Whether you have a BOB (Bug Out Bag), INCH Bag (I’m Never Coming Home), or any other type of preparedness bag, consider modularity as part of your design principle.

A preparedness bag that is adequately modular can provide you many benefits including but not limited to:

• Organization
• Easy Transport
• Gear Swapping for specific tasks
• Money Savings

It’s easy to visualize how adding modular components to your preparedness bag can aid in organization and easy transport.  However, the latter two items – Gear swapping and money savings, may not be so apparent.

Gear Swapping

You may not always need your entire bag for a particular task.  What if you have already set up base camp and need to go scout the area.  It would certainly be unwise to leave your bag behind as you scout out unfamiliar territory, and loading up your pockets is really not any better.  What better way than to pull off a modular scout kit from your bag which has a reduced version of all the necessary survival items!

Money Savings

Preparedness becomes very expensive!  You might have an every day carry kit, a bug out bag, a “get home” car bag, etc.  What this means is that you’ll end up purchasing redundancies for water purification, fire, shelter, etc. for every one of you bags.  Some people circumvent this by only having one bag, and moving it from their home to car (or where ever possible) so it is always close at hand.  The major problem with this is that I personally know many people who have had their bags stolen from their cars and lost hundreds of dollars worth of gear.

Again, a better way is to have easily detachable gear that can be moved from spot to spot without much hassle so you can cut down on multiple purchases.

A Scouting Setup

Embedded is a great video from MCQ Bushcraft which shows how to make a modular knife/pouch combo:

Here is mine, as well as the contents I personally carry in it (Maxpedition Anemone pouch, cold steel leatherneck knife, goal zero bolt flashlight, wet fire tinder, bic lighter, Cammenga lensatic compass, compass distance tables, ranger beads, mylar blanket, signal mirror, knife sharpener, flint/firesteel, pencil.

Attachment points for other setups

You can attach your gear in a variety of ways.  Here are my favorites:

• Molle Straps (come sewn into pouches) – very durable and sturdy, but difficult to remove or add quickly.
• Alice Clips – Moderately durable and very quick to remove or add quickly.
• Annex clips – Least durable of the three, but good for general outdoors.  Very quick to add or remove quickly.  Best benefit is use in tight fitting spots.

Below you can see my IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit) showing annex clips up top and Alice clips on bottom: