Long-Term Survival Shelter Requires More

If you are planning to, or have been forced to survive on a long-term basis, let's say more than 2 weeks, then you had better get used to putting on some work on your shelter.

This is because you are not going to be truly comfortable sleeping in an A-Frame each night, especially as the weather begins to turn colder, wetter, or riskier.

This is where you are likely to consider a couple of options, which will depend on your location.

The Proverbial Sand Castle

A popular trend on YouTube has been watching people dig nearly palatial-like structures out of the hard clay land that they live on.

While this is quite a good example of what can be done, I'll be honest that the true likelihood that these are completely hand-built is rare.

What happens off camera is anyone's guess.

But given enough time, you too could build an earth bunker, and these are quite handy.

One major caveat to this is that the ground should be relatively soft enough for you to be able to dig into the ground with whatever tools that you have access to.

Digging through stone with your hands is not going to work well for example.

Consider digging out under the A-Frame you build when you first pick your survival location.

Perhaps you did this just to increase your immediate space, but if you open it up even more you will find that you may have quite a bit to work with once you're done.

Traditional Wood Log Cabins

A log cabin by definition is just any structure built using logs.

The good news is that as long as you are using relatively small longs, around 5 inches around, then you can safely build a small shed-size building without too much overall problem.

It will still take a decent amount of work because you will have to have the means to cut down the logs, have enough of the logs to build the structure, and have a method to attach them.

This is where your sharp axe is your best survival tool.

You will put that axe to the test, but it can be used to cut down, peal, shape, and even hammer logs together.

remember that it's about survival at this point, not comfort. Just build a structure big enough to be able to sleep and sit in and be relatively safe.

You not building a room, a pool, and a dozen bathrooms, but you could add them later if you so chose to.

Unless you are planning to move out into the wilderness permanently, I would not consider felling larger trees if you can avoid it.

There is a much greater risk of injury or even death in the event a larger tree falls on you.

Also, when that time comes, having a chainsaw or other power tools makes building a larger cabin much much easier to accomplish and you would appreciate the rest from using a hand axe.