Camping First Aid Kit

You can easily build your own homemade backpacking and camping first aid kit. Below you will find the essential items as well as a few other items that we think you should include. And definitely take a good first aid course before you go camping, because the kit will be useless if you don't know how to use it.

Essemtial First Aid Items: First, lets cover the basics. Any good camping first aid kit will include the bare-bones essentials. What are those essentials? I'm so glad you asked.

First Aid Manual - The best first aid kits won't do you any good if you don't know how to use it. It should cover how to handle the most common and basic problems. Make sure you are familiar with your manual and that it's easy to understand.

Antiseptic Cream - Helps keep cuts, scrapes, and burns from getting infected.

Adhesive Bandages (several sizes and shapes) - Used for minor cuts and scrapes. Simply add a little antiseptic cream or lotion to the band-aid and apply. They also work for blisters in place of moleskin.

Butterfly Bandages - Helps with deeper cuts that may need stitches. They will hold the wound together until you get medical assistance.

Sterile Gauze Pads (several sizes) - Used to clean out wounds or cover larger wounds.

Medical Tape - One of the most useful items in a camping first aid kit. Great for holding gauze or stubborn bandages in place, covering blisters, splinting broken bones or sprains, and more.

Alcohol or Iodine Wipes - For cleaning and disinfecting areas around wounds. Also great for cleaning skin so that bandages and tape will stick more easily.

Pain Killers - Asparin, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, etc. to help keep pain and inflamation in check.

Latex Gloves - To keep anything nasty from your hands, and to keep anything nasty from your hands away from the wound.

Elastic Bandage (ACE Bandage) - Works well for supporting minor sprains, holding bags of ice in place to reduce swelling, making splints for more sever sprains or breaks, making slings for hurt shoulders / broken collar bones etc.

Flashlight or Keylight - Needed for applying first aid at night. We prefer a keylight since it can easily fit into a backpacking or camping first aid kit.

Scissors / Knife / Multi-tool - Used for cutting bandages, gauze, clothes, etc.

Medications - Any prescription or non-prescription medications that anyone in your group needs.

Non-Essential (But Very Useful) Items

Now we can cover some non-essential items for your homemade kit.

Moleskin - For treating and preventing blisters.

Safety Pins - Holds slings or bandages together. When sterilized can be used to remove blisters.

Miscellaneous Lotions - Burn lotion, anti-itch cream, anit-fungal cream, aloe-vera gel, etc.

Duct Tape - Almost an essential, because it can be used in place of medical tape or moleskin, and it has thousands of uses.

Second Skin - Great for soothing and healing burns, blisters, small wounds, etc. Find out more Click Here.

Lip Balm - Not a necessity, but if you've ever had really chapped lips then you'll be glad you brought this.

Petroleum Jelly - Again, not a necessity, but if you've ever had severe chafing, then this is a God-send. It can also be used in place of lip balm.

Bandana or Triangular Cloth (Cravat) - Great for slings, splints, and to hold bandages in place. You can cut a piece from an old bed sheet, too, and that works just fine.

Tweezers - Good for removing splinters, ticks, and dirt particles from wounds.

Putting it All Together

Once you have everything you need and want for your camping first aid kit, it's time to package all of it.

Put similar items into groups. All adhesive bandages go together, all medications (Tylenol, Benadryl, Sudaphed, Prescriptions, etc.) go together, all lotions go together, etc.
Package the groups into zipper lock bags. Anything that must stay dry (adhesive bandages, gauze, tape, etc.) should be double-bagged.
Put all of the bags into a larger zipper lock bag or into a larger stuff sack or ditty bag. I try to find a red one so that it looks like a first aid kit, and it is seen easily . Label the bag so that is is easy for anyone to identify.

We hope we've helped you learn how to make your own camping first aid kit. And if you feel we've missed something, please let us know.

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