One of the most common emails or DMs I get is: “What do you recommend?” I often have to answer their question with a question: “what’s your budget?” or “What are you doing with it?” Since my reviews answer the first question (see: Other Considerations: Value), I thought it might be useful for a set of articles where I go through and break down the thought process behind what I carry in a given scenario. The set above, which is very light and compact, was what I took to a massive convention in downtown Boston—enough to light the way to the car at the end of a long day, but nothing crazy. For reference it is my heavily modified Surefire Titan Plus and the Vosteed Mini Laborador.

I am going to put these in the “Start Here” tab, as they are kind of beginner related. By the time you have been carrying gear for a decade you can do this yourself. In order to make the articles more standardized I am going to look at four major aspects of each scenario: 1) fear factor; 2) chaos level; 3) clothing impact; and 4) external restrictions. All four will be scored as follows: below average, average, or above average.

Fear Factor

If you want someone to call the cops on you, bring your Espada XL to a petting zoo for toddlers and open your kid’s Teddy Grahams package with it. Toddler petting zoo imposes more restrictions and therefore impacts your carry in an above average way, whereas solo camping in the wilderness has no impacts on carry, unless there are external restrictions (see more below).

Chaos Level

In some scenarios you are constantly moving either in a single location or as you travel from place to place. There are also times where you use your gear all of the time or you are working with other tools. In those scenarios, it is hard to keep track of your stuff. This is what I mean by chaos level. Chaos level impacts what I carry in two ways—one, it limits you from carrying big stuff (generally) and two, it strongly incentivizes you to carry cheaper, more easily replaceable stuff.

Clothing Impact

This is something that a lot of people, especially beginners, don’t think about. If you are going to a tropical location, your carry options are going to be different because your clothing will be different. Similarly, if you are going to work in a business casual place, you can probably have more expansive carry options than if you were going to the boreal forest for a camping trip. In some ways, clothing is the most important factor in determining what you can carry because it is the thing that actually carries your EDC. A baseline of jeans seems pretty fair to me and bulkier stuff with more pockets imposes fewer restrictions on your carry and clothing with less pockets or slicker, thinner fabric imposes more.

External Restrictions

This is the easiest to define and the most obvious. By external restrictions, I mean laws, regulations, or rules that apply in a given scenario that limit what you can carry. The most obvious and frequently encountered example of an external restriction is the TSA restrictions for flying. There are other places where there are restrictions too, like when I go to jails or prisons, but for most people it’s the TSA restrictions that commonly limit carry options.

Up first next week, one of the more daunting carry scenarios: a wedding.

Amazon Links

Surefire Titan Plus