What happens when you stop avoiding discomfort and start chasing it? Tom Williams — founder of Desert Island Survival and winner of Alone UK Season 1 — has built his entire life around that question. In this episode, Tom shares how a childhood defined by failure, bullying, and being written off by his own teacher led to one of the most remarkable reinvention stories you'll hear.

We talk about his pivot moment mapping coral reefs in Honduras, walking 370 miles to the North Pole, and what 35 days alone in the Canadian wilderness taught him about happiness, health, and what human beings are actually built for. Tom came out of that experience physically transformed, mentally reset, and genuinely convinced that modern life has us living at a fraction of our actual capacity — and that the antidote is simpler than we think.

We also dig into Desert Island Survival — what really happens on one of his expeditions, who goes, and why the most transformative breakthroughs tend to happen in the moments that scared you a little when you first signed up.

If you've ever needed a push to book something that makes you slightly nervous, this episode is it.

Links & Resources (Tom)

Learn more about Tom: https://tomwilliams.tv/

Use code DIS150 for £150 off a Desert Island Survival Expedition: desertislandsurvival.com

Instagram: @tomwilliamsalone

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/desertislandtom/

Links & Resources (Laura)

Follow my personal IG: @lolawhiskey

Follow my business IG: @lauraericsongrouptrips

Follow our podcast: @type2travelpodcast

Learn more about upcoming trips: lauraericson.com/group-trips

Check out our podcast page: lauraericson.com/podcast

Join my Facebook group: @lolalovestravel

Thanks for being here! As always, rate, review, share with a friend, and tag us if you're listening.

Hey everybody, welcome back to Type 2 Travel. I'm your host, Laura Erickson, and today I'm sitting down with Tom Williams.

And after this interview, I think I can officially say he is the most type 2 travel guest I have ever had on this podcast.

Tom is the founder of Desert Island a travel company that takes people to remote tropical islands and drops them into a genuine survival experience. He's also the winner of season one of Alone UK,

where he survived 30 days completely solo in the Canadian wilderness, with nothing but a few items that he got to choose for But what I really wanted to talk to Tom about isn't the survival tactics or the TV show. It's the thread that runs through his entire life, Which is this idea that experiencing friction and getting out of your comfort zone is the whole point. Tom grew up as a kid, nobody bet on.

He was the bottom of his class, overweight, bullied, even had a teacher who told his classmates that the only way he would ever get to university was if he climbed through the bathroom window, and even then he'd probably get stuck. And then something changed. He went to Honduras to map coral reefs, and for the first time in his life, he discovered he was actually really good at something. That one experience cracked open a version of himself that he didn't know existed.

And he basically has been chasing that feeling ever since. to the North moving to Chile with no Spanish and no plan, building a business from scratch with zero bushcraft experience, and eventually winning a survival competition that he genuinely didn't think he was capable of winning. What I love about this conversation is that Tom doesn't just talk about discomfort as some motivational buzzword, he's lived it, and he's built an entire business around helping other people experience it too.

because he believes and I know he's right that the breakthroughs don't happen in the comfortable moments they happen in the ones that scare you a little when you first sign so without further ado let's chat with Tom

Hey adventurers, I'm Laura Ericson and this is Type 2 Travel, where the journey might occasionally make you question your life choices, but the stories are always worth it. Just like Type 2 fun, we're diving into those travel experiences that transform us, challenge us, and connect us. So grab your passport and an extra dose of curiosity. Let's get lost together.

All right, Tom, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to chat with you today.

Thanks for having me, Laura. Me too.

So ⁓ usually I warm people up with some quick travel questions. So let's get right into them. The first one is what's the worst thing you've ever eaten in the name of survival? And I imagine this is going to be bad.

I've got many good options to choose from but I'm gonna go for pike milk which is better known as fish semen. It's a strong start.

Yeah, you might win the title for that one. I don't th-

I was surviving

in calories of the money of nature and I needed to make sure I was getting every last bit of calorie out of each fish I caught. And so, you know, nothing was off the Apparently it's a delicacy in Everything seems to be.

have so many questions that I feel like they're going to get answered. Yeah, I mean,

I was just talking on a different episode a couple of months ago with someone about like what's weird, you know, what's what I consider to be weird, obviously somewhere else is a delicacy. so I'm fish semen. There you go. What's the weirdest or where is the weirdest place you've ever slept?

good stuff.

Again, got options, but let's go for at the North Pole in a tent at minus 35 where you're just breathing through this tiny little bit where your mouth comes out the sleeping bag and you have this like doughnut of ice around it where your breath freezes. And then...

my gosh.

also freezes to the tent and so the first person up has to get up and get the sleeping bags out and when all of the your breath freezes to the outside of the tent so as soon as you touch it it snows inside it's miserable.

Wow, I have a feeling you're going to be the most type two travel guest I've ever had on this podcast if I had to predict. What's a destination that completely humbled you somewhere that you should have thinking maybe you knew what you're doing or what it was going to be like and it firmly puts you in your place?

Hahaha

Yeah, I used to live in Chile and we would go for some hikes in the Andes and one time we just went up five and a half thousand meters without really considering the altitude and I got hit hard with altitude sickness and I was just unable to function. I had to get down Yeah, it was awful. was just dead on my toes, dead on my feet.

is really high on my list, but I would love to do Patagonia proper and I know I need to prepare myself for that physically and for altitude. I'm also going to Peru June and I need to think about that stuff too. That doesn't sound. Yeah, doesn't sound exciting that piece of it anyway. OK, so you're on a deserted island. You get one book.

Peru's got some serious altitude. Yeah, yeah, you have to be careful in Peru.

One luxury item and one meal, what are they?

I mean, it is a machete luxury, because I'm definitely taking a machete. That's my Swiss Army knife that opens up lot of opportunities there. Food, can I take a cow? Like a whole piece of beef? Yeah, I have a cow. We're going to need to smoke it, process it, but you know, we're have some nice...

Yeah?

That's smart.

And you have the machete.

I've got my machete so I can get my fire going and stuff. book, I'd probably take a screenplay of my favourite film with Nel and I. It's an obscure British comedy that never ceases to make me piss myself with laughter and I could just learn it off by heart and entertain myself.

Yeah, those are good answers. Okay, what's the most place you've ever been that had absolutely nothing to do with your work?

Probably Bonito in Brazil, just above the Pantanal. I went there about 15 years ago before Instagram made things famous and without any expectation I was just blown away. For those that don't know it, you get this like Evian clear crystal water that just pops up through the jungle and so you're in jungle but you're snorkeling with this clearest water. So it's like being on almost like a tropical reef water with golden dorado fish, had caiman.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And there's this communal river park where the locals were and you could almost walk on the back of the fish and the kids there were sticks with bananas on the end and the fish were jumping out like a metre and a half above the water to get these bananas. It was just like paradise. And there's macaws and yeah, it was amazing.

Yeah, I actually was just there. This time last year, I went with the Adventure Travel Trade Association and it was in Bonito. that Mato Grosso do Sur in the Pantanal is just a beautiful part of the world that I feel like, the average American at least does not know anything about it. It's at least for us, it's a very undiscovered place and people are going to Brazil, that's not usually where they're going, but.

Another way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It was

amazing. The birds were phenomenal.

Yes, yeah, I just love places that are the kind of epicentres of wildlife. For me, it's like that's the soul of the planet. I love nature so much and anywhere that gets me like high density nature, I just feel alive.

