I've seen lots of generalized lists of items that people carry in their EDC backpacks, but I'm curious what unique things folks around here carry specifically!
not in a backpack... A Leatherman Squirt ES4 is my keychain, laser engraved with my phone number in case my keys get lost, but now that this model is discontinued, the tool is far more valuable than the keys.
To save you a few clicks: It's a miniature hobbyist/electronics multitool built around foldable pliers, where the inner part that usually grips different bolt heads is replaced with wire strippers 12 to 20 AWG. With a bit of angle and speed you can cleanly strip to 24 AWG stranded or 28/30 solid (although I'd just use teeth for the latter). You can still grab reasonably small & loose bolts with the end. It also has a knife, one-handed scissors, file, bottle opener, and flat as well as flat-sized-for-Phillips screwdrivers. I probably use this every single day at work and at home: opening packages or beers, making XLR cables, prototyping with microcontroller EVBs, trimming loose threads/tangled hair ends/a rough nail/tag wire, tightening drum heads when the keys are all missing, scraping/filing dirt from suede, slicing food, turning screws.
When I carry a bag it's a giant diaper bag with all that this entails or---more rarely---my camera bag which has a laptop pocket and a drink pocket for an insulated metal flask. Otherwise, a slim wallet and phone completes the ensemble.
Don't use a backpack for every day carry, but a heavy cloth shoulder bag containing;
* folding umbrella
* mosquito repellant
* baseball cap
* string bag for shopping
* blue pen
* small plastic pack of dry wipes
Some of this may seem odd to many, but I live in Thailand and all items are handy, though some rarely. Clothes pockets contain the usual phone, money, keys, documents.
If you don't already do it, something I learned from some Japanese friends is to fold the towel around the (cold or frozen) water bottle in the hot days. It keeps the bottle colder for longer, avoids condensation/wetting the insides, and now you have a damp fresh towel if you are sweating, which is nice.
Not contents, but I recommend an internal frame daypack. I got one made by Osprey. I find that it greatly reduces discomfort caused by oddly shaped items or heavier loads.
Nothing too interesting, Steam Deck, s8 ultra tab + keyboard cover, wacom pen and glove, usb hub, charger, old 2fa phone, water bottle, spare tote bag, spare IEMs and umbrella.
Of course the expensive electronics only go out if I expect to have time for them.
Water bottle, iPad, flashlight, sunglasses, AirPods, light jacket, a black pen, lip balm, floss/Y-picks, hair comb, folded tote bag, and snacks for my kids.
- tiny travel umbrella (6-8 inches in length when compacted)
- Colgate Wisps (when you need to fresh up your teeth/breath on the go)
- Airtag
- eyeglasses cleaning cloth
- PNY Pro Elite external SSD (barely bigger than a dongle, super portable; I'd probably opt for the similar Samsung T7 instead if I was buying one right now)
I'm full-remote, so this is my general "I'm going somewhere and want to be lightly prepared" bag, rather than something I actually carry everyday. I'd take this to the coffeeshop if I actually needed something in it, etc. I'd also take this with me if I traveled, but with a packing cube or two of clothes also slipped in.
* My laptop (MacBook Pro 16")
* A pack of charging supplies (this is my covers-everything pack for extended travel, so it's a charging brick and enough cables to charge my laptop, phone, and watch, and a battery for emergencies)
* My kindle
* (Situationally) my Steam Deck (in a JSAUX ModCase, which greatly slims down its space needs compared to the bundled case)
* A bunch of OTC medications -- painkillers, mostly -- all jumbled as bare pills into a single small pill case
* Emergency snacks, generally RxBar protein bars
* Some pens and pencils, which honestly I almost never use but feel I should have
* Water bottle
* Umbrella
* A grid fleece layer, in case I'm in a very aggressively cooled coffee shop
* A jumble of miscellaneous small supplies in a small pocket: glasses cleaning cloth, toothpicks, tissues, etc
* An AirTag
Currently all in a Mystery Ranch Catalyst 26 <https://www.mysteryranch.com/catalyst-26-pack> (it could all fit into a much smaller bag, but that's the size with a separate laptop pocket). I've been thrown off by my work standardizing on the MacBook Pro 16", when I'd far rather have the 14" for easier carry.
