25 Best Survivalists on TV and in Movies

Survivalists have been around for thousands, if not millions of years, but only in recent decades have they appeared on reality or docu-series TV shows, impressing audiences with their toughness, resolve, skill, knowledge and adaptability. Consequently, some of them have acquired household names and even become TV stars in their own right.

This list suggests 25 of the best but almost certainly doesn’t include every one of the best; after all, the author hasn’t seen every survivalist on the planet. It’s also heavily weighted toward English-speaking men and women, as they dominate American, Canadian and British TV—for some crazy reason!

Incidentally, this compilation is written in no particular order, because only the winners of some imaginary contest could establish the best of this brawny bunch. One may wonder if there is such a stellar survivalist show in the works. Well, if the public wants it badly enough, it will happen.

Please keep reading!

1. Gary Humphrey

While a former British Special Forces soldier, Gary Humphrey acquired survival skills in many different environments—Arctic wastelands, tropical rain forests, volcanic mountains and vast, sand-blown deserts. Since 2006, Humphrey has been a consultant with Endeavour Consultancy, which provides safety and logistical management and support for TV and film productions around the world; he’s worked for such networks as the BBC, HBO and Sky and Discovery.

Humphrey has also been a survival expert on the Discovery Channel’s programs One Car Too Far (2012) and Car vs. Wild (2021). On both programs Humphrey and his partner, Bill Wu, show what it takes to drive their four-wheel drive jeep through some of the most daunting, dirty and dangerous driving conditions on the planet. So one may wonder: Can they drive that jeep anywhere?

Humphrey’s Facebook page shows what a great adventurer, survivalist and outdoorsman he really is. In addition to traveling the world, at least one of his favorite hobbies is snow skiing, particularly in parts of the US. Regarding such, here’s one of his many quotes:

Powder heaven in Utah and it’s dumping all next week. There aren’t many times one has the chance to experience these amazing conditions with special people. Park City, you rock!

2. Jeff Zausch

Jeff Zausch is a survivalist and TV personality who’s appeared on various episodes of the Discovery Channel’s reality show Naked and Afraid, as well as spinoffs such as Naked and Afraid XL and Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing. Zausch has great skill using minimal resources while tackling arduous scenarios in remote areas of the planet. Jeff’s father, Mathew J. Zausch, taught his son many of the wilderness skills he’s utilized on the aforementioned survival shows.

As some skeptics may think, shows such as Naked and Afraid aren’t without risks to their scantily-clad contestants. On season two, the second episode, while cooking up a pan of snake meat, Zausch and his partner Eva Rupert, had to extinguish a spreading campfire that could have destroyed their gear and killed them both!

Zausch has established several records while appearing on the Discovery Channel’s survivalist programs: surviving the longest time—121 days; completing the first challenge of 60 days; and scoring the highest primitive survival rating—9.1 out of 10. In 2016, he also hosted season nine, the final season of the Discovery Channel’s long-running survival show, Dual Survival.

3. Aldo Kane

A Scottish Royal Marine Commando at the age of 16, Aldo Kane has also been a sniper in dangerous military scenarios in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also tangled with drug cartel henchmen in South America; been charged by an angry rhinoceros; and, while working with a film crew, happened to be inside a volcano—when it erupted! He’s also scaled vertiginous cliffs, explored deep caves and sailed in a boat across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kane wrote about the aforementioned exploits and many others in his book, Lessons from the Edge (2021). He’s also worked on the set of movies and survivalist TV shows such as the BBC’s Steve Backshall Extreme Mountain Challenge and worked as an advisor on the superhero film, The Avengers (2012). And in 2021 Kane worked on the National Geographic Channel’s series, OceanXplorers.

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4. Kylie or Ky Furneaux

Since 2000, Kylie Furneaux has appeared as a stunt person in more than 100 TV shows and movies. Her first stunt job was for the TV show Andromeda, and then she was the stunt double for Sharon Stone in the movie Catwoman (2004). Furneaux has also been the stunt double for Jaimie Alexander in Kyle XY, Blindspot and Thor. She’s also done stunt work in the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Bridge and Sons of Anarchy. Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner and Camilla Belle have used her as a stunt stand-in as well.

Also a survivalist of note, Furneaux has appeared on the Discovery Channel’s popular show, Naked and Afraid; she was also a co-host in Hike for Survival, a 100-mile adventurous hike in California’s Sierra Nevada. She’s also written the book The Superwoman’s Survival Guide (2014).

5. Hakim Isler

A decorated veteran of the U.S. Army, having served in Special Operations during the Iraq war, Isler seems capable of surviving in any dire survivalist scenario. Isler has received advanced survivalist training at the Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion School, as well as at the Earth Connections Survival School in Virginia.

