The linked thread below is pre-COVID but has some more good stuff. I detail some of my multi-use items, which is another guiding principle when dealing with weight and space constraints like a Go Bag. Stuff like paracord, duct tape, condoms, zip ties, pantyhose, cloth, sewing kits, petroleum jelly and copper wire are all multi-use items that take up little space and have many potential applications.
Water purification has come up a lot, which it should. The crystallized iodine pictured in that thread is a really versatile solution and also multi-use for infection mitigation. The downside is the glass jar. Life straws are also great, light and cheap. I have an MSR filter that I hem and haw about throwing in. It isn’t a no-brainer because it has a relatively fragile ceramic filter element and is quite heavy compared to the iodine and all of the fire-making opportunity I have in the north woods for plain-old boiling. A better filter is somewhere on my list of things I don’t need per se, but want to buy.
Props to me for having an N95 mask in my kit pre-COVID. It was actually used at the start of the pandemic. Not by me, but for a friend of mine some of my log readers may recall as “Dander Girl” from when I’d occasionally log my bouncing shifts. That hot mess got herself married and had herself an immunocompromised kid, so of course I gave her my N95 when they couldn’t be bought anywhere.
Pertinent: You can’t help others when you’re unprepared and incapable.
The biggest change I’ve made since that thread is to organize all of my camping/backpacking gear into plastic totes. I still have a go bag and a get home bag, but I’ve got a LOT of other useful gear that’s too heavy to carry. -20 degree sleeping bags, extra clothing, rugged tents, tarps, cots, a box of fresh firewood and lots of guns and ammo are great to have but can’t all be carried by yourself… Now that it is loaded and organized in totes I can go from everyday life to all packed up and ready to hit the hills in my Toyota Tundra in about five minutes. I stand ready to take part in Red Dawn: Woke Invasion.
What I can’t fit into a backpack is lots of food, lots of water and shelter/warmth that will keep me and my kid alive in the worst Maine has to throw at me without a great deal of shelter craft and luck. A 25 pound bag of rice, a few cases of MRE’s, several cubic feet of dehydrated food and 20 gallons of water isn’t ideal for a go-bag, but it is ideal to have if you can manage to get it wherever you’re going…
Like the hills, to fight the communists.