Do you love getting outside? Do you drive your vehicle on mountain roads? Do you travel more than 200 feet from your vehicle or camp? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may want to consider these 5 essential outdoor survival skills:

The internet and other media outlets are flooded with misinformation and the dramatization of outdoor survival. Imagine all the survival shows out there. Are there events truly practical for the every day outdoors person? Not really. We have been in the outdoor industry and survival business for many years. We always ask people what they think outdoor survival while some of the answers we get can be a bit interesting but prove that there is a lot of misconceptions out there regarding outdoor survival. The following is our list of top survival misconceptions we hear from people we have spoken with over the years.

Smart survival is about real-world practical survival situations. Not primitive (bushcraft) or tactical (military). Smart survival is about instantly protecting yourself if you are in need of shelter. Smart survival is about starting a fire as fast as possible. Smart survival is about understanding exactly what threats you are exposing yourself to and equipping yourself to ensure you are protected from those threats.

A bit of preparation can turn an unfortunate or potentially deadly incident into simply an inconvenient night out. For Matthew Matheny, preparation could have turned 6 grueling nights into 1 night.

A survival kit and some smart skills are your keys to staying safe when the unexpected hits. But while you might have the skills, most of the survival gear on the market may actually be working against you.

Be the smart survivor you deserve to be so you don't have to be a search and rescue statistic. Majority of people will not admit they are exposing themselves to threats when recreating in the outdoors. A survival kit and some basic survival knowledge can ultimately be an investment in your life.

Hypothermia is one of the leading causes of death in survival situations and more often than not it is because that person was not carrying a survival kit with sufficient items to keep the individual warm and dry.