An expert in martial arts, Isler has earned a sixth degree black belt in To-Shin-Do; he's also considered the nation’s premiere African-American’s survival expert. Notably, because of his reputation of being able to make just about anything whenever he needs it, Isler is often called the Black MacGyver.

A well-known presence on TV, Isler has appeared and/or competed on many TV survivalist competitions and programs, including the USA Network’s Race to Survive: Alaska; the Discovery Channel’s Naked and Afraid XL and Ed Stafford: First Man Out, as well as Fox’s competition reality TV series, Kicking and Screaming (2017).

6. Nicole Apelian

Hailing from Massachusetts, Nicole Apelian fell in love with wilderness studies at a young age. While working for the US Peace Corps, she followed a game warden who tracked lions in Botswana; she also lived with the San Bushmen, a tribe of hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari Desert. Along the way, Apelian earned a PhD in cultural anthropology; she’s also worked as an adjunct professor at Prescott College in Arizona.

Eventually acquiring great survival skills, including a strong ability to identify, utilize and consume wild plants, in 2015 Apelian appeared as a challenger on the second season of the History Channel’s series Alone; she survived by herself in the wilderness for 57 days! Also on Alone, she appeared in season five, which took place in northern Mongolia. Unfortunately, she had to leave that episode because of illness.

Suffering from multiple sclerosis, Apelian has nevertheless handled this ailment by utilizing natural remedies, as she lives with her family in Washington. She has used her expertise with plants on TV shows and in movies such as Leave No Trace (2018). She’s also a co-author of The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies (2021).

7. Tim Smith

The Discovery Channel calls Tim Smith “the most accomplished backwoodsman you’ll ever meet.” Since 1999, Smith had been a guide and educator at the Jack Mountain Bushcraft School, which Smith founded, and has been a Registered Master Main Guide since 2002. Smith has a masters’ degree in education and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology; he also spends about eight months per year living off the grid in northern Maine and other remote locations around the world.

Smith has also appeared on Discovery Channel survivalist shows such as Dude You’re Screwed (2014) and Naked and Afraid (2014); he’s also been a TV consultant on Naked and Afraid (2015) and Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls in 2006. He’s also written seven books, including The Wood Cook: Outdoor Cooking with a Professional Guide, as well as On the Trail: Selected Canoe and Snowshoe Trip Journals.

8. Cat Bigney

Cat Bigney was born in Utah and now lives in Austin, Texas; and she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in behavioral sciences at Utah Valley University. Bigney is the head wilderness survival instructor at Utah’s Boulder Outdoor Survival School. Notably, Bigney appeared as a consultant on The Island with Bear Grylls (2015), as shown on the Discovery Channel. She has also appeared as herself on The Great Human Race (2016) on the National Geographic Channel.

Bigney has also appeared on other TV survival shows: the Bushcraft Build-Off (2017) on the Discovery Channel, as well as Ed Stafford: First Man Out (2019); and on the PBS documentary, Human: The World Within (2022).

9. John Hudson

Based in Cornwall of the UK, John Hudson is the British military’s chief instructor for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Extraction and has visited numerous extreme locations throughout the planet. He’s appeared on the Discovery Channel’s program Survive That, aka Dude You’re Screwed; he’s also been a survival consultant on many other TV shows. Hudson also wrote the UK’s survival manual and How to Survive: Self-Reliance in Extreme Circumstances (2021), a collection of survival stories revealing how people dealt with harrowing scenarios.

He’s also written a free eBook, How to Survive a Pandemic (2020), which helps people deal with the self-isolation of the COVID-19 crisis. In addition, Hudson provides survival tips on TV shows, podcasts, radio shows and YouTube interviews and videos; he’s also a public speaker of note, so sign him up!

10. Will Lord

Englishman Will Lord resides in the Suffolk area of the UK where—on is own 35 acres of woodland—teaches enthusiasts prehistoric survival skills such as flint knapping, making stone tools or weapons, fashioning clothes from leather and building wooden and thatch shelters. In fact, if any basic skills were needed by hunter/gatherers during the Neolithic Period (10,000 to 3,000 BCE), Will Lord probably knows such skills and could almost certainly survive in any similar present day scenario. Lord has appeared on TV shows such as Ed Stafford: First Man Out and Channel Five’s Ben Fogle—New Lives in the Wild. Lord also has a sizeable presence on Facebook and YouTube. He’ll show you how to make a bow and arrow!

11. Matt Wright

Hailing from Colorado of the USA, survivalist Matt Wright has appeared on numerous versions of the Discovery Channel’s Naked and Afraid. In 2016, Wright appeared on Naked and Afraid: Savage, and in 2021, Naked and Afraid XL. It seems Wright likes to bear it all as he hunts for dinner with his handmade spear! In fact, Wright appeared on season 10 of Naked and Afraid with his wife Brooke Benham, the first married couple to do so. Wright also owns Extreme Instinct, LLC, where he teaches folks how to make knives and other survival gear. Unfortunately, in an episode of Naked and Afraid XL in 2017, Wright caught a fresh-eating organism and had to be rushed to a hospital. But he’s okay now and raring to go on another hair-raising survivalist challenge.

