It will also depends on how many people you have around.
When I was about 14, my father took my uncle, brother, cousin and me for fishing in Kazakhstan on Ili river. It was a good experience - if you catch nothing, you eat nothing. There is not a person around you for 40 miles in radius, only river and steppes, if something happens to you, you can be in real live threatening danger.
There are no proper roads, so it would take about 4 hours before you get on a tarmac road from the river and then at least half an hour before you reach first village. There is nothing in those villages by the way, they rarely have telephone in such isolated places. There were too many poisonous snakes, scorpions and local shepherds warned us not to swim in the river because there were large catfish in the river that drowned sheep sometimes (do not know if it was true, but we tied ourselves to the rope when we swam in the river). But mainly we were worried about drug trafficking criminals (that place is notorious for wild growing drugs).
Our equipment was not sophisticated at all: one Lada car, one hand-made knife (2 mm thick blade, 15 cm long, very light and scary sharp), one axe, one shovel, pot, fuel stove (later we began cooking on fire), 2-3 plates, 5 spoons, (no forks, I remember this very well), fishing tackle for 5 people, one shotgun, warm clothing, tea, salt, sugar, pepper, pan of tomatoes, onions, garlic, 20 litres of beer, washing things (stopped using them probably on the second day). I guess this was nearly everything.
We slept in the car - there were too many snakes around to sleep in tents, plus we did not have any tents. It sounds uncomfortable, especially when there are 5 people in one vehicle, but when you get really tired it does not really matter, even though by the end we started sleeping in shifts (some sleep during the day and the other during the night). I was surprised I could go with little sleeping (up to 2 hours day, often none) for 7 days. We did not have any sleeping bags, but it would be really uncomfortable to sleep in them in the car, we wore jackets - easy and simple solution. We did not have coffee (it was quite a treat in Soviet times!), but I was quite awake during the night because of cold and was sweating during the day.
Sometimes we were not lucky, so we would have one fish for all of us for whole day. But I really had fun! I felt it was cool.
One day my father forgot to switch car's lights off and then next day we had flat battery. I remember how my father was upset, but we managed to push Lada up the hill and then down the hill switching the engine on. We got stuck in sand as well a few times, but then father deflated tires and we had much less troubles.
Then we lost matches. No problem, we started fire from cigarette burner until we met a farmer who gave us matches.
Since we did not have another knife, I learnt cleaning fish without it: you scale it using a wooden stick with sharp edge and then rip the stomach with a sharp wooden stick. I remember how father tried to bake a fish in ashes - it was complete rubbish!!!
I also remember how we found a dam and caught a few carps by hands!
During that trip I learnt quite a lot. Since that time I have a feeling: if I find a river with some fish in it, I can stay there as long as it is necassary.
If I had to go there again, I think I would like to have 4-wheel drive car with air conditioning that can pull itself out if gets stuck, meths stove, rifle with sniper scope, some NATO military rations, a few good knives, satellite telephone, desinfecting tissues, more fruits and vegetables, juice, good cognac, TV and fridge. Yes, I got softer and enjoy civilised live!
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