I own both sizes and have found it challenging to go back to the 14" after getting used to the 16" screen size and battery life. I'd urge you to test out a 14" and see how it goes.
I'm sadly constrained by what my job will issue me to work on here. I used to have the 13", and was happy with it.
When I'm at home I do all my work on an external monitor anyway, so I don't think of the screen size as being super-relevant to my daily life. It comes up if I travel for work or work from a coffee shop, but my experience suggests that the smaller screen is fine there for me.
The backpack I keep in my car boot (“trunk” for the Americans here ;) ) has: a set of ”work” clothes (rugged trousers, breathable shirt, high vis rain jacket, also boots but not in the backpack), USB battery pack, old AirPods, a few handkerchiefs, a mini first aid kit (also a bigger first aid kit but not in the backpack), an assortment of useful pills, individually packaged gum, compact umbrella, hybrid gym/bathers clothes, gym towel (and beach towel but not in backpack), a very very bright keyring flashlight, multitool.
Recently removed: plastic water bottle (the plastic leached into the water too quickly)
Lets see, unique things
* Oxygen bottle (It's come up twice, never me fortunately)
* Epipen (I have serious allergies)
* Mask rated to filter pollen (I have serious allergies)
I'm a minimalist so I don't have an EDC backpack, but when I travel I have a small manbag (tagged with an AirTag).
1. Umbrella
2. Sunglasses
3. Wipes
4. Anker battery
5. USB cables with different connectors (Micro-USB, Lightning)
6. Pen and notebook
Nothing too unusual. I stash my AirPods Pro, passport and other bulk items in it when I'm traveling, but otherwise it's very light (under 2 lbs). This makes it possible to move cover lots of ground in big cities easily without getting tired. Anything more than 3 lbs is a pain if you're walking all day (I average 23,000 steps/day when I'm out and about).
I've always worked properly remote (since pre school of the air in the early 1970s) and of all the things I always travel with the one I like the most and have relied on more than once is my signalling mirror (proper thick near unbreakable glass with sighting hole in centre).
Wallet, laptop w/ hdmi dongle, notebook, pen, keys, water bottle, earbuds, power cable, random receipts that I stuff in there and forget about, and the occasional business card from an Uber black driver that would prefer I ring direct.
In terms of actual "EDC" I don't carry a backpack. I mean, yeah, I have a backpack I sometimes carry, but I think of it mainly as my "laptop bag" and I don't always go out carrying it.
EDC stuff I carry in my pockets or on my belt or whatever. Briefly, the list is:
1. Keychain with my car / home keys
2. Wallet
3. A small LED flashlight
4. A carbide tipped glass breaker
5. a Leatherman tool
6. A folding pocket knife
7. A USB thumb drive
8. My phone (Moto G7)
On a selective basis, add:
9. A Keltec PF-9 9mm pistol
10. A Gerber fixed blade knife
On a seasonal basis I also add
11. A ferro rod
12. A small block of magnesium
When it's cold enough to wear my heavy winter coat (which it rarely is) I have a few things tucked in my inside pockets:
- an Altoids tin filled with cotton balls dipped in Vaseline
- a box of waterproof matches
- a couple of "space blankets"
- an Altoids tin filled with small chunks of fatwood
- probably a couple of other things I don't remember offhand
As far as my backpack: there's so much random shit in there I couldn't even begin to list it all. Besides the actual laptop and charger, there's a USB hard drive, a yellow rubber duck, a pencil roll, a plush stuffed white rabbit, all sorts of USB cables, an extension cord, an RTL-SDR dongle and accessories, a couple of notebooks, a TI-89 calculator, a Bluetooth trackball, reading glasses, headphones, a couple of bottles of Coke Zero (usually), etc., etc., etc.
Hmm.. For none of those things does where I'm going on any given day really play any role in my decision of what to carry. That's the whole idea of "EDC".
But think about it; If you drive a car (to work, say) and you live anywhere where the daytime ambient temperature in the winter gets down into even, say, the 50's, it's not hard to imagine a scenario where most of those things could be useful. Somebody runs you off the road, or you have a front tire blowout, or skid on ice, and go into some water? The glass-breaker lets you break the glass to get out of your rapidly sinking car. The knife can be used to process wood by batoning, and the firestarter lets you start a fire to keep your cold, wet, body warm until help arrives.
