These survival hacks can make your camping or survival experience much easier.

Implemented correctly, they can even make a survival situation endurable, if not enjoyable.

Be a Steel-Belted Hero

Need to restrain your hysterical hunting buddy, or just bundle together some firewood? It you can spare the belt off of your pants, it makes a very sturdy tie strap. I’ve even lashed together temporary shelters with it, and then removed the belt in the morning when it was time to break camp. Just don’t use this hack if the belt is the only thing holding your pants up.

Hack Your Fire

Can’t get that damp tinder to light? Then dip into your food supply and pull out some high-calorie comfort food—namely chips. Delicious greasy snack chips make an outstanding fire starter when you apply an open flame to them. Just a few corn chips, Fritos, or potato chips can be quickly lit with a match or lighter. Two or three chips won’t put much of a dent in your food supply, but it will have a massive impact of your fire building.

Build a Wax and Cardboard Stove

This simple gizmo is made from any cast off flat can (like a tuna can). You’ll also need some thin strips of cardboard, cut as wide as the can is tall (any length will work). And finally, you’ll require some candle wax, new or old. To make the stove, coil up your cardboard strips inside the can until it is full of cardboard. Melt your wax over a medium heat, preferably in a disposable container like another tin can.

Pour the melted wax into the cardboard stove until the cardboard is almost covered. Light it right away or let it cool to save for later.

Lighten Things Up

If your flashlight runs out of batteries, you still may have a shot at using it. If you have smaller batteries that are charged, wrap the sides in tape, paper or cardboard to get the right battery diameter. Then, use aluminum foil or stacked coins to increase the battery length with conductive metal. With this trick, you can substitute AAA batteries for AA, and C cells for D cells. This isn’t just for flashlights, either. Any battery operated device can work on modified batteries, providing the replacements are the same voltage.

Find Your Way

Improvise a compass and you’ll make a huge difference in navigating your way out of a wilderness emergency. A metal item (like a needle) can act like a compass needle when it is magnetized and suspended to allow free movement that is not affected by wind or any other forces. Magnetize a needle by rubbing just the eye of the needle one hundred times against the hair, fur or silk. Lay the needle on a leaf that can float in water. If no wind is allowed to hit the leaf, the needle should pull the floating leaf to orient itself on a North-South alignment. Watch out for gun barrels and other nearby metal items which can pull the compass needle off course and distort your bearing.
Mark Your Path With Charcoal

Trying to leave a breadcrumb trail in the forest, or signal which way a search party should go? Grab a few burnt sticks from your fire and use them to draw arrows and write messages on trees, rocks, logs and any other handy surfaces. This low-tech version of a Sharpie will leave marks that last for weeks, but it will eventually weather away—so it’s not graffiti!

Duct Tape to Fight Snow Blindness

Cut two strips of duct tape, with one that is about an inch shorter than the other. Stick them together, sticky side against sticky side. Use the exposed bit of sticky tape to stick together a loop that fits your head. Place the duct tape loop on a log and cut out two thin slots for eye holes. Don your improvised goggles, and you’ll be protected from snow blindness.

Survival hacks allow you to make the difficult bearable.

With practice, they can become part of your regular routine so that when you use them, they are more like “standard operating procedure.”

To learn more hacks for survival and camping, check out Outdoor Life.

Featured Image via Tim MacWelch / Outdoor Life