12. Ken Rhee

Ken Rhee was a member of the Underwater Demolition Team of the Republic of South Korea Seals, attaining the rank of lieutenant; he also spent two years training with the US Navy Seals. Thereafter, Rhee began appearing on internet productions and survivalist TV programs; he appeared as a trainer on Fake Men, a YouTube series, thereby gaining fame and fortune in his native South Korea.

Rhee also appeared on an episode of the Discovery Channel’s First Man Out, in which he challenged Ed Stafford in a five-day race to the extraction point in the badlands of Kazakhstan’s Altyn-Yemel National Park. “Kazakhstan is probably the most severe terrain I have ever come across,” Stafford said. Rhee lost the race only by minutes; it seems he spent too much time building a raft from scratch! Nevertheless, Rhee will almost certainly return for many more survivalist challenges in the future.

13. E.J. "Skullcrusher" Snyder

The nickname “Skullcrusher” certainly applies to E.J. Snyder, since he’s mastered all aspects of survival, including hand-to-hand combat, and could certainly crush a skull or two if he needed to do so. Actually, Snyder acquired this moniker while serving in the US Army for 25 years; he’s also a graduate of the US Army Ranger School and served in a combat roll during the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Moreover, Snyder worked for seven years as an instructor for military survival and self-reliance. After leaving the service, Snyder began appearing in such TV survivalist fare as Naked and Afraid, Dual Survival, Man vs. Amazon and Naked and Afraid XL.

Snyder has also acted in many other TV shows and movies, particularly Lost and Patton 360. Tough as nails and showing an in-your-face demeanor, Snyder could probably survive just about any survivalist scenario— asteroid strike, tsunami, H-bomb detonation—piece of cake!

14. Kellie Nightlinger

According to an online biography, survivalist Kellie Nightlinger says she can live in the wilderness with few tools; she particularly enjoys living in the remote areas of Canada. Notably, she has her own company—U.P. Wide Adventure Guide, in which she teaches people about kayaking, spelunking, snorkeling at shipwrecks, bear, deer and wild boar hunting, cross country skiing, skijoring, winter camping and many other aspects of bush craft such as backpacking and living off the land. Her motto is: “Life is short, live for the dash.”

Nightlinger has appeared on the Discovery Channel’s program Naked and Afraid, an episode on which she—along with survivalist E.J. Snyder—must survive for 21 days without being given food, water or clothes, just one survival item each, before trekking over the Serengeti Plains of Tanzania, Africa. It seems safe to write that Nightlinger appears able to survive in just about any wilderness situation for days, months or even years.

15. Mykel Hawke

Mykel Hawke spent 26 years in the US Army Special Forces (12 years active duty), achieving the rank of captain and serving in battle-scarred Africa and fought narcotraffickers in Colombia. Excelling in martial arts, Hawke has earned black belts in both Aikido and judo. Now retired from the military, Hawke has done survivalist work on the Discovery Channel’s One Man Army, Science of Survival and Man, Woman, Wild, the latter of which he appeared with his wife, Ruth England. Hawke also appeared with his wife on the Travel Channel’s Lost Survivors.

Hawke has also written books about survival: Hawke’s Green Beret Survival Manual (2009) and Hawke's Special Forces Survival Handbook: The Portable Guide to Getting Out Alive (2011). Hawke also speaks seven languages and has two college degrees. Obviously a tough guy who’s acquired an impressive skills set, Hawke may also be the brainiest person on this august list!

16. Ray Mears

Ray Mears is an expert on all manner of wilderness survival skills and may also be a so-called tree hugger, as he advocates what he calls bushcraft, “the art of understanding and being at one with the natural world.” To further that endeavor, Mears owns the company Woodlore, which sells outdoor gear.

Now a wilderness icon of sorts, Mears insists he’s not a celebrity such as Bear Grylls, another survivalist Brit of note. Over the years, Mears has hosted many BBC television shows: Ray Mears’ Extreme Survival, Ray Mears’ Bushcraft, Ray Mears Wild Food, Ray Mears Northern Wilderness and Wild Britain with Ray Mears. Mears also hosted Survival with Ray Mears, a program investigating the plight of endangered species such as leopards, wolves and bears.

Notably, in 2014, Mears hosted How the Wild West Was Won, a TV miniseries about how the Wild West was “really won,” as the title seems to suggest. And, in 2021, Mears hosted Wild China with Ray Mears.