A pistol? I'm not going get get into some big "gun control" debate here, but I'll just say that I prefer to carry a pistol more or less all the time, excepting for a small number of places where it isn't allowed. I hope like hell I never need it, but "it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it."
I should also add that I spend a fair amount of time in the outdoors, either fishing, hiking, or bike riding, usually by myself. As such, I like to be equipped to handle various situations that could potentially arise.
That's not entirely the case. It's actually a matter of risk assessment. You need to consider the "cost" of being prepared based on the risk (likelihood x consequence).
The effort/cost/maintenance of being prepared. Everyone has a different threshold.
For example in what op carries in case his car goes off the road, what happens if you suffer a large cut in that accident? Do you carry clotting agents? What about snake bites and allergic reactions? Do you carry the appropriate medication too?
At a certain point being "more prepared" is the wrong choice. For some people, in an urban environment, simply have a phone and some cash is prepared enough, and that's not necessarily wrong.
That's not entirely the case. It's actually a matter of risk assessment. You need to consider the "cost" of being prepared based on the risk (likelihood x consequence).
The effort/cost/maintenance of being prepared. Everyone has a different threshold.
100% agree. There's always a cost/benefit analysis in play. Nobody can truly be "prepared" for every eventuality, and even if it were possible in principle to do so, some preparations would have outlandish costs that would not weigh well compared to the likelihood of that event in question ever actually happening.
I self-identify as a "prepper" to a very mild degree. Eg, I don't spend half my monthly salary on stockpiling ammunition and food, and I don't have an underground bunker, yadda, yadda, yadda. I do keep a couple of extra boxes of ammo in the closet for firearms I own, and I do keep a (small) stash of certain dried and canned foods in my storage unit... but that's more a byproduct of that thinking that "I rent this storage unit anyway, why not keep a little bit of survival food in here just in case?" Not like I would rent a storage unit just to stockpile survival supplies.
But ya know... some people would (and do). Some people do build complex underground bunkers and stockpile thousands of rounds of ammo, etc. To each is own, I suppose. I'd like to think I take a fairly balanced approach of spending a small amount of time and money on things that could have a big return someday, or if that doesn't ever come up, can simply be taken out of storage and used normally or whatever.
At a certain point being "more prepared" is the wrong choice. For some people, in an urban environment, simply have a phone and some cash is prepared enough, and that's not necessarily wrong.
Yep, yep. I lean the way I do for various reasons despite living in an urban area. Some of it is that I grew up as a "country boy" and some of those life lessons were internalized at a young age. For me, carrying a knife, carrying a pistol, etc. are very normal, routine, expected things. Add in the fact that I do spend quite a bit of time outdoors, doing solo activities, the thought of carrying a flashlight and a ferro-rod or whatever becomes just another "cheap, lightweight, non-intrusive thing I can do that might never be required, but causes no harm or undue burden and might save my life one day."
If you live an unusual life, you may need unusual tools. Also, there's probably more than a little low-key play acting, like when a normie wears "aviator" sunglasses. When I was a young kid, maybe 8, and home alone, I walked around the house in a terry cloth robe and a 8" chef knife in one of the pockets. Same thing.
Also, there's probably more than a little low-key play acting, like when a normie wears "aviator" sunglasses.
Sure thing. I freely acknowledge that the probability of me needing to use a ferro-rod "in anger" to start a fire in a survival situation is relatively low. Carrying it is more just a part of my identity that anything probably at this point.
That said... I've been caught out in flash "pop up" thunderstorms before, gotten rained on, and found myself feeling cold, while quite a distance from my vehicle or anything, while out fishing or doing similar things. At least once I was caught out in a storm and was on the verge of hunkering down under a bridge embankment and starting a fire, right when the rain let up. So it's not purely an affectation or prop or whatever.
> What are the "cotton balls dipped in Vaseline" for?
Fire starting. They will easily take a spark from a ferro rod and convert it into an open flame. And they burn long enough to make it pretty easy to transition to a sustainable fire. These things are a popular DIY fire starting accessory among people who are into bushcraft / survivalism / whatever.
Chapstick, ibuprofen, allergy pills, lighter, retractable USB-C charger, Airpods. This covers most minor annoyances I encounter in the city.
