All too often we are asked ‘what is the best first aid kit for hiking?’

So we have decided to dedicate a blog to explain how to choose the best first aid kit for your hiking trip. 

The best first-aid kit is ideally one that can do it all. From cuts and scrapes to small burns from the camping fire right the way up to mass bleeding; because you never know what you may cross in the wilderness, best be safe than sorry right? 

Well, to tell you the truth we would love to take every medical supply camping but, that’s simply not an option. You can’t prepare for every eventuality, that would require carrying a hospital with you, and nobody is that strong. So what is the best first-aid kit? In all honesty, it depends on where you will be going and what you will be doing? 

Read our previous blog where it discusses how to choose a first aid kit for more information on this. If you were heading out hunting deer in remote Scotland you would be after a more lightweight comprehensive first aid kit to what you may take on a family hiking trip. For the majority of hunters, a cut or scrape to the leg is nothing more than a wipe to the trousers, and so plasters become redundant on this type of hiking trip. 

Yet a family hiking trip resulting in a cut to the hand may warrant an antiseptic wipe and plaster. So, imagine you’re hiking trip; ask yourself, what’s the worst-case scenario and how likely is that to happen? Am I likely to be walking long arduous distances? Do I have children where I’ll need to prepare for them? Am I going it alone? Or with a group? Will I be travelling on foot or, in a buggy? 

Your hiking first-aid kit depends on you and your adventure.