Personally, my advice is to get skilled at bow quickly. Since you’ll want to be carrying a lot of bags, it’s best if you can kill zeds at range. Bow is far superior to guns in that it is essentially silent allowing you to avoid unnecessary adds. Also, night vision. When I’ve done nomads, they tend to travel at night. With night vision and weak smell, you can often avoid conflict while travelling between locations. Also, take the time to get electronics up and keep your eyes peeled for a book with the light strip. It lasts a nice long time and allows you to read wherever you are. If you can get one, a survivor’s knife is great for giving you both cutting and sawing ability. If you’re being super nomadic, most of the time you’ll be eating whatever you’re finding, so water is a bigger focus than food. I don’t know if you are playing the experimentals, but if so, I like to have an atomic coffee maker. Just keep checking coffee shops. With that, you’ve basically got water purification sorted forever, and you can save those batteries for when you find a welder.
My strategy prioritized having fewer items over less volume, with the idea that you can drop stuff as needed to get down to a reasonable encumbrance should you have to melee. Having Quick and/or Fleet Footed helps. With that in mind, I usually have one gallon jug and a couple plastic bottles. Also, if you can get them, a toolbox, a mess kit, and some basic meds.
