared
• Maintaining morale for yourself and others
• Adaptability — plans fail, conditions change, you must adjust
• Physical fitness — strength and endurance aren't optional

How to Build Skills

Don't just read about skills — practice them:

• Take one formal class per quarter (first aid, HAM, foraging, etc.)
• Practice one skill every weekend
• Join local groups (HAM clubs, gardening co-ops, shooting sports)
• Teach your family — if you can teach it, you know it
• Simulate scenarios (no-power weekends, cook-on-fire nights)

The best preppers aren't the ones with the biggest stockpile. They're the ones who can adapt, improvise, and keep going when everything else fails. That's what Prepper Evolution is about.