Author name: Jim Cobb

Jim Cobb is a disaster preparedness consultant and author. His books include Prepper's Home Defense, The Prepper's Complete Book of Disaster Readiness, and Prepper's Long-Term Survival Guide.

image: hand inserting green-topped key into deadbolt of brown door as layer of home security

Three Layers of Effective Home Security: Simple Ways to Protect Your Castle

If you’ve ever had your home broken into, you know the feelings of sadness, anxiety, anger, and being violated. In fact, according to the FBI, burglaries of residential properties accounted for 62.8 percent of all burglary offenses in 2019. Yet, when we talk about home security, it seems as though many people are just concerned with stockpiling weapons and ammunition. The reality, though, is that it takes a layered approach to address the issue of home protection and defense adequately.

image: woman sitting on rocks warming herself by fire she made using wilderness survival gear

7 Essential Pieces of Wilderness Survival Gear to Carry on Every Trip

Time and again, we see news stories involving people who became lost in the woods during a routine hike or camping trip without having any essential wilderness survival gear on their person. It happens all the time and, unfortunately, sometimes these stories have a very tragic ending. That’s very easy to do if you’re not intimately familiar with the area. In most stories, if the person had taken just a few small items of wilderness survival gear with them, the tragedy could have been merely an interesting anecdote at family gatherings for years to come instead. These 7 basic pieces of gear, that easily fit in pockets or a small pack, make all the difference between tragedy & survival.