Usually, I go to towns before 9:30AM, grab a backpack, hoodie, or any thing that can contain a lot of stuff (including messenger bags) and grab all of the following:
-One or two knives. (steak or butcher knives, or if you find one: a combat knife.)
-A pot. (At all costs find this. It’ll make your life easier and allow you to cook food and drink clean water.)
-As many lighters as possible.
-A hammer and many nails. (Optional but necessary if you want to barricade where ever you wanna go to next.)
-A shovel. (Absolutely necessary if you like setting up traps, pits actually, that don’t consume your resources.)
-A carboy or two.
Now, you might also wanna to get two or three bottles of clean water, and some food items. If you find a vehicle, get as many bottles and carboys as you can, drive to a gas station and fill them all up and put them in the trunk of your car\bike\truck. Why? So that you don’t run out of gasoline in the middle of a hundred zombies while going in a last second trip to the town.
That’s it basically. As for hideouts, farms are the ideal place to hang out, since they provide free food, are located near wood, and have an abundance water (Read: toilet.). Just make sure to pick those dead squirrels from the barbed wires surrounding the farm a few times a day at the barest and to make some clean water and store it in a carboy or plastic bottle every now and then.
