My New Favorite Emergency Rain Poncho!

Being prepared for an emergency means having the right gear and knowledge to be able to take care

of yourself no matter what sort of emergency arises. And there are a lot of potential emergencies that could arise that could require us to need

to suddenly leave our home. And in those cases, it's important to be able to have a kit you can take with you

And having the right gear for that kit, as well as the knowledge to use it, is pretty key

So today we're going to be reviewing one specific piece of equipment that I think is really important

and really helpful to have in your emergency 72 hour kit or bug out bag

I've received a lot of input from several of you who have watched some of my other videos about 72 hour kits

suggesting different items to include in that 72 hour kit. And I'm loving that input and please keep it coming

If there are items that you specifically include in a 72 hour kit that might not be super obvious

go ahead and share them below. One of the things that we have in every one of our 72 hour kits

as well as just some around with our camping gear is a super cheap emergency rain poncho

All this is is basically a trash bag with a hood on top

It's got a couple of sleeve holes in it, one in each side, a hole cut out for your head

and then a hood for the top. And it's easy to throw that on over your body to keep you dry

So no matter what sort of situation, even if you're out at a kid's seat, soccer game or whatever, you can throw one of these things on and you can keep your body pretty dry

Now, in an emergency, it's really important to be able to stay dry if we're in a situation

where we can't be undercover or in a shelter. Water, getting ourselves wet is one of the easiest

ways to get ourselves sick. Because when we're wet and that water's evaporating off of our bodies

it's going to make us substantially colder. And so we have two issues with water. There's the wet

and the problems that it causes. As your clothes are wet if your shoes and your socks are all wet the fungus and stuff that can grow and that can cause all sorts of problems for you but also the cold that comes on as a result of it So emergency ponchos are great

And these are super cheap. They're like a dollar to a dollar and a half a piece, again, depending on how many you buy at a time and where you buy them

You don't need to be paying more than about a dollar and a half for a poncho. A couple of things to keep in mind, though, when you get one of these

You can buy these ponchos in big packs, but what you may find is that

they're kind of made to be one size fits all, but that they're not oversized. So they're not made to be able to wear like over a backpack or something

For an emergency kit, I would absolutely get a poncho. I mean, look at how big that is

I'm a big guy, but that's really big. And that's because it's intended to be able to throw on

over the top of like a hiking pack, which is great. The second thing to consider, though

is could we do better than just staying dry? So when I was doing some research for emergency blankets, I actually came across a cool little product

This is a rain poncho, but it's orange. So there's that like cool

All right, people are going to be able to see you. But it's more than just that. This emergency poncho, first of all, the material is slightly heavier than just this thin plastic

But it's still totally waterproof. And very good windbreaker properties. But it's also made from mylar

So it's basically like an emergency blanket shaped as a trash bag with three holes in it and a hood

In fact, when I look at this, this is like exactly the same size or very, very close to the plastic one

The difference is that this one is entirely made out of that mylar

So again, waterproof, windproof, which is great. but also it's going to reflect a bunch of my heat back at me. Now, seeing that and hearing

those claims all the time I always skeptical And you know I tried out those emergency blankets Well the same day that I tried those out out in the snow I also decided in fact my brother and I both were out there we each put one of these on just to see how they would work And we put them on and again immediately felt the temperature rise around our bodies So not only was it holding the wind off of us but it really was doing good job of reflecting the heat back I was concerned with how big and loose these are that it would let a lot of air in through the bottom and stuff and just negate a lot of

of the value of that radiating heat back at me. But I was impressed and really surprised

Both of us came to the same conclusion, which was if I could reasonably afford to have one of these

instead of one of these, both with my emergency 72 hour kit

but also just in my regular camping and hiking year for those rain scenarios where I need to get out of the rain

but don't have a shelter, this would absolutely be by far the preference

It gives you all the benefits of the plastic, but it was enough of a difference on keeping warm that it was worth it

Now, another reason why I would do that instead of the plastic, not in addition to, is because in most scenarios that I find myself in, if I'm in the rain, it's usually not a really hot rain

I don't live in a tropical place. If you live somewhere really, really warm, maybe you're just like, why would you need to stay warm when it's raining, right

It's never that cold. I don't live in Florida and I don't live in Costa Rica

I don't live in many of the beautiful, wonderful places where it rains a lot. At one point, I did live in Brazil, and that was awesome

And it rained, and it was still warm. But here in Idaho, when it rains, it's not usually very warm

It drops the temperature substantially. And so having the ability to stay warm very easily while it's raining makes it so that I don't need a heavy rain jacket

I can easily just pull this out. And if I had a just a light jacket or a hoodie that was part of my emergency kit or that I grabbed as I was leaving for the emergency then I would be able to stay reasonably warm just with those materials And that why I think that this is a far superior option for an emergency kit than just the

regular rain punches that we've had forever. Now, I told you, if you could afford to use these

instead of these, these are only about a dollar, a dollar and a half a piece. So how does this compare

Well, I paid 1895 for a four pack. So these came in at under five dollars a piece

On Amazon, there's also another brand out there. Again, I think they're probably the exact same product

probably made in the exact same place. That's my speculation, though. I'm not saying that that's the case

And they're selling a five-pack for the same price. That's the cool thing on Amazon

is with these kind of products that are probably all made overseas and shipped here, people start buying them and reselling them on Amazon

and the only way to differentiate is to cut the cost as low as possible

And we, as the consumer, get to benefit by buying cheap stuff even cheaper

I'm a huge fan of American made. I'm a huge fan of supporting your own economy to the extent possible

And that's great, support small business and all of that good stuff. But as we're preparing for emergencies and you're going to need multiple ponchos if you have kids

I am all about also saving a buck here and there where we can

So that's my recommendation. Get the emergency poncho made out of my lar

because it doubles not only as a poncho, but also as a space

blanket as it says here on the tag. So get yourself a space blanket poncho. That's what we do here

at pantry preparedness. I love to test really cool stuff. I love to test really basic stuff. I just

love to test things to make sure that we're getting the right stuff as we're preparing for emergencies

or preparing for anything life has to throw at us. So if there's something you'd love me to test

please let me know in the comments below. And if you just have other thoughts or opinions or whatever

we're all here to learn from each other. And I hope to see you in our next video