Three days in the forest learning the skills people once lived by. Three nights in a small, well-made lodge with a proper dinner and a sauna. Austria in summer, Northern Thailand in winter. Eight to twelve guests.
The best survival instructors in the world learned their craft the hard way. We asked them to teach it the gentle way.
Fire without matches. Water from a hillside. A shelter that keeps rain off. Cordage from a plant, a knife handle from a branch, dinner from what the forest gives you. These are real skills, taught properly, by people who love them.
Many of them came to these skills through the military, and we have enormous respect for that. It is where the knowledge was kept alive. But the way it was taught there was built for soldiers, and most of us are not soldiers. We keep the knowledge and change the setting.
You will get muddy and tired in the best way, and then you will come back to a hot shower, a table set for dinner and a bed someone else has made. The next morning you go back out.
Spruce and larch forest at around 1,100 metres, a working alpine farm, and a lodge built from the timber around it. Fire-lighting, water, shelter, navigation, foraging and cordage, with a closing dinner cooked partly from what the group gathered.
Teak and bamboo forest above Chiang Mai in the cool, dry season. Bamboo does everything here: fire-saw, cooking vessel, shelter frame, cup. Tropical foraging, water from vines, finding your way in the hills, a morning with a hill-tribe village, and a riverside lodge with an open-air spa.
Bow drill, flint and steel, fire-saw. How to read wood, build a fire that lasts, and put it out properly.
Reading the land for springs and seeps, collecting from plants, and making it safe to drink without a filter in your pocket.
A dry night from branches, leaf litter or bamboo, built in the time you actually have before dark.
Which plants feed you, which ones don't, and how to tell them apart with confidence, season by season.
Cordage from nettle, bark or rattan; simple weaving; the knots that matter. You leave with something you made.
No phone, no GPS. Sun, stars, moss, water and the shape of the land. How to know where you are and walk out.
A hand line, a simple trap, a hook you carved yourself. Then cook it on the fire you made. Optional, where the water allows
Cut it, split it, cook rice inside it, carry water in it. The single most useful plant in the tropics. Northern Thailand only
Forest until late afternoon. Then the lodge. Every day.
Coffee at the lodge, then out with the instructors. One skill in depth, taught in small groups, until lunch in the forest.
A second skill, or the day's challenge that puts the morning to use. Nobody is timed, nobody is shouted at.
Back by five. Sauna, massage, a long dinner from the region and the day's foraging. Early nights are the norm.
A short morning challenge using everything, a good lunch, and a small object you made to take home.
I looked at every survival school I could find. Almost all of them were run by former soldiers, and they are remarkable at what they do. I just wanted the skills without the shouting, and a bed at the end of it. So I built that.Catherine, founder
Places are limited to keep groups small, and the first retreats are by invitation. Tell us a little about yourself and we will write back personally.