Zombies are often considered a worst-case scenario, and we even planned for undead outbreaks in the military. While prepping for zombies isn’t exactly practical, it can be motivating and a means to an end with general preparedness. Plus, people can prepare however they want for whatever they want.

I’ve found zombies intriguing for a long time. The popularity of zombies has exploded over the past 15 years, with video games, movies, and long-running TV shows filling out the niche. Even before that, I helped develop military plans for zombie outbreaks, remembering that there is a difference between ‘impossible’ and ‘improbable’.

In this guide I break down what the ideal zombie survival kit is, how the essential items can help you survive, and share my zombie survival kit checklist that you can download, print, or save in multiple formats.

Zombie Survival Kit

A zombie apocalypse could be handled with general preparedness gear, but some specific supplies would help your chances of survival significantly.

Weapons & Tools

Weapons that use consumable supplies don’t make the essential list, because you have to assume zombies will just keep coming. World War Z (the Max Brooks book- not the completely different movie) talks about how the military found the most efficient method to dispose of zombies being a cluster of troops with sharpened long-handled shovels, in the desert, with loud music.

• Shovel: Cold Steel Spetsnaz – Whatever you have in your garage works too, you just need to be able to sharpen the edges and easily fill sandbags. (This shovel is the upgrade pick from our survival shovel review.)
• Machete: Gerber Gear Gator – Reach is important, but a machete can help dispatch zombies in closer quarters than a shovel.

Suggested gear and situational gear include:

• Pistol: Despite needing ammo, a pistol can be effective with the inevitable human conflicts as well.
• Rifle: A rifle is always a great survival option, spanning between self-protection and hunting.
• Shotgun: The preferred tool for home defense can still find a home in a zombie kit, despite the noise level.
• Ammo: If you have any of the above solutions, you should have plenty of ammo for them (and then double it).
• Kukri Knife: Ka-Bar Kukri – Curved slashing blades with reach are much better than shorter, straighter blades because you do not want your blade getting stuck. Parangs can also be a solid choice.
• Bow and Arrows: Reload time and consumable ammo make this a situational gear choice – it’s a lot harder to be Daryl Dixon in real life.
• Spear: Spears aren’t common and can get stuck, but they are relatively easy to make and give you plenty of reach.
• Chainsaw: Extremely impractical, but what would a zombie weapon list be without it?
• Flamethrower: Again, very impractical, and it often won’t get rid of zombies that need a good conk on the head to be dispatched, rather than just getting a bit toasty. Still, you can grab our favorite flamethrower, updated from a previous April 1 post.

Zombie Clothing

Whether the zombie virus spreads through the air or the bites, covering up is a good idea. Long-sleeved clothing, durable boots, hardy gloves with padding, and even a gas mask can help you stay protected.

Other gear to consider that is less essential but might work for your kit includes:

• Helmet: Protecting your noggin from teeth can be helpful. Plus, a little safety gear never hurts if your friends are at your side, waving around blunt weapons.
• Shark Suit: Ultimate bite protection certainly has a home when the zombie apocalypse gets here.
• Goggles: If you don’t want to splurge on a gas mask, at least cover your eyes so you don’t end up in a 21 Days Later situation (one of my favorite zombie movies)

Defensive Supplies

Shoring up your home, apartment, or wherever you get holed up should be a priority as soon as you learn of the outbreak.

• Wood Planks: Just like the old school Romero movies- board up doors and windows, you don’t want zombies coming through. If you have enough planks, completely cover them so those grabby hands can’t wiggle through the openings.

Situational supplies, depending on your setup:

• Sandbags: Durasack Sandbags – Sandbags require planning and time, but are cost-effective and efficient at barricading off undead (and people).
• Building Materials: Besides wooden boards, any sort of building materials can come in handy when boarding off entry points and reinforcing windows.
• Welder: If you really don’t want anyone getting into an area, a welder and some steel can come in handy. It takes some skill and experience to use, which is why it is a situational tool.

Other Kits & Documents

This gear and list are meant to augment your large in-place home kit. You will need food and water storage capabilities, many tools, and mobility when it comes to dealing with zombies. Here are the kits you should already have built out:

You should also have your Emergency Plan around as a reference. You can also print out a copy of our zombie checklist below.

