Shadowex3

On the topic of water UV disenfection IS effective on cryptosporidiosis, and pretty much anything else with DNA, but you'd still need to filter it for anything else you don't want to drink. If you plan on having plenty of free time and being somewhere sunny you can just use the SODIS method, otherwise stick with a filter of some kind and a small UVC light like thinkgeek sells and use it after you filter the water.

Back to bags... I used to think molle was a poser thing but recently I've found it to just be genuinely useful. Given how comfortable it is for even a small-framed guy like me to wear and carry with a fair amount of Heavy Shit in it I'd go for pretty much any bag designed like this... well padded and WIDE shoulder straps with an adjustable chest strap and a padded waist strap, and preferrably at least a flat panel and good back padding to keep things from bunching or jabbing me in odd ways. I'd also go for a flat color, preferrably black, instead of any kind of camo pattern. It shows less dirt and stands out less overall, unless you really pay attention my black BFM 500 looks just like a normal but slightly pocketty backpack.

Loading it is thankfully a lot simpler. Bare minimum I consider a bug out back to be five days of fresh underwear and socks, 15,000 calories, materials for filtering water, a toothbrush, at least one roll of ducttape, and a medical kit fitting nutnfancy's level 1 trauma kit for at least two people.

Explaining all of that in reverse order: The last one I went with as my standard just because it's easily understandable for most people and is if nothing else a good baseline for the average person's "too bad for bandaids" kit. I don't think I need to explain the usefulness of duct tape or a toothbrush (even just brushing with water or something), and filtering for potable water is self explanatory and especially useful if you go with a camelback for storing it. I say 15K calories since that's 3k calories per day, a good minimum for an active adult male in a situation like this, and people have their own preferences of how to accomplish that. Personally I like MREs, if all you do is grab drinks, entrees, and sides you can package them yourself very inexpensively off of ebay but whole ones are obviously useable as well if you repackage them to remove unnecessary bulk. I don't mention clothes because even here in florida I've worn the same pair of pants and shirt for two weeks but pretty much anywhere you're going to want to at least keep clean socks and underwear since some nasty stuff can go on down there when you're schlepping it.

Like ASU said though it really depends on your situation and your plans. My pack is tailored for deciding to move to somewhere else in mostly urban/suburban areas after a hurricane. In my case it's a comfortable margin of what I'd need to walk or bicycle somewhere with more functional infrastructure. If you plan to seriously dissapear for a month outside of an urban or suburban area rather than just going off-grid and still having access to supplies purchased by cash, especially without some kind of base, you're going to need a lot more self-sufficiency.

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