Tess Davidson, a physiotherapist from London, was lost on a deserted island off the coast of Panama surrounded by dense jungle. She left her campmates and hiked to a nearby beach, but quickly turned in the wrong direction after getting into a swirl of vines and climbing plants. In a roundabout way, that’s exactly what she signed up for.
To pay for a stay at a luxury resort, Davidson, 55, flew more than 5,000 miles in an attempt to survive without the help of civilization. She learned the basics of finding flora and fauna, spearfishing, navigation and rescue signals, and how to start a fire with just two sticks. That day, when she finally found her way back to camp after hours in the jungle, she remembers chopping down a coconut, lying on the beach, and thinking, “This is worth a million dollars.”
TV adventurers like Bear Grylls, Ray Mears and Ed Stafford are no longer the ones betting on death in the great outdoors. Survival skills are no longer limited to a weird niche with a penchant for military uniforms and conspiracy theories. From the Scottish Highlands to the deserted islands of South-East Asia, a growing number of specialist tour operators are offering wilderness experiences, often for hefty nightly rates.
Any useful items crafted by Desert Island Survival guests during the training phase can be brought into the survival phase © Gareth Lloyd
Tom Williams prepares dinner for a group in the Pearl Islands © Mathew Maynard
Tom Williams runs Desert Island Survival, a jungle survival company that organized Davidson’s trips to the Pearl Islands archipelago on Panama’s Pacific coast. Most of the guests on the 20 trips he hosts each year have never camped before, he said.
For the first five days on the island, guests are given food and hammocks during jungle survival training, and then they are sent to fend for themselves for three nights with only water rations, a machete, a pocket knife, a satellite phone and Medical kit. When they checked into the seaside resort for their final night, it felt like a “ten-star hotel,” Williams said.
The surge in interest has been fueled by reality TV shows that test contestants’ survival skills, e.g. survivor, naked and scared and alone (The UK version will air on Channel 4 this weekend, with Williams entering the final four for the £100,000 prize). But the biggest draw for guests, according to Williams, is the chance to escape the monotony of white-collar office life with workers glued to screens.
Naomi Aldwyn-Allsworth, one of the contestants on Channel 4’s ‘Alone’ © Channel 4
Another contestant, Louie Seddon, traps squirrels © Channel 4
Cai Wenjie, an associate professor of tourism at the University of Greenwich, agrees that the growth of survivalist tourism is being driven by “technologically stressed” workers looking to escape “the constant internet connection of everyday life”.
“The irony is that digital-free breaks tend to end up on social media after the fact,” Cai said. “These posts about life-changing experiences are the most powerful promotional tool a company has.”
On a deserted island off the coast of the Philippines used by Desert Island Survival, there is still a phone signal, but the guides will change the codes during guests’ 10-day stay. “We’re seeing a dramatic rise in depression and anxiety in society, and hyperconnectivity is the catalyst for that,” Williams said. “So offsetting that with experiences like ours is a big push.”
A former software salesman, he was so disappointed in his career that he considered crashing his car on the highway to ensure a few weeks off due to injury. Instead, inspired by a conversation with a friend in a bar, he decided to train for a 2010 Arctic expedition.
A guest on the Desert Island Survival Expedition learns to knit. . . © Terrence Weir S. Angesioco
. . . For making bedding cushions, bowls or hats © Gareth Lloyd
After spending time sailing superyachts, kayaking expeditions in Patagonia and biking through the Andes, he organized his first desert island survival trip in 2016. Its holiday costs have since doubled to around £3,000 (excluding airfare) and the company is planning to increase the number of flights it operates to about 40 a year. Williams is currently searching for new uninhabited islands off the coast of Indonesia.
From the beginning, Desert Island Survival offered a “pure” approach – participants were not given ration packs, matches, flints or fire starters, but instead had to forage for food, hunt and use primitive bow drills and Hand drill method to start a fire. Oisin O’Leary, a 34-year-old fund manager who works in the City of London, still clearly remembers when he finally managed to light the first fire after two days of trying during a trip to the Pearl Islands last year. Ecstatic feeling. Year. He said: “When you achieve that, even a small thing, it triggers this primal feeling in your brain of, ‘Oh, this is how our ancestors used to live,’ and you get a sense of All these teachings create tremendous gratitude.”
Other operators, however, are increasingly blurring the lines between primitive survival skills and modern luxury adornments. At the five-star Sani resort in Chalkidiki, Greece, guests can relax on sun loungers (and 35 bars and restaurants) and head to the nearby 1,000 acres of woodland to learn how to cut logs with a knife and build a log cabin. A shelter that is part of the Bear Grylls Survival Academy.
Experience making a fire in the Rvival wilderness. . . © Grace·TSP
. . .and learn camouflage and stealth at the Bear Grylls Survival Academy
As well as multiple UK locations, the academy runs courses in South Africa and the United Arab Emirates; 60,000 clients have attended Bear Grylls since the company was launched in 2012 Grylls designed a survival course. “If you were interested in survivalism at the time, it was considered a terrible job,” said Paul Gardiner, the academy’s general manager. . “But TV series, like what Bell did, helped create that space and made it more serious.”
Rvival is a specialist Scotland-based survival camp operator that allows guests to customize their trip by choosing from a basic tent, a more luxurious bell tent or an expedition-specific Land Rover Defender roof tent. Options also include instruction from an ice swimming instructor, falconer or knifemaker; trips can cost between £4,000 and £9,000 per person.
Eliza Brown, who founded Rvival last year, believes wilderness experiences are drawing clients in part as a response to growing uncertainty in the wider world. “There’s a lot of talk about climate change and war and all those things, and I think they resonate with people who want to spend money more meaningfully,” she said.
Hike into the Scottish wilderness on a Rvival adventure. . . © Grace·TSP
. . . and river zipline © Grace TSP
Rvival caters primarily to busy white-collar workers and senior executives, Brown said. Both of this year’s trips were corporate retreats and team-building events led by Rvival employees, former members of the Army’s Special Forces. Gardner said the corporate program is also the largest department at Bear Grylls Survival Academy.
Anders Anderson, lead instructor at The Wild Tales, which launched a survival trip to Guyana last year, believes the appeal of the experience lies in the humbling power of the jungle. “Nature peels away the layers until there is nothing left (except) the deepest things within us,” he said. “If you come and you’re very strong physically or very successful financially, the jungle doesn’t care about that.”
His 12-night trip (which costs about $3,000) includes an introduction, exploration and isolation phase – during the latter of which participants are left alone to “survive until extraction.” This year, Anderson hosted about 50 guests. Next year, he plans to have at least 150 clients, and possibly more than 200. “The numbers are growing exponentially,” he said. “Every time an Instagram user or a YouTube user comes in, we get more and more requests.”
Anderson described that after the quarantine phase ends, he will gather guests from dispersed camps and arrive there to find “Stone Age” scenes. Typically, there are fish cooking on the fire, huts made of intertwined palm fronds, and the smell of sweat and smoke hanging in the air. “It’s so raw and real,” he said.
The final episode of Alone (UK) airs on Sunday at 9pm on Channel 4; it’s already available to stream
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