Military Zombie Plans

Preparedness general education can get pretty dry, but in 2008, we quickly found out that using the ideas of zombies can be eye-catching and effective. Instead of traditional ‘be prepared’ posters, flyers, and other promotional material, we developed zombie preparedness materials. The Left 4 Dead video game was a popular game on base at the time, so the preparedness campaign response was much stronger than before.

Besides the general preparedness campaigns, we also used zombies as a training tool in our planning department. We created zombie mitigation plans with new emergency managers to teach how response plans are created, maintained, and managed. The plans themselves would even end up sealed in the same safe as the much more practical response plans developed, meaning the Air Force actually had (and probably still has) classified zombie response plans on file.

Types of Zombie Threats

The umbrella term of ‘zombie’ has evolved since its voodoo origin to cover a whole range of zombie threats. Whether the zombies are sprinting at you with unnatural parkour abilities or shambling around mindlessly, the type of zombie threat can have the largest effect on your survival odds.

How zombies come about is another wrench Hollywood has explored and expanded on with plenty of types, including:

• Magic – Voodoo, witchcraft, and necromancy raise specific people from the dead.
• Unexplained Supernatural – Dead people wake up and start walking around for no particular reason.
• Revelations – A literal interpretation of the biblical apocalypse- the dead rise to be judged.
• Reanimation Virus – A virus reanimates newly-dead bodies, usually spread by saliva through biting.
• Rage Virus – A virus that usually results in running, unreasonably angry zombies.
• Airborne Virus – A wrench sometimes thrown into zombie movies, where the virus is airborne rather than transmitted through bites, and you simply need to die to become a zombie.
• Aliens – Whether they introduce a virus, parasite, or directly reanimate… aliens might have a fun time tampering with our life cycle.
• Cordyceps – A fungal infection that controls humans, similar to cordyceps in ants.

Shuffling, brainless zombies are the ideal situation- but if you are prepping for zombies, the entire idea is that you are preparing for a worst-case scenario. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Evacuation Planning

Depending on your resources, staying put for long periods during a zombie outbreak may not be your best option. In the prepping world, we call evacuating to a specific pre-planned spot ‘bugging out’.

To make bugging out work for you, you’ll need a plan ahead of time and a few survival kit-style resources.

These typically include a:

Your evacuation plan should include assumptions that highways may not be accessible and that additional resources (like gas) will be hard to come by.

Premade Zombie Survival Kits

Most premade zombie survival kits are simply disaster survival kits. Most times they add weapons and tools (axes and machetes are popular) as we did in our own checklist.

Like our approach to zombies, the makers of these kits put these together in a playful, tongue-in-cheek way. If you’re short on time, you might want to look at our premade survival kit reviews to get a fire-and-forget solution.

We prefer to put together our kits so we can tailor our solutions to a budget, specific threats, and our skill sets. Either way is viable- the bottom line is to be at least generally prepared for any situation.

Zombie Survival Kit Checklist

A perfect zombie survival kit doesn’t exist- what is right for you depends on your situation, your survival skills, and your resources. That said, we have a pretty good starting point for you: our zombie survival kit checklist add-on. This checklist augments a full preparedness plan, adding resources specifically for zombie threats.

Just to be clear: This checklist is meant to be added to our full home survival checklist if you want to be prepared for an undead apocalypse.

Our checklist is available as both a PDF download and as a Google Sheets/Excel file where you can check off items yourself, and even add and subtract items from the checklist.

Printable PDF Checklist

If you are looking for the simplest way to print and use the checklist above, download our printable PDF version. It is one page long on 8.5″ x 11″ paper and makes creating a kit extremely easy. Once you open the zombie survival kit PDF checklist in your browser, you can either print it directly or save it through your browser.

Excel / Google Sheets Checklist

If you are looking for a comprehensive way to track your zombie survival kit contents, open our Excel / Google Sheets version. The sheet is shareable, and you just need to copy it to your own Google Sheets account or download it to Excel to edit it. We also keep the best-reviewed item for each category linked to simplify shopping for any equipment you may find yourself missing.

The Next Step

Creating a zombie apocalypse survival kit may not be at the top of your to-do list. Despite our date-specific tongue-in-cheek look at zombies, we’ll acknowledge that it is as far from practical as it gets.

Unfortunately, there are many threats that most people do not prepare for that are not just practical- you are likely to encounter at least one of them in your lifetime. That’s where a threat assessment comes in to help- know what to prepare for based on where you live, how you live your life, and the evolving world around you.

Check out our Threat List here:

Keep exploring, stay prepared, and be safe.

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