Yeah.

Yeah, and yesterday was Earth Day, so it's great timing. Yeah. Sorry. Every day is Earth Day, right? Unless you're Donald Trump. Okay, so let's get into story, which is so fascinating. I don't remember how I found you, but I was like, yes, this is amazing. I want to hear all about it.

What's it now? Should know this.

Everyday's Earth Day.

You described yourself as the kid that was the bottom of his class, overweight, bullied, written off by his own teacher. what do you think turned things around for you? Was there, a single moment or was this a more gradual change for you?

Yeah, I was genuinely bottom of the year. I was the fattest kid. My nickname was bum. I think it's best summed up by one of my teachers, Mr. Ford, who was my business studies teacher. He said, the only way that Tom Williams will ever get to university, this is to my mates after I left the school, is if he climbs through the bathroom window and then he'll probably get stuck. And so, you know, that was where I was. Things were not looking good.

And yeah, you you believe these labels, they stick, you know, when you're told you're thick and stupid, 100, whatever times you believe it. And I think, yeah, I went to, when I was 18, I went to Honduras, as a year of university, got in, I went and mapped coral reefs in the Caribbean. And it was the first time I'd...

I'd love watching Attenborough and then I suddenly seeing these things in real life. It first time I'd ever really got away from the labels that had owned me for so long. I was also really, I was like, I'm good at scuba diving. I became a dive master. I learned all these different species. And it was the first time I was like, wait a minute, I'm not stupid. And I was able to just get rid of these shackles that had confined me for a long time of, limiting beliefs. And so, I think for anyone who's just struggling,

Just changing your scenery, changing where you are, big. Yeah, help me a big time.

Have you ever talked to that teacher again? Does he know what happened to you since?

No, he was pretty old. After I walked to the North Pole, I went back to my school and I don't think he was there then.

Yeah, but you know, I'm grateful because I use it like when I'm speaking and stuff, it's dynamite.

Yeah, I suppose. That's crazy. So you went from near failing university walking to the North Pole. What does that kind of leap do to the story you tell yourself about who you are?

got a proper job when I left university, a proper job in Verticommons. found myself selling software in England.

fucking miserable. was like, God, I've been living, you know, I've done all these exciting things. I've worked as a snowboard instructor in Whistler, I've been mapping coral and suddenly I'm in a trading estate mapping coral, selling software. think when you've done big things, the open Pandora's box, it makes it harder to accept normality. And so I just refused to settle. I was like, no, this can't be it. I haven't gone on.

Mm-hmm.

exciting journey to be here, stuck in this office, my soul withering. And so I guess I realised that I'm someone that just refused to accept the mundane, the ordinary. so that's what then led me to us having some beers, my mate Paul, and just drowning my sorrows like eight points in and he was like, look, I found this race to the North Pole, I'm going to do it. And do you want to join?

Yes, that's what I need. So I'm not pigeonholed as a software salesman. And so I trained for two years and I knew nothing.

But yeah, and then when I did that, then that again, I was able to rewrite the script who I was a bit. I was like, okay, you've done something that hard. And we won the race by two days. And so again, after leaving my comfort zone, then when I came back in, I was like, I can do hard things. And it just gave me self-confidence and self-belief, I think, to take on other challenges in life and then to go and set up my company and stuff.

Yeah, when you speak to opening Pandora's box, think not everyone is cut out entrepreneurship, of course. I don't recommend it for everybody. And it's not for the weak by any means. But once you get out of that box that society makes you live in, that we're told we're supposed to live in, it is really hard to go back. I think about it all the time when I'm like, my God, why don't I just get a real job and a nine to five with a paid.

Okay.

set salary and just someone telling me what to do and then I'm like I don't think I'm capable of that anymore. I think I could do it but I would be just so unhappy. I think something has shifted so deeply inside me that I don't think that would be an easy transition back into that world.

Mm.

100%.

⁓ So how long was that race in the North Pole?

So yeah, we trained for two years, that was the hard bit, getting to the start line. Then we had to walk, for a week to the start line. And then we walked 370 miles pulling sleds. And we did that in nine and a half days. The sun didn't set because it was spring, so had 24 hour light. And so we would walk on a 28 hour clock, sometimes a 32 hour clock, stop and sleep for four hours and then keep on going. And it's like 80 % a mental challenge.

Yeah.

Well, it's definitely physical, but it's more of a mental challenge just to keep on going when you just keep on wanting to stop. know, endurance athletes talk about that rule of 40%, you know, when you want to give up, when you really want to stop, when you're jogging, you're like, I stop. That's us mentally giving up. And it's the only time in my life I've ever experienced physical failure where I just fell asleep into the snow twice, just walking. just...

face down in this room. Yeah. And I was hallucinating. We all had a fourth member of the team that was there. we saw a polar bear hunting for seals, but it wasn't really there.

Get in the snow.

chair lifts and stuff. It was weird but yeah we walked nine and a half days and then we were stuck at the finish line for a week as well waiting for a weather window to clear and I've been used to eating 8,000 calories a day on the race and then they're like we have to save the calories you can have 2,000 a day when you're there and oh I lost like 20 pounds in that last week because yeah super hungry. But yeah it good experience. Well the highest highs and the lowest lows.

So how

does one train for two years something like that? Like, did you train in the North Pole or were you training at home? How do you for a simulated experience of something that's that crazy?

Yeah, so you definitely don't need two years. We were meant to go in 2009, but the financial crisis happened and no one could get funding, so the whole thing got postponed a year. A lot of it was about how you depend on your teammates. So we got a personal trainer, but we would do like 500 lunges, 500 squats, or whatever it might be. But if any of us gave up, the others had to do press-ups for you.

And so much of it was mental resilience. Our trainer said, you if you're holding onto a pole or branch and if you fall, you're gonna fall to your death. You don't just let go and go, oh, I give up. You hold on until every last finger and it's in you slips and you fall eventually. But he made us approach everything like that, just kind of learning about.

mental resilience and how to push ourselves. But aside from that, we walked Hadrian's Wall across England in the middle of the night without sleeping. We would pull tires on beaches. We went to Norway and we had to go and do that thing where you chain saw a square out of the ice and you've got to fall through the ice and pull yourself out. I had frost nip in my fingers for three months after falling through the ice. yeah, bits and bobs. I got it back, yeah.

And you got it back.

this is a very ignorant question but what is the North Pole like? I feel like we only hear about that when it's related to like Santa Claus so what is there? is it just icebergs and snow?

Okay.

And so we just had to work islands and ocean. It was just ocean basically, half of it, and then these islands.

Does anything phase you now when you travel like a normal person? are you pretty hard stir, if you will? Because it seems like you've obviously done all kinds of crazy things and I see people getting so frustrated when they travel about very what I would consider and I'm sure you even more, not.

Yeah.

important things. So how has that changed how you view regular travel, if you will?

Yeah, I mean, I've always been quite a patient and easygoing person and I think that really helps in survival situations to not get flustered and to remain resilient and tolerant. I don't know, do I get frustrated ever? I rarely ever do. I think it's mostly, it'll be a jobs worth person who's got...

I don't know, little power in their life and so they yield their power with their job and they'll do something irrational and I'll just maybe find that slightly frustrating. Like someone in an airport saying, you have to stand in this queue even though there's no one in this queue or whatever it might be. I can't think of a very good example, but I still wouldn't get angry. I try not to get angry. Yeah, just the logical things, but no, I try to always kill it with kindness, approach it with a smile.