I almost always carry my iPad Mini. It replaces a book/notebook. Unlike my phone it's a quiet, distraction-free device.
If I intend to work, I bring my MacBook Air. It replaces a much lighter Macbook 12" which I loved to bits. It's heavier, but it's much faster and has insane battery life.
I usually travel by bicycle. I usually pack a water bottle. If it's nice outside, I'll pack a picnic blanket. I hope from place to place, doing a bit of work here and there.
I have an Ortlieb Vario bag that is both a backpack and a bicycle bag. It's waterproof and big enough to fit groceries. It's great for quickly getting on/off the bike.
66 comments
[ 252 ms ] story [ 2197 ms ] threadTo save you a few clicks: It's a miniature hobbyist/electronics multitool built around foldable pliers, where the inner part that usually grips different bolt heads is replaced with wire strippers 12 to 20 AWG. With a bit of angle and speed you can cleanly strip to 24 AWG stranded or 28/30 solid (although I'd just use teeth for the latter). You can still grab reasonably small & loose bolts with the end. It also has a knife, one-handed scissors, file, bottle opener, and flat as well as flat-sized-for-Phillips screwdrivers. I probably use this every single day at work and at home: opening packages or beers, making XLR cables, prototyping with microcontroller EVBs, trimming loose threads/tangled hair ends/a rough nail/tag wire, tightening drum heads when the keys are all missing, scraping/filing dirt from suede, slicing food, turning screws.
When I carry a bag it's a giant diaper bag with all that this entails or---more rarely---my camera bag which has a laptop pocket and a drink pocket for an insulated metal flask. Otherwise, a slim wallet and phone completes the ensemble.
* folding umbrella
* mosquito repellant
* baseball cap
* string bag for shopping
* blue pen
* small plastic pack of dry wipes
Some of this may seem odd to many, but I live in Thailand and all items are handy, though some rarely. Clothes pockets contain the usual phone, money, keys, documents.
* Towel small (no kidding; but have only used it a couple of times in ten years)
* Harmonica
* Kindle
* Fountain pen and notebook
* Water bottle
* Regular electronics/chargers
* blister packs of certain medications, loperamide and ibuprofen being particularly useful
* Narcan, unfortunately
* small gifts (stickers/morale patches/enamel pins) to hand out as thank yous
It doesn't have an internal frame, but it's very sturdy and holds up well.
Silk eye shade.
Tiny metal bottles of Tylenol, Claritin, Ibuprofen.
Mouse pad.
USB-C to micro-USB adapter (for charging headphones using a USB-C cable).
Whistle.
2.4Ghz presentation clicker.
Of course the expensive electronics only go out if I expect to have time for them.
* backup / secondary wedding ring (different style than primary):)
* usb stick
* flashlight
Right small pocket: deodorant, mints, toothpick/floss/toothbrush
Left mesh pocket : change, 5cm charging cable
Left small pocket : wired headset that came with phone, packet of Kleenex / tissues
Outside compartment
* lip balm, allergy pills, ricola/halls, tums, cialis, ibuprofen, tylenol, Gravol (small cutouts of blister packs or portable versions), Band-Aid
* pen, pencil, highlighter
* this is where small chargers, charging cables, good headset with boom or good headphones go
* Samsung note 8 (my entertainment phone, no sim, WiFi only)
Medium sized compartment
* one or two of : dslr, steam deck, Nintendo 3dsXL, drone, etc
* large charger brick with 1*pd for laptop, 2x USB A charging slots
Top small compartment
* puffer (salbumitamol / bronchiodilator), nasal spray, spare wallet and travel id's, usually another wired headset lol
Largest compartment
Typically clothes
Laptop compartment
Laptop and tablet or kindle
This all packs a lot smaller than it sounds :).
NikolaNovac’s primary ring is lost to freak metallurgical catastrophe
Lusty singles close in
NikolaNovic: NOT SO FAST!
I take my ring off when I play guitar or when my fingers get puffy, or sometimes I want the thinner band :)
Floss - you never know when you'll get something between your teeth
Band-aids - getting one through official sources due to a papercut is way too much peperwork
- tiny travel umbrella (6-8 inches in length when compacted)
- Colgate Wisps (when you need to fresh up your teeth/breath on the go)
- Airtag
- eyeglasses cleaning cloth
- PNY Pro Elite external SSD (barely bigger than a dongle, super portable; I'd probably opt for the similar Samsung T7 instead if I was buying one right now)
Keydous mech keyboard with yellow switches (maybe I should just buy a separate one for the office?)
