Tom Williams is a champion survivalist, and his day job is teaching people how to survive on desert islands far away from the built world. He answered all of our questions.
For the last eight years , Tom Williams has been leading tourists on trips to deserted islands , so they can give it a go at get wind theirbest survival skills . Williams , 41 , is the father and proprietor ofDesert Island Survivalas well as the achiever of the survival of the fittest showAlone UKin 2023 . It was n’t a bygone conclusion that Williams would have a career teach others how to hack it ( literally ) in the heavy outdoors , though .
He was working an authority job , feeling super scattered and unrealized , when he decide to join a Quaker in the Polar Challenge in 2010 . The challenge was a 350 - nautical - Admiralty mile race in the Arctic , and he train for two years to organise for it . The experience changed Williams ’ liveliness .
“ The travel bug risky venture glitch bit really abstruse and hard , and it was just very severe for me to go back to a normal life , ” Williams said . In the 16 years since he first find his taste of adventure travel , he ’s been going to the far - flung corners of the Earth .
Courtesy of Tom Williams
Williams fulfill his wife when he move to Chile in 2010 , and together they led a nomadic life story , moving from Thailand to Mexico to Majorca , before settle in Portugal with their children . Now , Desert Island Survival leads more than 20 tour each twelvemonth to remote islands in Panama , Tonga , Indonesia , and the Philippines . In the next twelvemonth , they will be adding natural selection tours in Botswana and Sweden .
Desert Island Survival is just one of the legion tour party offeringextreme wilderness adventures . A 2022 study from Booking.com recover that “ surviving the wild ” is one of the mostpopular types of vacationsavailable . People are spending more of their time connected to screens than ever before and some are try on to antagonise the digital takeover by totally reconnecting with nature . Others still are taking in shuddery headline amid fickle political environment , and are turn to survival training as a way of life to feel more disposed for an uncertain humanity . According to a recentmarket discipline , the endurance training market will grow to $ 29.1 billion by 2031 — in 2023 , the food market is already respect at $ 14.5 billion .
And still , some people just require to feel badass when they tell their friend that they can inhabit on a altogether remote island and get their own pigs . Because that ’s something that Williams can learn you — how to captivate , truss , and cook your own pigs . But what ’s that actually like ? How does one go from corporate sales jobs out of college to leading modest groups to remote locating , instruct people how to make rubbing fires and set Pisces traps ? Williams late answered all of our questions .
Tom Williams during one of the tours.|Courtesy of Tom Williams
Thrillist : How did you first get into this interest , and when did you start taking these types of trips?Tom Williams : I took the course that was expected of me from my family , to get a proper job . I go to a job fair . I accepted a task making decent money sell software in a cubicle and felt desperately unrealized . I was drown my sorrow over several dry pint , in 2008 . And my friend said , “ Hey , I ’m reckon about walking to the North Pole . ” And I was like , yes , that ’s what I need . I require to take the air to the North Pole . Then I ’ll no longer be pigeonholed as a software salesman . I can be an adventurous guy .
I should take you back another 20 years . I used to be the fattest kid in my school . I was academically at the bottom of my school . You would never pick me to be the adventurous guy that goes on to winAloneand sets up this survival company .
So I went to the North Pole after two eld of preparation , won the race , and then once I did that Pandora ’s loge had been opened . I moved to Chile with my now wife , and the only problem I could do in Chile was working in wealthiness direction and finance because I did n’t talk any Spanish . I was back in a cubicle get down again . My mama pass away , and it pushed me further . Life is not a dress rehearsal . You only get one dig at this . I was just Googling desert islands one day . What about if I go and endure on a desert island ?
Courtesy of Tom Williams
What have you take , being a survival instructor?I’m a tangible people pleaser , so I still get butterflies in my tummy and I ’m still really nervous . Is everyone having the best metre possible ? So even after seven years , I still am questioning , is this still amazing ? I get slight imposter syndrome . I think winningAlonereally help me to dispel those demon of : “ Am I good enough to be a survival instructor ? ” It ’s the principle of 10,000 hours , and I think you ’ve got to get your hour to be an expert in these thing . The here and now you think you ’re an expert , there ’s an hauteur that comes with that . That means you ’re probably not going to do your best job . I always put a lot of pressure on myself . One of the most crucial things is you have to be always prepared for the unknown and limit expectations to your guests that it is not always go to go harmonise to plan because we ’re at the mercy of nature .
You also have to always show that you are very much in control , even when you might be a little nervous yourself . You need to convey that you are comfortable . The other challenge is that you ’ve get to always be your best self with your societal electric battery . You ’ve got to always be at 100 % . You might be out there with 10 masses being socially your very unspoilt for 10 days . That ’s really draining as a wilderness introvert hombre . It ’s just trying to keep yourself your best self at all times . It can be really exhausting .
And then shit go wrong on the site of an expedition . I ran into a huge , vast rainstorm and I was running the tour on my own . We always will have an adjunct instructor these days , but I did n’t [ at the clip ] . I was split wood to reinforce the roof on our shelter , and I macheted straight through the tendon in my fingerbreadth out on this remote island . I know like a shot , oh , shit , that ’s serious . That night I just went to bottom in my sack popping codeine just like , shit , what do I do ? Do I need to get another instructor in ? Do I deplume the despatch off ? And again , I did n’t want to ruin this for the guests so I just carried on . I went and produce it stitched up , come back to the island , and then I retrieve comport on doing a fire detrition flaming demonstration and feeling the slew soda pop exposed again . I had blood dribble off my elbow as I was trying to make this friction flame and worried it was going to put out the ardour , but I puddle on and start out there . I guess you have to have some tenacity and resilience to push yourself and to be your good ego .