Right.

Right? Just like illogical things.

you're probably not the person that gets upset because the shower isn't hot enough at your accommodation when you're traveling.

Hahaha

No, I'd again, I'd reframe it as like, hey, I get a free cold plunge or if you have to do extra exercise, it's free fizz or and I have this kind of rule with myself that if anything is uncomfortable or I don't want to do it and my initial gut feeling is I don't want to do that, then that's what I need to do. And then the more I do those things, then that's part of my comfort zone has grown over there. And so I always, always lean into discomfort and I don't like it. I hate it. Honestly, I hate public speaking. I've just agreed to go and do this talk in Rome. I'm terrified and you know,

Mm-hmm.

playing it over my mind over and over over again, but I know it's where I need to go to grow, so I do it.

Yeah, no, I think that is great advice. I wanted to do a podcast for several years, but I don't like public speaking and I don't like being put on the spot. I don't like having a camera on me. I don't like any of it, but I just kept feeling called to do it even though it terrified me. And I agree with you. I think those things that terrify you are the things you need to do the most. in very rarely do you regret it. Very rarely do I take big risks and look back and be like, wow, that was just a huge, huge mistake.

Totally, yeah, I quite agree. It's amazing how quickly our brains normalise and adapt. We're very adaptable creatures.

Okay, so let's talk about Desert Island Survival. So for people who've never heard of it, paint us a picture of what your company is and what actually happens on your expeditions.

So yeah, 10 years ago, I found myself back in a desk job I hated and I ended up creating Desert Island Survival a decade ago and we are an adventure travel company that maroon people on uninhabited tropical desert islands. yeah, for that past decade, I've been looking for perfect islands and I'm really, really bloody picky and combined them with amazing bushcraft instructors who aren't just good at rubbing sticks together, but they're cool people who can make a really fun learning environment.

first and last day, lovely hotel, and then eight days on this uninhabited island. No structures, no nothing. So we rock out with a bit of food, a bit of kit, and the first five days is survival light. We're easing people into a new environment. We're teaching them how to make...

fire by friction, how to weave palms, how to make shelters, find food, water, go spearfishing, fishing, all this kind of stuff. And they're sleeping in hammocks, we're feeding them all their meals and it's kind of like just easing in, learning this new environment. And then just as people are like, ⁓ this survival stuff's easy, we kick them out of the nest and they go to a new part of the island and they've basically just got a handful of fish hooks, machete, sat foam, medic kit, and they have to put into practice their skills and survive for three days. And three days feels more like a week

It's amazing how elastic time is, amazing how much time there is when you're totally disconnected from the world and your only responsibility is kind base level survival. But those three days pass, speed boat arrives, laden with cold beers, fruit, whatever, and you are rescued. And we go back to what then feels like a 10-star hotel. It's this kind of gratitude reset where you're just like, my god, isn't running water the best?

Mm-hmm.

these sheets, I've got, no, there's no sand, I'm sleeping with no sand. And it's really nice for people to, you re-appreciate the modern convenience we live our lives with.

That's incredible. somebody that runs group trips and I take people to some off the beaten path destinations and sometimes my trips can be what I would consider a little bit challenging or difficult for the average person. This is obviously a very next level type of experience and it's always interesting to me when people complain about, you know, like,

Yeah.

my shower isn't hot or my bed was too hard or whatever, and then they get home and they're like, wow, okay, perspective, right? And your expeditions have to be that like a hundred times over. I can't imagine you return from something like that the same person.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, we never set it up as transformational travel. I don't think I even knew the phrase at the time, but it quickly became apparent that it was having an impact on people. so, yeah, totally your resilience goes up the next time you have an eight hour delay in an airport, you kind of chuckle to yourself and you go shelter, water, fire, food. There's a comfortable floor and there's McDonald's or whatever it might be, you know, like this is not a problem. And yeah, it also...

said it is this gradually reset you come home and you're like man life is good and you stop sweating the small stuff so much so yeah it's it's really it's really cathartic for people.

Yeah.

I think that is the best thing that happens when people take trips like that or trips that are just a little bit more challenging. I take people to Cuba up until recently and Cuba is an exercise in all kinds of patience and resilience. And I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that difficult, but for a lot of people, they really struggle with Cuba and just the lack of the comforts of home and the poverty and...

just not being able to access the things that you normally get. And then they get home and then they have all these options and they step into a supermarket for the first time again and they're like, wow, okay, perspective. again, has to be even more so once you're out there just literally fending for yourself and roughing it. Can they have cell phones on your tours?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It really affects our nervous system, the amount of time that we spend on smartphones and we always have these long to do lists. And then when you just have the responsibility of shelter, water, fire, food, the trip I was just on, one of the guys was like, I basically forgot I was a dad. And it's something very nice about that total disconnection. And I think more and more, I think you'll see a theme of holidays being about that disconnection. Because we're only just learning now how much.

Yeah.

screen time and phones is, you know, it's digital crack in all of our pockets and it's, you never really slow your nervous system down and you never really disconnect when you've, when you've got your cell phone. And so, yeah, I, I know again, digital detox was never meant to be part of it, but it really, really, really helps. And I, you know, I use, it does, it really does. Yeah.

It kinda has to be.

⁓ So are your participants doing this like together as a group? they, you together but separate? Are they working together as they're surviving on these islands? How does that work?

So it's mostly solo travelers that don't know each other. The trip we just finished this morning in the had a honeymoon couple, which is pretty cool. They were saying, this is a great way of stress testing our marriage. And there's gonna be ups and downs, highs and lows. And we dealt with this really well. Yeah. And general, yeah, so the final three days, they will do that as a tribe. then...

Yeah!

That's an interesting honeymoon.

two or three people that choose to do it solo. And so they do, I mean, when was the last time you spent three days without talking to a human? Just that in itself, it's kind of an interesting exercise to be just with yourself, you know, with dialogue.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. So who is your typical participant? What kind of person books a desert island survival experience and they say they're looking for when they sign up?

It's again as a business we're meant to know our avatar and who are we targeting? Rubbish at it. We've had everything from 17 year olds to 78 year olds. I've had builders to billionaires. So it's a very broad spectrum of get a lot of Brits, more and more Americans, a lot of Dutch. But it tends to be a lot of entrepreneurs, self-employed people and lot of type A people who are

for ways that they can challenge themselves and grow. And so, yeah, we do get people looking for a bit of personal growth. But also just a lot of people who have watched these TV shows and just always, know, forever they've been like, you know, I

I I could do that and now I guess we're filling that space for people their metal and see how they do actually cope. We do one in Sweden for example. We've branched away not just desert islands now so we also do a temperate woodland survival in Sweden which is similar to the TV show I did alone and then we got a kayak expedition in Botswana and living with a tribe in Tanzania for the first time this year. So yeah, everyone.

All sorts.

Do you vet people and how do you do that? Obviously, I mean, even on my trips, sometimes I get people that sign up that maybe aren't the right fit or physically not capable of doing it. I have to imagine with yours, there has to be some level of ability to be able to do this. How do you vet people?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think automatically it has quite a self-vetting process with the word survival is in it. so, and then people, they will answer a series of questions as a medical questionnaire. So they need to have a base level of fitness. But for example, we've got a trip in the Maldives that started yesterday and we've got a type one diabetic on it and we've managed to bring insulin for him, keep it cool. And, you know, we always try to facilitate where we can.

