(According to people who voluntarily starved on television)
My wife and I have watched every season of Alone. Every one.
Not live on the History Channel, of course. We usually watch it the way modern society prefers its hardship. Buffered, edited, and from a warm couch. The commercials still suck, though. Watch it on Hulu or something else if you can. The History Channel app always gets a bit out of sync after each commercial, creating a noticeable delay in the audio.
We half-joke that Alone is probably the closest thing we currently have to The Hunger Games that society will tolerate. At least in this decade. Expect something more extreme to be birthed from the success of this show eventually.
No districts.
No Capitol.
No explicit villain.
Just mostly competent people dropped into isolation, filming themselves (allegedly) while they slowly starve, packaged as premium educational entertainment. Tasteful suffering. Carefully monetized. Ethically questionable.
Which feels very on brand for the era.
What Alone does well, whether it intends to or not, is remove the fantasy from survival. No bunkers. No tactics cosplay. Just tools, calories, and time. Yes, I know it does not account for roving bands of zombies or villainous raiders. That is out of scope for this post.
Malicious encounters aside, here are the basic tools everyone will likely need in our post-apocalyptic future.
1. A Cutting Tool
Knife, axe, or saw. Pick your religion. Multitool if you must.
Every season reinforces the same lesson. Sharp edges matter.
A cutting tool enables shelter, fire prep, food processing, repairs, and the quiet psychological comfort of being able to shape the world instead of just enduring it.
A sharp tool that you can keep sharp is likely crucial in the early days after an apocalypse. Which probably means not forgetting, and not losing, a whetstone.
2. Fire Starting Gear
Fire is warmth, safety, water treatment, and morale.
Yes, you should know friction fire.
No, you should not depend on it when cold and wet are already negotiating your exit.
Yes, I make fun of the guy who tapped out after building an awesome hot tub and then losing his ferro rod. Really though, he probably made the right call. I might have tried a few more days to keep a perpetual fire going. Or maybe not.
Civilization is mostly about cheating efficiently. Fire starters are honest about that.
3. A Cooking Pot
One could argue that society can be boiled down to one thing. Boiling things. Boiling them down. Perhaps into a nice stew. Sorry, it has been a weird day. Puns intended.
Boiling water is the most practical way to maintain a long-term clean water supply.
Boiling food helps with bacteria and parasites. And if you cannot stand the texture of whatever you are boiling, you can often still drink the broth and get much of the nutrition.
This alone makes at least one pot an essential survival item.
4. Shelter or the Skill to Create It
Exposure kills faster than hunger and faster than fear.
Shelter is not comfort.
Shelter keeps the environment from killing you.
Sometimes physically. Sometimes psychologically. We have all heard the four basic human needs our entire lives. Food, water, shelter, and air. This one really should not be a surprise.
Every successful contestant understands this early. Everyone else learns it cold.
5. Cordage
Rope has so many practical uses that you would be foolish to call yourself a prepper and discount its value.
Shelters hang together with it.
Tools function because of it.
Systems exist because things are tied to other things.
A surprising number of problems can be solved with the clever application of a string or two.
6. Fishing Gear
Fishing is boring. Fishing may not be applicable everywhere, but where it is, it is essential.
It rewards patience, observation, and restraint rather than strength. Which is why it works.
Most calories on Alone are not hunted. Hunting is hard. The hardest part of fishing is developing patience.
7. Water Purification and Storage
Civilization collapses. Microorganisms do not.
Boil it. Filter it. Treat it.
Much of this is covered by the trusty pot mentioned earlier. One thing post-apocalyptic games have taught me, though, is that you also need somewhere to store water. Since the pot is already accounted for, this item probably really means a durable, portable water container.
8. Clothing That Works When Wet and Cold
I was going to say the apocalypse is not a fashion statement, but the people who design their wardrobes around 5.11 Tactical might disagree.
You need clothing that is easy to clean and dries quickly. All of my hiking gear works this way, and it makes a real difference. I find that three changes of clothing is about right. Lightweight, durable hiking gear paired with thermal insulation options for cold nights is the sensible choice.
Layers matter.
Every season of Alone has someone who does not take clothing seriously enough, and they pay for it.
9. Hunting Gear
Alone does not allow firearms. Would it be funny if they did for one season? Absolutely. A complete disaster. Great television.
My hesitation with firearms in an apocalypse is simple. Ammunition becomes a long-term problem in any apocalypse worth surviving. For longer-term hunting, I would lean toward a spear and a good bow with around ten arrows. Both are cumbersome, so looking at designs meant for long-distance travel makes sense.
It also would not hurt to carry basic supplies for making snares and traps. Safety wire and similar materials go a long way.
10. Knowing When It Is Real
There is no magical tap-out button in an apocalypse.
If and when something truly global happens, you will need to accept the reality of your situation quickly if you hope to survive for any meaningful length of time. Maybe you get lucky and form a peaceful commune where everyone shares and prospers. More likely, you are on your own or with a very small group.
No government is coming to save you. Refugee camps are a trap. Hurricane Katrina already taught us that lesson.
When the day comes to grab your bugout bag and head for the hills, you need to find the resolve to survive. For the sake of mankind. Or at least for yourself.
Bonus Item: A Solar Powered Library of Civilization
There is one tool Alone never allows. Probably because it would make the experiment unfair.
A rechargeable, ideally solar powered device containing hundreds or thousands of books on how to rebuild civilization from scratch.
Not novels.
Manuals.
Agriculture.
Carpentry.
Metallurgy.
Medicine.
Engineering.
Plumbing.
Sanitation.
Every trade. Every era. Every hard lesson humanity already learned once.
This library already exists. Much of it lives quietly in places like Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive.
Compressed into a single device, this is not entertainment or comfort.
It is continuity.
When the grid goes dark, knowledge becomes finite again. The people who remember how to do things stop being hobbyists and start being infrastructure.
Yes, I admit it.
I have one.
It is in my bugout bag.
Because the real apocalypse skill is not fire making or hunting.
It is knowing how to restart the boring parts of civilization. The parts no one posts about, but everyone depends on.
Final Thought
If the apocalypse comes, it probably will not look cinematic.
It will look like waiting.
Rationing.
Boiling water again.
And realizing how thin the line was between civilization and campfire logistics.
Alone is not about wilderness survival.
It is about how politely we prefer to watch that lesson, as long as it happens to someone else.
