The Best First Aid Kits
Verified by
Ryan V. Editor-in-Chief
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The Adventure Medical Kits Ultralight/Watertight .7 is the kit that kept winning. It took Best Overall at GearJunkie with a 9.3, a perfect 5.0 at CleverHiker, and top compact honors at Outdoor Gear Lab, four independent field tests pointing at the same bag. Two things earn it. First, a 100 percent waterproof DryFlex inner bag seals the supplies inside a water-repellent outer shell, so a river crossing or a downpour leaves your gauze dry. Second, it weighs 5.8 ounces, light enough that you actually carry it instead of leaving it in the car. Adventure Medical labels the pockets by injury, so under stress you open straight to bleeding or blisters. Forty-two pieces sounds modest, but the selection is deliberate: wound closures, sterile dressings, an elastic bandage, and a full row of OTC meds.
What It Won't Do
It holds fewer supplies than a home stockpile kit, and it has no tourniquet or trauma shears, so a major bleeding injury is beyond its scope.
The Johnson & Johnson All-Purpose kit does the everyday job for the price of a sandwich. CNN named it Best Budget and Outdoor Gear Lab called it the Best Value for home use, and the reason is the sheer count: 160 pieces, heavy on Band-Aid bandages but rounded out with Neosporin, Tylenol, Benadryl, gauze, and a cold pack. The refillable hard case keeps it all sorted on a shelf or in a trunk. It skips the wound-closure strips and trauma tools of the pricier kits, and the plastic case is not water-resistant, but for scraped knees and headaches at home it covers the ground for well under fifteen dollars.
What It Won't Do
The case is not water-resistant and there are no wound-closure strips or trauma tools, so it is a household kit, not a backcountry one.
Who Should Buy Which
Adventure Medical Kits Ultralight/Watertight .7
The waterproof, featherweight kit that topped four separate field tests
- Hikers and campers who need a light, waterproof kit
- Anyone who wants one kit for the trail, the car, and the house
- People who value fast, injury-labeled organization
Johnson & Johnson All-Purpose First Aid Kit (160-Piece)
The household bandage kit that costs a fraction of the rest
- Households that want a cheap, well-stocked bathroom or car kit
- Anyone furnishing a first apartment or dorm
- Buyers who want brand-name bandages and meds for minor care