Yeah. Yeah.

for people. But no, you don't need to have any bushcraft or survival experience or even camping experience. It's people that can come into it with a beginner's mindset. So we're very clear of, it's not going to be a walk in the park, it's going to be hard, but if you have the right mindset coming into this, then you can do it. And so we often find ourselves as instructors, we've almost been therapists sometimes, like looking out for people that are going a bit quiet and checking in with them.

And I think about 1 in 50 people don't make it, but most people make it to the end.

How do you prepare people for this mentally, physically, emotionally? mean, again, I have to prepare people an orientation and there's people that are scared to go on a trip to Morocco and stay in, four to five star accommodations. travel in itself is intimidating for a of people. So how do you prepare people for this other element survival?

Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like I need to be doing more. So we have a document that answers all their questions and prepares them for it. Then they enter a WhatsApp group and we're always chatting in there. Some people want a phone call just for a bit of reassurance. Sometimes we do a call with the group before we go to the island. Before we actually go when we're out in the country, obviously we have a full safety briefing, but...

we just tell people to come into it with an open mind and bring their resilience. Or we'll teach them their resilience. I think, I don't know, maybe we should do more preparation for people.

Yeah.

No, no, because

as I'm thinking about this and as you're talking, I think, like you said, people have to be kind of weeding themselves out like the average person isn't signing up for this. So I think a super anxious traveler probably wouldn't be doing this type of experience. And they kind of know what they're getting into. This isn't going to be a pre scripted travel experience where here's your itinerary and we're going here at this time and whatever. So they have to

Yeah.

be willing to go with the flow and come what may, but it is interesting that you said it attracts a lot of those type A people, which that has to be a challenge for them in and of itself to not have a plan.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is. And I wish I could speak to more of those anxious travellers and reassure them that this is where they needed to lean into and get them to come on trips like this. we had this... Is it unfair to call her a soccer mum? She was a soccer mum who... Her son was just so insidious and she was like, OK, I'm going to do it with him. I've never not stayed in a five-star hotel. And...

And she did actually quit after the training phase, but that was her Everest. And she wrote me the most impassioned message afterwards that it changed her life.

and she'd used to suffer migraines and she realised they went away when they were on the desert island and it was probably to do with sweeteners or whatever it might be. But disconnecting from her world that she'd been living in Florida forever, it had a profound impact on her. And so I think the people that are more resistant to it can have by far the biggest impact if they go through these things. So I just really want to get to them.

have your website pulled up here. I'm browsing through your trips. They look amazing. I'm thinking I need to do Yeah, I'm into it. So what are people eating on these trips? I know you talked about some of the things that you've eaten. know it depends on the country, obviously, when they're out on the survival part of it, what are some meals, sketchy does it get?

Yeah, you

Thank

It doesn't get too sketchy, no one's had food poisoning. I wish I could say like, know, jungles are full of pineapples and bananas and mangoes, the reality is that we selectively bred things for agriculture and unless someone previously lived there, then you wouldn't find all these fruits. so, to be obviously fish.

people eat a lot of fish and a lot of coconut. That's probably 90 % of your diet is fish and coconut.

And aside from that, you might find some sometimes lobsters, crabs, snails, limpets, and then there's a few other different wild edible plants which we eat as well. Sea bean, sea purslane, stinky toe, not particularly appealing name, it's not that bad. And we do find mangoes on some islands. And in Tonga, that's the only one where people don't lose weight, where we have pigs and they catch pigs, which is quite a process and again, intense.

Are they part

of that?

Yeah, there's about 100 pigs that are left loose on the island by the locals decades ago and so, you know, they're invasive. They're not originally meant to be there, but yeah, we're allowed to take a couple per expedition. So we catch them in snares and process them and cook them underground, which is intense, you know, we're so disconnected from where our food comes from.

so are the the travelers themselves helping catch the pigs and and the whole thing? Yikes, okay. Okay, as we're talking about food, now my mind is racing on see, I would be looking for all the loopholes if I was out. So what can I bring with me? What's off limits?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they catch them during the survival

So on those first five days everything goes. We've had people bring inflatable unicorn, Lylos or whatever it might be and games and booze and whatever. The first five days, fun times. And then the final three days, that's when it's very bare basics. So you just have basically one...

bit set of clothes. I encourage people if there's more than a half moon I'd rather that we don't have a head torch because you start to get used to working with a circadian. You we've only had electricity 120 years of our 300,000 and so you know just thinking about things differently like that. I encourage people not to have a book for the final three days because I don't want people to be insular. is the mother of invention and

people start making coconut throwing games or whatever it might be. So anything that's going to provide distraction or stimulation is not cool. And yeah, that's it really. Obviously anything you need for your own health, medication, sun cream, toothpaste, et cetera, that's all totally fine. But yeah, it's fairly basic.

for the three days are they allowed to bring like I'm thinking I would have spices for my fish can you bring a flask of booze do you check people what are the rules

Mmm.

Full cavity. No, I have caught a big jar of Nutella on one guy before. Occasionally we're very lovely and we'll give them a little ration of rum if they particularly want it or some garlic or some lemon I gave a bar of chocolate to one guy and none of them knew about it and then the last night he brought out the chocolate for everyone and...

Mmm.

Again, that gratitude reset, you're like, you're obsessively eating this thing, crying almost. So yeah, we, you know, we're benevolent and kind. It's not a boot camp and we like to put in little surprises and nice things. But yeah, again, less is more, the more like just that little bit of lemon, you're like, wow, the intensity of this flavor. And so, yeah, we don't want to give you too much, but you process salt from the ocean and your fish will taste amazing. Everything tastes accentuated.

You

So you running expeditions in Tonga, Philippines, Panama, Indonesia, Sweden, Botswana, did I miss any? Maldives, you said?

And yeah Tanzania, I don't know if we... Tanzania, yeah.

Tanzania.

So how do you choose your locations? Like what makes it an appropriate destination this?

So yeah, for desert islands.

We look for islands that I think the best way putting it is like the Goldilocks zone. You know when they're looking for planets that might have life, that are close enough to a sun but not too close that they're too hot. We're looking for islands that are close enough to tourism that there's transport links, there's hotels, there's a hospital in case of injury, but not so close that you can hear some distant music or a banana boat, a speedboat coming past. So we need to find ones where they feel totally disconnected and wild with no buildings on it, but we still need the basics of infrastructure as well.

And the challenge of course is that tourism is always expanding every year, it slowed down with COVID, but that sphere of influence is always growing and we lose islands. Like we've lost two islands in Panama, they've been bought up for 10, 15 million by billionaires. And so that sphere grows. And then once we found these islands that are...

They have to be within that golden lock zone, then they've to be beautiful. You want to be in that picture postcard place. Then they've got to have enough resources to survive. And then they have to not have dangers, basically. Of course, there's always some dangers, but we have a policy of no pit vipers, no pirates. So no venomous snakes and no human risk. No serious human risk.

So then, and then we've to find out who owns it. Like I've had people be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can rent the island to pay us. And then a year later you find out that was the wrong person. and so finding out who actually officially owns these islands is another challenge, but it's, it's part of the fun. And it's, guess part of our motors of business is that we, we, you know, we invest hundreds of hours into finding these incredible islands.