Puffer vest in case it gets cold
USB Charger
Moleskine
Pen
heavy exercise band
PX-7 headphones
Portable charger for cellphone
Prybar/screwdriver
* My laptop (MacBook Pro 16")
* A pack of charging supplies (this is my covers-everything pack for extended travel, so it's a charging brick and enough cables to charge my laptop, phone, and watch, and a battery for emergencies)
* My kindle
* (Situationally) my Steam Deck (in a JSAUX ModCase, which greatly slims down its space needs compared to the bundled case)
* A bunch of OTC medications -- painkillers, mostly -- all jumbled as bare pills into a single small pill case
* Emergency snacks, generally RxBar protein bars
* Some pens and pencils, which honestly I almost never use but feel I should have
* Water bottle
* Umbrella
* A grid fleece layer, in case I'm in a very aggressively cooled coffee shop
* A jumble of miscellaneous small supplies in a small pocket: glasses cleaning cloth, toothpicks, tissues, etc
* An AirTag
Currently all in a Mystery Ranch Catalyst 26 <https://www.mysteryranch.com/catalyst-26-pack> (it could all fit into a much smaller bag, but that's the size with a separate laptop pocket). I've been thrown off by my work standardizing on the MacBook Pro 16", when I'd far rather have the 14" for easier carry.
When I'm at home I do all my work on an external monitor anyway, so I don't think of the screen size as being super-relevant to my daily life. It comes up if I travel for work or work from a coffee shop, but my experience suggests that the smaller screen is fine there for me.
Recently removed: plastic water bottle (the plastic leached into the water too quickly)
Pretty sure you could take over a small nation state with this backpack. If you don't want to watch the whole thing skip to the last 5 or 10 minutes.
https://youtu.be/PvVg4RYaSuU?si=ZWOZFh9UUHUjyRFY
1. Umbrella
2. Sunglasses
3. Wipes
4. Anker battery
5. USB cables with different connectors (Micro-USB, Lightning)
6. Pen and notebook
Nothing too unusual. I stash my AirPods Pro, passport and other bulk items in it when I'm traveling, but otherwise it's very light (under 2 lbs). This makes it possible to move cover lots of ground in big cities easily without getting tired. Anything more than 3 lbs is a pain if you're walking all day (I average 23,000 steps/day when I'm out and about).
Per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37047797#37047962:
Keychain 6-in-1 https://www.amazon.com/inCharge-Six-One-Portable-Compatible/...
Apparently has a connector that is both micro-USB + lightning.
Still works in the absence of digital comms.
EDC stuff I carry in my pockets or on my belt or whatever. Briefly, the list is:
1. Keychain with my car / home keys
2. Wallet
3. A small LED flashlight
4. A carbide tipped glass breaker
5. a Leatherman tool
6. A folding pocket knife
7. A USB thumb drive
8. My phone (Moto G7)
On a selective basis, add:
9. A Keltec PF-9 9mm pistol
10. A Gerber fixed blade knife
On a seasonal basis I also add
11. A ferro rod
12. A small block of magnesium
When it's cold enough to wear my heavy winter coat (which it rarely is) I have a few things tucked in my inside pockets:
- an Altoids tin filled with cotton balls dipped in Vaseline
- a box of waterproof matches
- a couple of "space blankets"
- an Altoids tin filled with small chunks of fatwood
- probably a couple of other things I don't remember offhand
As far as my backpack: there's so much random shit in there I couldn't even begin to list it all. Besides the actual laptop and charger, there's a USB hard drive, a yellow rubber duck, a pencil roll, a plush stuffed white rabbit, all sorts of USB cables, an extension cord, an RTL-SDR dongle and accessories, a couple of notebooks, a TI-89 calculator, a Bluetooth trackball, reading glasses, headphones, a couple of bottles of Coke Zero (usually), etc., etc., etc.