Tom Williams teaching a survival course.|Courtesy of Tom Williams
What is a typical day lead a survival circuit like?What we do is we take people to an uninhabited desert island . It ’s a 10 - night experience . The first and last Nox that bookend it are in a prissy hotel , but the eight nights in the middle are on the island . The first five night are survival light — everyone ’s slumber in expedition hammocks , we ’re feeding them well , but they ’re learning all these bushcraft survival skills . We ’re work up up their self-assurance and their skill set for five days before shit get real . And we kick ‘em out of the nest and they go to a new part of the island with just a machete and some Pisces hook , a planet earphone , and medic outfit and they have to put to exercise these science and live on . That ’s where they ’ve get to drudge late and then they ’re rescued and we go back to what sense like a 10 - whiz hotel .
From an teacher ’s linear perspective , we have a hammock set up along this beautiful paradise island . You get up at 6:30 in the morning as the Dominicus comes up and you ’ve got the most beautiful commute to work . It ’s walking 50 beat in white backbone down to a little tiki army hut tax shelter that we ’ve all build together .
It ’s a gelidity daybreak of just coffee and granola . Then it ’s onto classes from 9 am until 12 pm . We ’ll be teaching them basically shelter , water , blast , and nutrient over these five mean solar day — how to make fire by friction , unlike way of scratch reefer together , and how to bump food . Then we do protection , which will be unlike ways to apply their panga , meander decoration to make roofing and MAT and turning lifelike fibre barque into cordage and rope , the tie stuff and nonsense . We teach them how to purge water , encounter water in the wild , and then the psychological survival of the fittest component . So a cock-a-hoop piece of the grooming is the mentality one need to survive . And the remainder between mass in the same situations , one surviving , one does n’t , and mental property go to their endurance .
One of the tour’s participants.|Courtesy of Tom Williams
In the good afternoon we incline to go out like spearfishing and sportfishing , and then everyone fare together . There ’s a construction prediction for the repast as you all kind of sit around the flame . Everyone shares a plenty of stories and we pass around a bottle of rum and play games . Normally we head to seam by nine o’clock because it ’s dark and your circadian regular recurrence beef in pretty hard .
What is the good trip you ’ve been on?The best trips tend to be made by the people . We can have the same kind of beautiful surroundings , but when you get 10 multitude that really click together and they throw themselves into it — people really get out of the experience what they put in . It ’s cheesy , but it really is truthful . And when you get a large amount of mass that are all in that same direction , it just becomes a magical , happy spot .
The very good feeling for me is when people assure me that it is the best experience of their life history and how impactful it ’s been . We never localize it up as transformational travel , but a lot of people have had big impact . One woman ended up losing half her body weight and started running marathons . Another get out her job , left her cooperator . It ’s just the impact on mass that makes the head trip really special . Even more than seeing a hundred whales or catch pig , it ’s the partake experience . There ’s that vicarious joyousness of see others savour it and then getting those content afterwards is what piddle it the most special .
The makeshift survival camp.|Courtesy of Tom Williams
What ’s an upcoming trip you ’re excited about?My bucket list is also the bucket tilt of misstep that we ’re building . That ’s how I scratch up my own itch . The one that I ’m most excited about number up in August next year . It ’s already deal out , but we are going to hopefully add more dates . It ’s in the Vango Delta and Botswana . It is an expanse the size of the UK of African Savannah that floods each class . All the wildlife is drawn in and we ’re doing a kayak safari . We ’re kayak down this delta for nine solar day . We have local tribesman who are setting up camp beforehand of us each nighttime . We go on bush walks and they help us to not kayak into hippo and crocodiles .
What advice would you have for other travelers concerned in survival of the fittest travel but are just receive started?I would start small . Alastair Humphreys hasa book calledMicroadventuresin the UK where you could go off and do really cool little head trip on a weekend or even a night after employment that just helps get you out into nature . That geological fault gears for you and breaks up the mundane act of lifetime . For citizenry that need to get started , just doing things topically , discover little micro adventures where you could get hold a camp trail and wild cantonment . Just get out there in the wild for 24 or 48 hours and then build up from there . Build that submersion . I conceive also doing simple bushcraft skills and courses really , really help to build up your confidence in how to overcome challenges and not make so many mistakes .
What do you say to people who do n’t understand the appeal of going out and roughing it , who might flout at the idea of survival of the fittest travel as a form of vacation?What I often say is many of us are born into the perquisite of being at stage two or spirit level three of Maslow ’s power structure of needs . And we ’re all trying to get to the top , to self - actualization and to be our best selves . And I cogitate the route to get there is importantly improved by actually starting and doing some clock time on level one , the base level of Maslow ’s hierarchy of survival .
When you ’re basically trying to find your own nutrient and water and protection , and then you derive back to the prissy hotel it ’s a gratitude reset and it really shifts your appreciation for what you have in the modernistic world . We ’ve had a Russian billionaire amount on a trip who literally was n’t gaining joy from his super racing yacht . The misstep kickstarted his appreciation . It ’s an extreme example . The gratitude reset is a massive one .
I ’m a huge worshipper in the need for adversity . It ’s kind of like a mental gym for us . I mean getting the right doses of adversity builds up our sureness and our resilience . If we just stay in our comfort zone , we do n’t grow as a person . When you go out there and you do material , you ’re like , yeah , I fucking nailed that . The next clip you have a challenge like you ’ve got a six - hour time lag in an airdrome . You ’re like , whatever , I ’ve beget shelter , piss , blast , food for thought , whatever crybaby takeout . I ’ve got Netflix . It just helps to tilt view of what is the challenge for you . Taking giant strides out of your comfort zone puts life history on easy modality when you come back .
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