You're probably not going to like this question because people ask me this all the time and I don't like to answer but like do you have a favorite of all of your expeditions? Is there one that stands out to you or is it a it depends what you're looking for type scenario?

I love Panama just because it's where it all began for me. And it always will hold that special place where we first set up the company and it was so raw. Our safety was dreadful. Now we have this really robust, invisible safety net. But yeah, it was just so basic and it just takes me, it always takes me back to kind of the beginning of the company.

got primary jungle and so you've got this a lot of biodiversity. was saying how much I love nature and you get fireflies and phosphorescent plankton and a lot of bird noise and just the chatter of insects and I love a lot of islands will tend to be quite poor soil but this is like proper jungle there and so yeah I really love the biodiversity in Panama.

So let's jump into Alone. So you won season, was it season one of Alone UK? So that was 35 days solo in the Canadian wilderness. Do I have that right? Okay, so give us an overview of the show and what that was like.

Yeah.

That's right, yeah.

Yeah, so it's quite an institution in America. It's like in the bushcraft and survival community, it's called like the Bushcraft Olympics. There's a lot of contrived TV shows that they're survival shows like Naked and Afraid and Survivor, where it's all fairly scripted and there's a camera crew and they're giving you food or they're injecting drama, know, proper TV stuff. I can say hand on heart, alone is legit. So you are genuinely dropped out on your own. There's no film crew, no one there.

Mm-hmm.

And you are given, you get to choose from 70 items, which 10 items you want to take. And so you get those 10 items and a camera, and then the helicopter drops you off and then it goes. And then suddenly it's just so quiet and you're on your own and you've got these 10 items. And you've got to try and find sheltered water fire food, right? You've to try and sustain yourself as long as possible. And there's 10 other people who are doing the same in different locations, like five miles apart from each other. And you've got to try and outlast them.

Yeah.

And so you

don't know if you're the last one until they tell you.

Exactly, yeah, so they turn up and

say that's it. And so that's part of the psychology, right? You're like, man, I'm holding on for dear life and there's probably like seven other people still there or is it just me and one other holding out?

Yeah, so did you, like once everyone else was gone, did they like come get you or did they see how long you could last?

Apparently they waited two more days. So I was just chilling. But honestly, I had very mixed feelings when I won because I was obviously elated to win. I didn't expect to win. But the American show normally goes for 60, 70, 80 days. And that was in my mind, like what I needed to get to to win this thing. And so when I won, I felt like I was only halfway up the hill. had...

⁓ damn.

like 27 fillets of smoked fish that I'd prepared to nearly a month's food. I'd built this shelter with a chimney I hadn't lit. I was ready, was getting, it was minus six, I was ready for the snow to come in. I love snow, I love weather, and I couldn't wait to see this location transform, particularly when your only stimulation is just the changes of nature around you, you you're just on your own and slow. And then suddenly it was done, and I was like, oh man, I just wanna know where I break.

You're ready.

When's that bit where I burst into tears and one of my limits and also my ego is like I want to put down a really big number name for how long I survived. But there we go, I did what I could but it was all over in 35 days.

Right.

mean I think for the average person 35 days is pretty damn impressive so I don't think anyone's like ⁓ only 35. How do you hypothetically tap out? Like if you're just like I'm out is it I assume there's a process for that?

It'll do. You're

Yeah, I mean of course there's a safe net in place, it's TV, so every day, morning and evening, you check in, nine o'clock, four o'clock, and if you miss a check in, come and check on you. And then you have a sat phone, and so yeah, you pick up that sat phone and say, I'm officially tapping out. That's your adventure over, and within 40 minutes or so, they're there with a speedboat or a chopper.

Do you have a watch?

No, but

you get used to the circadian rhythms and patterns of nature. I think that actually, sorry, there is for the nine o'clock and four o'clock, yeah, there is on the device. So you can see on the satellite device what time it is, but you don't tend to use it or live by, you quickly just use the sun.

Yeah.

Okay.

How did you track the days? Did you know how many days you were out there?

Yeah, I etched it into a stick. And that was, you it one of those really satisfying things to do. You have, you've got nothing going on. I mean, I think, does that give me bit of dopamine? One of the things I noticed is like how, you know, my only source of dopamine out there really was fishing. And I would pop down to my water side casino, casting out my line every, you know, for about four hours or so.

suppose you got nothing else going on.

Every time it catches a little stone, you're like, is that a fish? And then when you do get a fish, it's honestly, it's just this chemical flood up through your brain. It's one of the most amazing feelings. so everything was so heightened. again, you realize just how stimulated you are in normal life. But yeah, I'm kind of writing a book about this whole thing. One day I'll get it.

Yeah, did they let you bring like sunscreen? No?

No, no, but we

were 300 miles south of the Arctic Circle, so Northern Canada, though one girl, very pale British girl, did get sunburned and it was really sunny for that first few weeks.

So aside from the objects that you had to choose, what did they let you bring with you?

So you've got all those safety devices and set up the sat phone. They gave us a head torch. They gave us a tarpaulin to make a waterproof area for your shelter. Obviously the camera kit, medikit. That's about it really.

Like, are you allowed to have a change of clothing?

Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, they gave quite a decent amount of clothes. So I think we had three different pairs of shoes, five different pairs of socks. Yep, it was, I was expecting it to get to minus 25, minus 30 Celsius. So, you know, we had some really serious kit. My sleeping bag alone was one and a half thousand dollars.

wow. Okay, so they let you choose how many objects? Okay, what did you choose?

tonight.

The sleeping bag. My cooking pot, a fire striker for making fire and fishing line and hooks is one item. Snare wire for trying to catch rabbits. A fishing net and an axe, a saw, a multi-tool and some paracord like rope. No, I did think about it but no, I went for the axe instead, kept it.

No machete. That was an option

though.

I think it was, yeah. ⁓

Did they

tell you prior to filming, like what choices you were gonna have or did you just have to come up with this on the spot?

yeah, the items, there's like a predefined list of 74 items and there's some weird shit on there like dental floss and a mirror and soap. I don't know why they're on there but yeah, you can't just be like, I'll take an AK-47 and a Winnebago and...

Right. But did they tell you in advance so you had time to think about it or was this? Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and they give you

£4,000 stipend to buy the kit. And the clothes.

Cool. So you're filming yourself on the show.

Yeah, which is nice, something to do in a way and talking is good, it's quite cathartic, know, anything to do is good, like, yeah.

So this is 35 days of you just filming yourself and what you're doing and talking to the camera. And then they're, assume, I clearly not seen the show. And then they're just panning into the different people and where they're at and what they're doing and watching people break down at some point, I assume.

Exactly, yeah. And of my 35 days of filming, they used 14 minutes. I was like one of the... Yeah, I was one of the least in it because a cheerful chap does not make for good TV and they wanted, you know, they wanted people crying and they want drama. Exactly, yeah. The American show is way more bushcraft focus and less drama focus and the UK one went for this more drama angle and they really fucked it. It was a really shit show to be honest.

And you won.

Yeah, they want drama. They want to struggle.

That's so funny.

They

gave me £100,000 for winning and it was honestly one of the best experiences of my life. And I realised that I honestly felt the happiest and healthiest I've ever felt. My physical health, like all inflammation left my body, I think maybe because I was literally just living off boiled fish and semen and leaves. And I was moving my body all day, every day. know, the amount of exercise you get. My whole nervous system just felt so relaxed. My mental health, I felt euphoric.

at times and I realised I was living as a hunter-gatherer, right?