But think about it; If you drive a car (to work, say) and you live anywhere where the daytime ambient temperature in the winter gets down into even, say, the 50's, it's not hard to imagine a scenario where most of those things could be useful. Somebody runs you off the road, or you have a front tire blowout, or skid on ice, and go into some water? The glass-breaker lets you break the glass to get out of your rapidly sinking car. The knife can be used to process wood by batoning, and the firestarter lets you start a fire to keep your cold, wet, body warm until help arrives.
A pistol? I'm not going get get into some big "gun control" debate here, but I'll just say that I prefer to carry a pistol more or less all the time, excepting for a small number of places where it isn't allowed. I hope like hell I never need it, but "it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it."
I should also add that I spend a fair amount of time in the outdoors, either fishing, hiking, or bike riding, usually by myself. As such, I like to be equipped to handle various situations that could potentially arise.
The effort/cost/maintenance of being prepared. Everyone has a different threshold.
For example in what op carries in case his car goes off the road, what happens if you suffer a large cut in that accident? Do you carry clotting agents? What about snake bites and allergic reactions? Do you carry the appropriate medication too?
At a certain point being "more prepared" is the wrong choice. For some people, in an urban environment, simply have a phone and some cash is prepared enough, and that's not necessarily wrong.
The effort/cost/maintenance of being prepared. Everyone has a different threshold.
100% agree. There's always a cost/benefit analysis in play. Nobody can truly be "prepared" for every eventuality, and even if it were possible in principle to do so, some preparations would have outlandish costs that would not weigh well compared to the likelihood of that event in question ever actually happening.
I self-identify as a "prepper" to a very mild degree. Eg, I don't spend half my monthly salary on stockpiling ammunition and food, and I don't have an underground bunker, yadda, yadda, yadda. I do keep a couple of extra boxes of ammo in the closet for firearms I own, and I do keep a (small) stash of certain dried and canned foods in my storage unit... but that's more a byproduct of that thinking that "I rent this storage unit anyway, why not keep a little bit of survival food in here just in case?" Not like I would rent a storage unit just to stockpile survival supplies.
But ya know... some people would (and do). Some people do build complex underground bunkers and stockpile thousands of rounds of ammo, etc. To each is own, I suppose. I'd like to think I take a fairly balanced approach of spending a small amount of time and money on things that could have a big return someday, or if that doesn't ever come up, can simply be taken out of storage and used normally or whatever.
At a certain point being "more prepared" is the wrong choice. For some people, in an urban environment, simply have a phone and some cash is prepared enough, and that's not necessarily wrong.
Yep, yep. I lean the way I do for various reasons despite living in an urban area. Some of it is that I grew up as a "country boy" and some of those life lessons were internalized at a young age. For me, carrying a knife, carrying a pistol, etc. are very normal, routine, expected things. Add in the fact that I do spend quite a bit of time outdoors, doing solo activities, the thought of carrying a flashlight and a ferro-rod or whatever becomes just another "cheap, lightweight, non-intrusive thing I can do that might never be required, but causes no harm or undue burden and might save my life one day."
Sure thing. I freely acknowledge that the probability of me needing to use a ferro-rod "in anger" to start a fire in a survival situation is relatively low. Carrying it is more just a part of my identity that anything probably at this point.
That said... I've been caught out in flash "pop up" thunderstorms before, gotten rained on, and found myself feeling cold, while quite a distance from my vehicle or anything, while out fishing or doing similar things. At least once I was caught out in a storm and was on the verge of hunkering down under a bridge embankment and starting a fire, right when the rain let up. So it's not purely an affectation or prop or whatever.
Fire starting. They will easily take a spark from a ferro rod and convert it into an open flame. And they burn long enough to make it pretty easy to transition to a sustainable fire. These things are a popular DIY fire starting accessory among people who are into bushcraft / survivalism / whatever.
I almost always carry my iPad Mini. It replaces a book/notebook. Unlike my phone it's a quiet, distraction-free device.
If I intend to work, I bring my MacBook Air. It replaces a much lighter Macbook 12" which I loved to bits. It's heavier, but it's much faster and has insane battery life.
I usually travel by bicycle. I usually pack a water bottle. If it's nice outside, I'll pack a picnic blanket. I hope from place to place, doing a bit of work here and there.
I have an Ortlieb Vario bag that is both a backpack and a bicycle bag. It's waterproof and big enough to fit groceries. It's great for quickly getting on/off the bike.