Get Home Safely

You're at work, or an hour out, and driving back isn't an option because the roads are closed, the car's gone, or traffic has simply stopped moving. This is a walking problem, not a camping problem, and that changes everything you'd pack. Weight is the constraint: every ounce is one you carry the entire distance, so completeness loses to portability every time, and the instinct to add "just in case" is the one to resist. Two things end this trip more often than anything dramatic your feet and your water. Blisters at mile four turn twenty miles into an ordeal, and dehydration turns clear thinking into poor decisions, so real socks and a genuine means of treating water do more than any tool in the bag. Think in hours rather than days: enough food to keep moving, not to eat well; light, because you may finish in the dark; a way to stay warm if you have to stop; something to signal with; and cash, because card readers need power. Keep it plausible-looking this bag lives under a desk or behind a seat, and it should read as a work bag rather than an announcement.