This is the life that we evolved to live for 99.999 % of our existence. And yeah, we're meant to have community, of course. That was the elephant in the room. But apart from that, the glove fit really well. And so now I feel like more and more we need to just think about how we emulate the life of hunter-gatherers, because everything is so convenient, as we discussed. If I wanted a cup of tea out there, I had to go and chop down some wood, go and collect some water, get the fire going. It takes about 90 minutes.

home flick a kettle three minutes done and the same goes for everything everything's a process you have to work for everything

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I always talk with my travelers about how, you know, I just wrapped up four tours, but my Morocco one ended on Sunday and my group is, you know, in that transition period of like back to real life. And again, not the same by any means as what you're doing, but just this mindfuck, if you will, of coming back to reality after traveling. when I, particularly with Cuba, when I take people, they come back and they're like,

Then I find myself like complaining because my door dash driver is taking too long to bring me my delivery and things like that, you know, just under like staying in that. How do you how do you suggest people keep that mentality and those lessons with them after they return home?

Hmm.

I think we need to keep on inoculating ourselves with challenges. I think we need to keep on leaving our comfort zone and coming back. Otherwise, I believe our comfort zone slowly goes in and you see it with older people like our parents and stuff like suddenly they're not comfortable taking a long flight or things get harder and harder. And so we're constantly having to push out against this comfort zone ⁓ and keep it away from us, I feel. So yeah, for me, I forget. I'll never have such a heightened appreciation of gratitude that I had when I...

Mm-hmm.

after those 35 days. It was insane how just eating an orange, think, weeping. Everything was just incredible and then that slowly dimmed. And so, you we need to just keep pushing against it.

Yeah, no,

I think that is a good reminder because travel is not a one and done. It's not like you go on this trip, you're just changed for life and you you don't go back to how it what am I trying to say? You don't just yeah, you don't just all of sudden flip a switch and then that's how you are for the rest of your life. Like you have to put this into practice and and continue to challenge yourself. And it reminds me of the pandemic, how our bubbles shrink so much and everyone was in isolation and

how we were before.

Hmm

A lot of people had a really hard time coming back out of that after the pandemic when things started to open up again. And a lot of people were scared to go to the local pub, much less take a trip and get on a plane and go somewhere. And they were afraid to be around people because we just hadn't practiced it in so long. So I can see how it would be really, really challenging.

Yeah, big time.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Good analogy.

What year was along filmed?

⁓ 2023

so this is recent. And so you had your business first and then you filmed the show a couple of years ago. Where can people watch it? Is it on streaming services?

I think it might still be on... it's on Channel 4 on demand so you need to use a VPN. If you go on Channel 4 on demand with a VPN you can watch it. But I highly recommend watching The American alone. Season 6 and 7 are vintage. Yeah, if you enjoyed that then maybe go and watch my crappy season but The American is a better show.

Channel four on demand. right, I'm going to look.

I'm making a note of this. Yeah, especially because we only get to see you for 14 minutes.

you

I mean, you won and you got the money. So I guess you probably I'm assuming you didn't do this for fame and to be on reality TV in the first place. So kind of a win-win if you only got like 14 minutes of airtime. I mean, people don't have to watch you break down or cry on national television.

I've got a narcissistic supercut where you can just watch.

Yeah.

Yeah, and was definitely, there's definitely a gamble like when you've an established business and your reputation is based on being good at this stuff and then you go and do that. I'd never done a day like I have temper at Woodland. I'm a tropical survival guy. And so I really was putting my reputation on the line and luckily it worked out. But you know, one guy...

Yeah.

put an axe into the top of his knee within four hours and he was out. And you you just never know. You can make a quick mistake, you know, whilst you... When it begins, the best thing to do when the helicopter goes is nothing. You just sit there, you wait for your heart to settle and you slow down and you try and be pragmatic. But yeah, if you rush into things and make mistakes, it could have gone differently.

Did you have to film everything? how, I mean, you know, let's just say you're having a mental breakdown. Do you have to, of course they want it, but do you have to be filming it? Like, do you get to choose what you're filming or is this like a 24 seven aside from like pooping? Like, are you, are you like 24 seven filming yourself?

they want that. That is gold!

They said that they wanted 16 hours from us, so basically when you're not sleeping. I think it was maybe 14 or 16. But yeah, the idea was that aside from pooping and sleeping, you're filming. So you're always just leaving your camera going and your mic is meant to be hot even when you're sleeping.

Okay, so they know like you can't just take it off and go like have a menti B in the corner. You've got to, you got to film it. Did they did they did you have any moments of I don't want to say weakness but like moments where you were losing it or was it pretty easy for you?

Go film.

Definitely, you know, the very first few days are really hard because you're adapting to this new stuff and I know that shelter, water, fire, food are my responsibilities but you can't get on top of all of it. So like you just put up a janky little tarp in the forest and you see bear prints on the riverbank so I knew like I'm literally just sleeping under a tarp where there's bears and I couldn't sleep very well knowing that.

Thanks.

Okay, well I need to get fire going so I can purify some water, but the sun's already going down and I'm just gonna have to be hungry tonight. And so you're spinning plates and it took about the first three or four days until you can start to be like, okay, that's taken care of, now I can focus on food. And so yeah, was definitely the first few days were tough until I started to get kind of my structure and routine and what I was doing. I pulled my back a bit carrying some boulders, building a chimney. And that day I was just, I was worried I'd fucked it, but other than that, it was all right.

Do they provide you with water or do you have to like filter your own water and get it yourself?

Yeah, you're on a river, you're good. You just boil it. Some people don't even bother boiling it, but it's good practice. Don't want to take a risk.

So obviously you have all this experience prior to the show, you have your company. How did you, did you have to prepare for this or did you feel like you were kind of like, I mean, obviously you had to prepare, but like, did you feel like you were pretty set up for it to begin with?

Hmm.

I did not back myself to win at all. I do have lot of imposter syndrome, but I'm more of tropical guy. I didn't know anything about Canadian flora and fauna, so I had seven weeks when I knew I was on it before I went on to learn as much as possible. But the biggest thing I did for preparation was get as fat as I possibly could. So in seven weeks, I was necking olive oil. I switched to coconut oil much better. I was having massive burgers and pasta covered in cheese. I managed to put on 23 kilos.

which is £50 in seven weeks and you realise calories are the money of nature and I wanted my bank balance going into it to be as plump as possible.

Did anybody ⁓ after you won say like, that's not fair, he has all this experience or would you feel like everyone was kind of equally qualified and prepared?

Yeah, everyone was fairly equally qualified. Again, like during the 10 days before we went in, ⁓ we all sizing each other up and I was like, man, these guys know a

So you got to meet the other people.

Yeah, we hung out whilst we going over how to film and what to do if there's a bear and medical scenarios and stuff. yeah, I think I was probably mentally more stable and that helped me. There was probably people that are better, and I was good at fishing, but there's people that have better bushcraft knowledge.

Yeah.

Okay, so after, I know you said 35 days wasn't enough for you, but after those 35 days of being alone in the wilderness, what was the hardest part for you of coming back to, quote unquote, normal life and reality?

I think it's readjusting to the stimulation.

