>>1123813>living the dreamIt's not for everybody, but I love it.
>>1123820>what basic skills do i needThis is a really difficult question. When I do this, I'm putting my life in danger, relying only on my own knowledge and capabilities. There is no skill that I have that I'd recommend doing this sort of thing without. But if you start out with what you're comfortable with, stay reasonably close to the roads, and keep learning, you can progressively push yourself further.
At an absolute minimum, you need to know how to acquire food, water, shelter and warmth. If you know that you'll always find water downhill, can identify brassicas, grasses, rubuses, vacciniums and boletes, start a campfire with a hand drill and carry a shelter (because cutting a new bough shelter every night is a waste of calories and a dick move), you're probably about 3/4 of the way there already.
That last 1/4 is where all the obscure stuff is, things that I'd probably never use like identifying piscicides and paralytics (both are illegal, but if I were actually starving, I'd still use them) or how to spin and knit wild animal fibers into a replacement beanie (which I'll probably never use, but I'm grateful I know) or that paracord can be melted and dripped onto a tarp and pressed flat to patch small holes or dripped onto dry usnea to make a smoky but effective wet-weather fire-starter.
And some of this stuff I didn't actually learn, I just had to figure it out on the fly. One time in a rainstorm I couldn't get a fire going but someone had left a bag of trash on the forestry road I was on. I ended up making dinner over a beer bottle filled with motor oil for fuel and a jute wick.
