The top 10 most influential survival and preparedness blogs of 2011

In 2011 the preparedness world ran largely on independent blogs. Forums were busy and video was growing, but the writing that got quoted, linked and argued over came from a small group of sites run by individuals, often from their kitchens. This page records the ranking of the ten most influential as it stood in September 2011. It describes those sites as they were then; several have since changed hands, changed focus or gone quiet, and nothing here should be read as a current recommendation.

How the list was made

The ranking combined several signals: Google PageRank, the number of sites linking in, traffic estimates, Alexa rank, and how much comment and discussion each blog’s posts drew. A final, admittedly subjective, allowance was made for influence that the numbers missed. Two of those measures no longer exist. Google stopped showing public PageRank scores in 2016, and Amazon retired the Alexa ranking service in 2022, so a list like this could not be built the same way today.

10. The Survival Mom

Lisa Bedford’s blog was written with mothers and households in mind, but its practical advice suited anyone. It was updated often and carried a strong roster of guest writers. Popular posts in 2011 covered raising secure children in uncertain times, planning emergency exits, and keeping a household preparedness binder.

9. The Survival Cache

Billed as a gear review site, it published enough general preparedness writing to earn a place on its own. Its contributors included former military members, scientists and long-time preppers, and it drew on that range for detailed equipment reviews alongside articles on field eating, water filtration and survival psychology.

8. Surviving in Argentina

Fernando Aguirre, writing as Ferfal, described daily life in Argentina after the 2001 economic collapse: rising crime, shortages, inflation and the small adjustments ordinary families made to get by. What set the blog apart was that it was reporting, not speculation. Readers in North America and Europe used it as a case study of what a slow economic crisis actually looks like from inside a city apartment.

7. Survival Topics

Ron Fontaine’s site focused on wilderness skills, on the reasoning that the principles learned in the woods carry over to any emergency, urban ones included. He wrote from his own practice rather than repeating the survival manuals, on subjects such as the Dakota fire hole, survival priorities, foraging on the move and staying unseen.

6. Modern Survival Online

Run by a writer known as Rourke, it set out to help ordinary people prepare on ordinary budgets, without a stocked rural retreat. Its free downloads page, a large library of manuals on medicine, gardening, communications and more, was one of the most useful resources of its kind at the time. Articles on homemade ration meals and why to start a garden now were widely shared.

5. Survival Spot

William Atkin’s blog set out to explain the reasons behind preparedness as well as the methods, covering wilderness survival through to homesteading in articles, videos and DIY projects. Among its most shared posts was a list of the hundred items expected to vanish first from store shelves in a national emergency.

4. The Survivalist Blog

M.D. Creekmore’s blog had an unusual backstory. He left conventional work, bought two acres of off-grid land for about $2,000 and lived full time in a 26-foot travel trailer parked on it. Because he lived what he wrote about, his posts on low-cost self-reliance, repairs, hygiene and bringing a reluctant spouse on board had a practicality many other blogs lacked.

3. The Survival Podcast

Strictly an audio show with some written posts, Jack Spirko’s daily program was one of the most listened-to shows in the field. It focused on modern self-reliance: gardening and permaculture, food storage and preservation, small livestock, home energy production and personal finance. Interviews and listener questions made up much of the content.

2. SHTF Plan

Mac Slavo’s site published daily on preparedness planning, investing, world events and self-reliance, and its comment threads were some of the busiest anywhere in the community. Its practical articles, such as lessons drawn from Hurricane Irene in August 2011, were widely linked.

1. SurvivalBlog

James Wesley Rawles’s SurvivalBlog was by 2011 the best-known preparedness site on the web. Much of its content came from reader letters and guest articles, which let practitioners of every kind write about what they knew, from home metal casting to propane storage and vehicle kits. Its archive already ran to thousands of posts, enough to take weeks to read.

Reading the list now

Fifteen years later, the list is mainly interesting for what it shows about how preparedness information used to travel. A few determined individuals, writing daily and linking to one another, shaped what a large audience thought about food storage, bartering and self-reliance. Much of that conversation has since moved to video platforms and forums. The practical parts of it, gardening, storing food safely, basic medicine, and learning skills before they are needed, have held up better than the forecasts.