When you're out there, the aperture of your senses is just wide open, right? You're tuned into every little noise or movement because you're thinking about bears and safety for yourself. And again, because there's no other stimulation, everything just opens up, opens up. And the same for taste as well. Like everything is heightened. And then suddenly, you you're in a helicopter, you've won and you're in a hotel. And it's just, was honestly, I felt like I was on amphetamines. was just, just, I had like a mental illness. It couldn't work out. It was just.

over consuming, over stimulating. I think I couldn't sleep until about three, four in the morning that first night. I had to unplug the fridge, every little noise that woke me up. It was full on. it took just walking on flat surfaces felt strange as well after just being out in nature for that time. then, yeah, then adjustment to talking to people, I think.

During the, during alone, you get a medical every seven days where they come and check that your weight is okay, that your heart, your blood pressure and such is all right. And that tiny little exchange, just talking to people for five minutes, incredible. You're like, wow. can feel the oxytocin surging through you. You're like, man.

Humans are great. And then they go and you're like, fuck man, it's seven days to another human. And a lot of people quit the day after their medicals apparently because they just can't bear to go another seven days. But yeah, once we're back at the hotel, I love talking to people, but I couldn't talk to people more than like five minutes or so. Just all 10 minutes exhausted me. It was weird. And then it all closes down.

Did

they do any kind of reunion with everybody so you all got to talk about your experiences or do you just have to watch the show and see how it played out?

Yeah, didn't, like all the other ones and most of shows do like these big premier parties. They didn't do it for us. It was kind of sad. We're in a WhatsApp group. I'm friends with a few of them. One of them is an instructor for me now as well, Naomi, who came third. So she's just down in the Philippines right now. So yeah, we hang out and go hiking sometimes and meet up.

nice.

Cool, that's awesome. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about transformational travel, because that's something that's very important to me and my business as well. So there's obviously a difference between travel that just takes you somewhere and travel that actually changes you. What do you think is that secret sauce, that special ingredients that makes the difference for people?

Yeah, for me it kind of ties back to what I was originally saying of leaving your habitat, your labels and going somewhere totally new. I think once you've got that clear slate then you... well, once you have this kind of like... for some people it's the first time they've got off the hamster wheel of life and they've slowed down and they've looked around and they've realized, wait a minute...

I'm happier here with little more than, on the island we have people happier here with little more than a fish that I'm gnawing on, despite bug bites and stuff. so I think just getting you out of your surroundings, of our trappings, of our labels, it's just, yeah, really cathartic for helping us with our perception of who we are, discarding limiting beliefs. Yeah, I think it's the new.

That really helps.

Yeah, I feel like the things that people resist the most with travel are the things they need the most. So, you know, people don't, they don't want the challenge. They don't want the resistance. They don't want the friction. They don't want the discomfort. And to me, those are all the things that change you when it comes to travel. If you just have these easy kind of pre-scripted, curated...

Definitely.

stimulated travel experiences. Like to me that is when you're just kind of going to a place and checking the boxes and going through the motion and you're like, yeah, that was cool. I saw, I saw cool things. I, it was pretty, but it doesn't, it's, it's lacking something. And to me it's the struggle that kind of gets you there and then changes you.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I couldn't agree more. yeah, every time we do hard things, we get rewarded. We just did this trip on the island where we went to a brand new island and we walked around the whole 12-kilometre island and we got to just have this wilderness to ourselves. And we came across like a whale vertebrae on the beach and just things that no normal trip would ever provide. But because we've paid the price of a little discomfort, paid the price of a bit of courage, those tickets pay off.

and you get rewards.

promotes the growth, promotes the resilience. So yeah, totally agree that the entry price is stepping out of our comfort zone.

And I think once people do that, then it's again, a little bit hard to go back, then you're kind of looking for more. And I can't imagine like in your experience when you've been through, you've done all these crazy things. every time I travel to like a quote unquote kind of crazy place, then I'm like, what else is out there? You know, like I think a lot of people, they, dip their toe in and Americans, you know, they go to Mexico and then they might go to Europe and then.

Yeah.

The average American probably never makes it any further than that in terms of something outside of like Western culture. For me, as somebody who's, I mean, I haven't been to the craziest places in the world, but going to India or going to Morocco or Kenya, starting to experience very, very different cultures, it always makes me think, okay, like what else is out there? Like how more extreme can it get out? And I know it can, ⁓ but it doesn't make me wanting to go backwards. It makes me like, okay,

Yeah.

Like I need more of this. I just had a girl come on my Morocco tour last week. It was her first time leaving the United States in her entire life. She's probably about 40, 45. And she chooses Morocco as her first destination. I was like, holy shit. I always talk about that. Like you don't usually go from zero to 100. But I feel like for her, I was just like, you're...

Yeah.

brain must be firing on all cylinders because Morocco is just a crazy overstimulating place for anybody. And then for it to be your first time leaving your own country in your entire life and you choose that. I'm actually going to her on the podcast because I just think it's so fascinating because it must just be a whole different experience to be going to a place like that for the first time. And then and then how does she go backwards? Like now is she going to go to Florida? I mean, like, you know, it's just

Yeah, and then you realize... Yeah.

Hmm.

I can't imagine doing that for my first international trip. I thought it was really incredible.

And our fear is always so much greater than the reality and that fear stops us from having the courage to do these things often. leaning into that fear just opens up new opportunities for us.

⁓ So obviously my whole business and you sounds like yours too is built on this whole idea of Transformational travel, but I think a lot of people Resist the uncomfortable parts of travel like we talked about. So what do you say to someone who is Desiring that growth but doesn't really want to experience the discomfort and doesn't want to go through what it takes to get there

I don't know, mean, are they happy, first of all? I think the, I always say that, you know, life's not a dress rehearsal. got one go and you've got to try and use it the best of your ability. And that, you we never grow when we're sat on the sofa in our comfort zone. And only if we have the courage to step outside of it, to cool, interesting, new things happen that then...

promote our ability, our strength, our resilience to then be able to then go further again and further again and further again. And so our sphere of opportunities in life just broadens and you can, if you keep taking these steps, you keep having the courage to have these steps, then you get more access to more cool adventures and broader experiences in this one go, this one fortunate go that we get on the planet. So just keep flirting with that, that comfort zone, go out of it, back in, go out of it, back in. It's like going to the gym or studying or anything like that.

Yeah.

to work on that.

I mean, I think you're the perfect example of that. If we could go full circle and talk about how you were an overweight kid who your teacher said you weren't going anywhere and then you ended up scuba diving and then you ended up being on the North Pole and then you end up starting this crazy travel company and then you end up on a TV show. I mean, that all is from slowly taking those baby steps. You didn't go from zero to 100. It was slowly stretching your comfort zone and seeing what you're capable of.

Thank you.

Yeah, exactly. And I still pinch myself. It's my real life. It's ridiculous. ⁓ I promise I'm not special in any way. It's just having little rules and decisions. And a life is ⁓ only a consequence of 10,000, 100,000 decisions. If we say yes to more things and we push ourselves, then it gets richer.

Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

Well, and there's such a element of like mental toughness here and just what your mind is capable of. Obviously you need to be in certain physical condition to be able to do stuff, but the mind is probably the hardest part, especially when you're doing these crazy trips and sitting on, I would assume, 35 days. The hardest part of that probably is your mind and what your mind is telling you and telling you to stop or telling you that you're

not capable, that has to be a huge, huge part of it.

