Survival Tip – Worst Case Scenario, Survive With Your Kindle

With a starting price of around $70 the Amazon Kindle has been adopted by countless readers around the world, but did you know it could also save your life?

Picture this scenario. Your ship sinks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and you board your liferaft, which soon drifts toward a remote island. You have the basic survival kit that was packed inside the raft, but little else to survive more than a few days. You remember reading a few survival books as a teenager yet struggle to remember the tips they taught you so many years ago.

If you had your Kindle with you then you’d have a collection of up to 3,500 survival books stored in memory and ready to access with the press of a button. That’s if you take a few steps first:

Kindle Survival STEPS

STEP 1: In order for your Kindle to help you survive you’ll first need to download a collection of survival books from the Kindle store.  At $9.99 each this can get expensive quickly. A cheap effective option is to download free survival books published by the military or entire collections of books from sites like Preppers.

STEP 2: Once your Kindle is loaded with more survival books than you’ll ever need then you need to make sure your Kindle is safe and secure. For the ultimate protection you’ll want to secure it in a waterproof, shockproof case that floats and for this task you can’t go wrong with a Pelican eReader Case. In addition to a the external case you will want to protect the Kindle with a waterproof sleeve. Our favorite is the Seal Line E-Reader Case which lets you read books at the beach, in a liferaft and even underwater!

STEP 3: Being an electronic device your Kindle will need power. For this reason we don’t suggest buying the Kindle Fire or other ebook readers with fancy features and color displays because all of that eye candy consumes energy. Even with a relatively long battery life this gizmo will eventually run out of juice which is why you’ll need a portable, renewable, energy source. Our favorite source of power are solar panel which roll up like the Brunton SolarRoll, but any rugged panel will do.

And that’s about all you need to survive. The rest of your needs can easily be met with the advice and tips provided in the thousands of books stored on your kindle. Just don’t forget to take it with you when you abandon ship!

UPDATE: I’ve received a few emails asking the deserted island question…. basically “If you could only take one book with you on a deserted island, which would it be?” This question, of course, is absurd – the whole point of a kindle is that you don’t have to choose just one book – but I’ll choose one anyway: Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life. The book, by Neil Strauss, isn’t going to give you many hard tips that you can’t find elsewhere but it will get you prepared so the next time you won’t be stuck in such a ridiculous predicament.

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