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I'm looking to build the ultimate BOB and would value your suggestions and opinions.

Break down your BOB and list each item that you have thought would be smartest to include.

Most importantly, don't forget to include the make and model of your bag!

What made you choose your bag? Consider all things related, weight, size, capacity, waterproof, etc.

Also, what kind of sleeping bag did you decide to go with? Did you add a sleep mat?

I suggest that the bag be bags, depending on the season.

There are different levels of BOBs and for awhile I was a bit (stupidly) cocky about feeling somewhat more prepared than most. But I've finally gotten serious about a multi-day bag and I have to tell everyone that if you haven't done this to serious completion then you have no idea how much effort this takes to get yourself (and your family) ready. And I say this as a aging Eagle Scout who used to know what long term wilderness camping is or was about.

Especially adding in the shtf scenario if you don't have the full complement of items already in house and bagged it will take you days if not weeks to pull it all together. If this is a concern for you (and it should be) - DO NOT DELAY.

Even if you think you've already got it ready; it's time to pull it open, inventory, update with missing items , and replaced items that have a shelf life.

Skills plus a pocket knife will get you through more than no skills and sole access to a major department store.

Or, if you prefer plainer speaking, how stupid is a possum? Yet they survive. Attitude and adaptability are all important.

I see freshly dead possums smeared over the roads on a daily basis...

This thread took a side turn that the intent of the OP didn't warrent. Rather than generate yet another parallel thread (we have thousands of them - hard to find one that hasn't been previously thought of) I'm pulling this back to the top.

After a 6 year break I just went back through our BOBs to check the inventory, update and improve, and replace time-limited items that had gone bad or which I no longer trusted. When I have a longer moment I would be happy to share a summary of what is in my bags, but I want to put this out for the larger group to share their thoughts. I'm sure I would benefit from things you have done and thought of doing. After my BOB exercise of this week (and not that I didn't know this when I first created them years ago) I appreciated even more that organization of the bag and clarity of the inventory is extremely helpful.

Any thoughts and or ideas?

I won't get into an in-depth analysis, but will say this. Anytime I can think of something that is cheap, doesn't take a lot of room, lasts a long time, isn't stored in any real quantity by the VAST MAJORITY of people (IMHO) and would be useful even as a barter item, I have to take notice.

One such thing is the generic version of immodium, which is used for diarrhea. It is super cheap- I bought a box of 24 tablets at Costco the other day. You ready for the cost? 85 cents total including tax! The only downside is that you are limited to one box per day. If you go back in history and research items that killed people, say, 100-150 years ago, one of the most common causes of death was diarrhea. I've taken aspirin that was 15-20 years old before and never had issues with consuming a stale unhealthy product. I am happy to take generic immodium that is, say, 3-5 years old and well past the so-called "expiration" date.

This would be a very valuable thing to barter with. You could store a very substantial quantity inside a coffee can. It checks all the boxes in my humble opinion. As a colo-rectal cancer survivor from 10 years ago, I've had many episodes of diarrhea for decades. This is something absolutely essential for me to have on hand.

I can imagine someone who was sick and needed diarrhea medication badly. Trading say an ounce of silver for several tablets of immodium would be a win-win situation. I would certainly take either side of that trade depending on whether I was the buyer or seller of the medicine.

I am curious about what other unusual items people would put into bugout bags.

P.S. I guess the intent of this thread was to discuss the bag itself instead of the contents. But I felt the item I mentioned was important enough to include it anyhow.

Thanks to Camaro for bringing this one back to the top of the pile!

can openers, toilet paper, sardines, small bottles of liquor, paper maps, heavy metal flashlight (dual use), ammo, ramen, rice, lighters, benedryl, immodium, aspirin, vitamins.

Ok - here is (or rather, after this post) my BOB list. I tried to load a CSV file that has been renamed to a jpg file, but it didn't like that. So I'll try a couple of options following this description of it.

The core is a large but inexpensive integrally-framed backpack (one for each of us) that includes padded hip-straps. The bag is capable of strapping a sleeping bag and/or tent to it (which sit on shelf next to it). It is a decent product but not top of the line (I got them on sale years ago for <$30 each, literally a fire sale, so they smelled like smoke for the first couple of years, but the smell eventually mostly went away). The pack is pre-stuffed as a 5 minute grab and go that could be shoulder carried as needed and hopefully (when supplemented with some related items that are stored elsewhere and also pre-staged) contains everything we need to survive. It is super complete so it contains more than stuff than the minimum required. My philosophy is that It is easy to toss stuff to the side if the load is too heavy - but not so easy to add to it when you are bugged out. Depending on the circumstances you find yourself in you might want to keep certain things and toss others. as a function of the situation that is causing you to bug out. If I do have to bug-out, I could give a flip about the cost of things that I'm tossing to the side - I presume will have by that point far larger and more important problems to deal with!

The items are grouped by category, and generally bagged into those categories in separate ziplock bags. The exception are the time-sensitive items. You can't see the color-coding in the csv file version, but I have the rows color coded as needed to reflect certain things, and all of the time-sensitive items (literally, or potentially) are listed toward the top (as well as, in my personal file, given a different color). In the physical bags, no matter the category they are in, I have all the time-sensitive items packed into two large zip-lock bags (loaded up with smaller bags by category) that are located in the top of each pack, to make it easy to update or replace those items periodically. Whereas most of the rest of the contents never need to be looked at again (or at least very often).

In general use after bugging out the bag would need to be gone through at some point and re-organized (and unneeded stuff tossed), but based on the bag capability I have four subgroups of items pulled out into items that are pre-loaded into the top, left, and side pockets, as well as the Individual First-Aid Kit (IFAK) for which the MOLLE carrier is mounted on the top rear of the pack (for storage the IFAK bag itself is stored below the time-sensitive items near the top of the pack).

The list also includes BOB-related items that are boxed and on shelf, as well as other items that I would consider adding if I had the 30 minutes it took to gather them and toss in a vehicle, and presuming I didn't have to carry them.

I stripped out details of or simplified items that were specific to us, but my own spreadsheet has a bit more detail in it. You would obviously modify it to suit your needs and gear.

If there is broader interest in being able to download a .xls or .csv file, maybe TPTB can help me upload a non-picture attachment, but all I could get to go are pictures, so in the meantime here are JPGs of a PDF image.