Yeah, you've got to be really compassionate with yourself and you've to like yourself, like you've got to be your best friend and you've got to like hanging out with yourself. And so if you don't, maybe maybe a bit of therapy. And if you're not in good shape, in good shape. We can all get in good shape. And as these apps start running, we just walk for two minutes, run for 30 seconds, walk for three minutes, run for one minute. And you just listen to these and follow it and slowly. It's amazing how quickly you'll develop.

Hahaha

your stamina and ability to do that and you're like, man, I just did that and your self belief goes up and then it's just again, slowly compound these things and you never know where it's gonna take you.

Yeah, and I think the physical and the mental are the, you they go, your mind is a muscle too. so, absolutely. So what is the biggest transformation that you see from participants after one of your Desert Island survival expeditions? What's one of the biggest takeaways? I know there's probably all kinds, but yeah.

completely linked.

We have this, ⁓ can I give an individual example?

I've talked about her in a blog, so I can use her name Helen. She's a nurse from New Zealand, and she had never left New Zealand before. And her friend was a fellow doctor who was like, look, I'm going to French Polynesia when we run trips there, onto a desert, a survival thing. And she was like, fuck it, yeah, all right. And she was...

and she'd never left

her country.

She

never left her country and she chose to on a desert island survival adventure and she is, I think I used the word obese in the blog and she's like, fuck you in a jokey way because she's a really funny fucker, but she was. And she was, she's really funny, amazing woman who just took to this whole thing. She had incredible resilience through humor.

She found it physically a little hard with the heat and stuff, but you just keep jumping in that ocean, it's a reset button. There were loads of insects, we didn't use that location again because it was tough.

Anyway, she gets back home, she ends up, she starts signing up for half marathons and marathons and she now, she's lost all the weight. She now does these ultra races. She did the triple, she left her job and she left her husband. So she's like completely just like changed her whole life and she's our poster child for Transformational Travel and she's an amazing woman.

Hey.

incredible. That's amazing. No, results not guaranteed.

It's not promised for everyone, but Helen, just, you know, it just completely, yeah, results

are guaranteed, but she's just shifted and it was wonderful to see.

Yeah, I mean, I relate to that just in my my trips to a real basic right now as I'm talking to you, but I have I'm divorced myself and I have so many people who go on trips and they come home, they leave their jobs, they leave their partners, they leave unhealthy situations because there's something about travel that just kind of like clicks for you when you remove all of those things in your day to day that you're just kind of stuck in in that cycle and that hamster wheel and then you put yourself in a different situation and then.

Add on top of that, you're going to these very remote locations and removing all of the stimulation, you have a lot of time to think and reflect, I can't imagine.

Tosie, yeah, it's like dialing down all that noise and then realizing in yourself, ⁓ I'm not happy in that relationship back home. And then hopefully getting that courage to do something about it. So one of you having the courage because it's not easy.

And

you're sitting there thinking, well, if I can do this, like, this is hard. Like, what other hard things can I do? Like, maybe leaving a relationship isn't that hard after, you you realize all the other things that you can accomplish.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Alright, wrapping up here. So I always do a closing game. yours is like this. This is like what this game is made for. We're going to do Would You Rather? Survival Edition. I actually had to edit these quite a bit because I was like none of this is going to even sound remotely extreme or challenging for you. So, okay, first one is Would You Rather eat a tarantula or a fistful of worms?

you

⁓ tarantula every time, as long as it's deep-fried. Is it... are they... That's okay. They're alive? Can I cook it? yeah, tarantula. It's meant to be like soft-shelled crab. I haven't had it. My wife hadn't...

and you would kill it. Now they're alive.

Yeah.

So this is what I'm talking about. feel like you're going to be on on any other guest would be like, fuck no, like neither. I? OK. Would you rather have unlimited clean water, but no food or unlimited food and no clean water?

Fist of the Worms sounds horrible.

you

would back myself to purify the water by getting a fire going and filtering it so I'm going for the unlimited food please.

You're going loopholes here. All right, I'll allow it. I mean,

you can only go so long without either. So there's a lot of other questions. I would have follow up questions as well. Would you rather navigate with a map and no compass or a compass and no map?

Yeah, the rule of freedom.

I would rather have the map, please, because I'll use the sun and the stars and cruise from nature.

This is like beginner

level, would you rather survive Real Edition clearly? Okay, would you rather spend a week alone or a week with a stranger that you cannot stand?

Oh, fuck, a week alone. I thought you could say a week with a stranger, full stop. But no, a week alone. I look forward to the next week alone, please.

Okay, well, was it a week alone or a week with a stranger that you had?

I mean, a week with a stranger,

as long as I... Well, I'll take the lottery of a stranger, it could be fun.

Yeah. Okay. Would you rather build a shelter in pouring rain or blazing sun?

Mmm.

Would you rather lose your shoes or your jacket in a cold climate?

⁓

It's not good situation but it's gotta be the jacket. No don't want those cold feet.

Yeah.

cold feet is kind of a problem.

Would you rather have fire and no shelter or shelter and no fire in a cold climate?

I would rather have a fire.

Of course, because you're like, I'm going to build the shelter, duh. Loopholes. Would you rather be stalked by something that you can hear but not see or something that you can see but not hear?

Thank

let's see, not here.

Okay, would you rather survive with one tool of your choice or three random tools you didn't pick? Machete.

Want all of my choice, please. My

machete. It unlocks everything, right? It means I know I've got sheltered water fire food. Maybe.

Would you? It's funny you say

machete, because like as I travel, I travel a lot of people who have a machete. So I relate. My one of my good friends in Cuba, he always has a machete and he loves to pull it out for anything like, oh, I need to, you know, the lock. don't have the lock. Yeah, I don't need to open this beer. Like we need to like cut the lock off the suitcase. And he's like, like he loves to pull that thing out.

Open this beer!

Hello Sam.

Would you rather have one night of terrible sleep in total safety or the best sleep of your life somewhere genuinely dangerous?

No, best night of my sleep ever somewhere genuinely dangerous. sounds great. Bad sleep's awful.

Okay, you were, that's

fair. You were legitimately hard to stump on that one, but now I should, I think on a different episode, I should ask someone those exact same questions who has zero experience and see how it varies or how long it takes them. I bet they'd be like, ooh, ooh, ooh, you're just like, nope, I know it. Okay, this was...

I'd like to listen to that.

Such an interesting conversation. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Where can people find out more about you or your company if they want to learn more?

Thank you Laura, it's been great to chat to you. I am on Instagram, Tom Williams alone, sounds quite sad. And my company is desertislandsurvival.com.

And we'll put all of the links where you can find more about Tom and his business in the show notes. And I know you mentioned you also have like a listener discount if people are interested in your expeditions and I'll put that in the show notes as well. ⁓ But thank you so much for chatting. It was really great. Your great first reintroduction to podcasting after my two months of being away but not alone. So I wish you all the best in your business and your endeavors. And I'm seriously going to consider doing one of these because I think

Yes.

Yeah, get a group

together.

Yeah, that's I should do is get my groups to come on yours. Yeah, okay, we'll chat. All right, talk to you soon. You too.

see how this lands plant the seed nice one Laura, lovely to meet you, take

That's all for this episode of Type 2 Travel. If you're loving these conversations, hit subscribe or follow, give us a 5 star rating, and share with your adventure seeking friends. Remember, the best stories rarely come from staying in your comfort zone. Until next time, this is Laura Ericson reminding you that your passport is collecting dust, your PTO is piling up, and the world is out there waiting for you to explore it.