17. Laura Zerra

Laura Zerra is your quintessential outdoorsy young woman and became a survival enthusiast at a young age. Zerra was born in Massachusetts and studied ethnobiology at Connecticut College. When she wasn’t cracking the books, she began making bows and arrows, studied wild plants and tracked game. She even hit the local highways looking for road kill, so she could tan the hides she collected. In spite of being vegan, she started eating meat, because she wanted to learn to hunt.

Utilizing such wilderness skills, Zerra began in 2013 a stint on the Discovery Channel’s show, Naked and Afraid, on which cast members, while naked, must survive for 21-days in wild places such as the Peruvian Amazon rain forest. Zerra did so well they invited her back for Naked and Afraid XL, which demanded 40 days of survival on the Colombian savannah.

On Zerra’s Facebook page, she lists such interests as antler hunting, bow hunting, cutting meat, horse packing, hide tanning, primitive and urban survival, the jungle, alternative forms of travel, scuba diving, rock climbing, extreme cold, bow making, the open ocean, skinning animals, spontaneity, deep sea fishing, pushing edges, and new experiences. What’d she leave out?!

18. Tom McElroy

Tom McElroy, while in his twenties, spent one full year living off the land; he built his own shelter, purified drinking water, fished, hunted with a bow and arrow he made and gathered edible herbs and wild vegetables. He’s lived and trained with various indigenous tribes, such as the Huaorani of the Amazon rainforest and the Tarahumara of the Copper Canyon region in Mexico and lived with a shaman in a thatched hut hundreds of miles off the coast of Sumatra. McElroy is so good at wilderness survival that he became one of the instructors at Tracker Inc., Tom Brown’s Wilderness Survival, Awareness and Tracking School. He’s also starred on the Discovery Channel’s programs Solo Survival and Naked and Afraid.

19. Hazen Audel

Starring on National Geographic’s Primal Survivor, Hazen Audel has spent 20 years learning survival skills while living with the indigenous peoples of Indonesia, Panama, Mongolia, Kenya, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Nepal and Tanzania. Born in America, Audel has Native American blood—the Kootenai and Salish people from his mother’s side of the family.

Audel can speak several languages most people have probably never heard of; and, at the age of 18, he began learning about the lives of native peoples when he lived with the Quechua and Huaorani tribes of Ecuador. Audel has also appeared on National Geographic’s Survive the Tribe (2014). Apparently trekking by himself on these TV shows, he seems able to survive in just about any high-stress, remote situation. And, incidentally, what is the most unusual indigenous food he’s ever eaten: “Butter-filled horse stomach.”

20. Matt Graham

A shamanistic kind of guy, Matt Graham has been an off-the-grid enthusiast since he was 15, when he trained at being a triathlete and rock climber. Reputedly, one day he took a walk and ended up living in a wilderness area of southern Utah for six months—all by himself. Then, astonishingly, at the age of 23, Graham “ran” the Pacific Coast Trail, some 1,700 miles long, in only 58 days. For awhile now, Graham has taught survival skills for the Outdoor Survival School in Boulder, Utah.

Hitting the big-time eventually, Graham became a survivalist on the Discovery Channel’s shows, Dual Survival, Dude You’re Screwed, as well as Live Free or Die on the National Geographic Channel. Graham excels at martial arts as well, becoming as expert in judo, Tae Kwan Do, Wushu Kung fu, and Jeet Kune Do. It seems safe to suggest that if Graham became the last man on earth, he’d just shrug and build a split-level tree house!

21. Dave Canterbury

Dave Canterbury spent six years in the US Army in the 1980s, working in the military police and security. Regarding weaponry, he attained the level of expert for automatic rifle, pistol and hand grenade. Since then, Canterbury has worked in the survivalist field, specifically what is known as bushcraft or woodcraft—the art of making do with what you find in the wild—which he teaches at the Pathfinder School in southeastern Ohio. Canterbury also wrote the manual, Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival.

Canterbury co-starred with Cody Lundin on the Discovery Channel’s program Dual Survival; he also starred on Dirty Rotten Survival on the National Geographic Channel. Moreover, if you want to survive in the wilderness, Canterbury’s five C’s of Survivability include cutting tools, covering elements, combustion devices, containers, and cordages.

On Dual Survival, Perhaps Canterbury’s greatest moment was when he showed how to cauterize a bleeding wound. He took his knife, sliced open his arm, dumped gunpowder on the cut, and then, using the firing mechanism of a musket, touched off the gunpowder with a poof and sealed the wound.

22. Cody Lundin

Cody Lundin, a survivalist of sorts since he was a teenager, grew up in Laramie, Wyoming, where he graduated from high school. When he attended Prescott College in Arizona, he lived on the streets for awhile, and then joined a commune, after which he built a brush shelter while he continued his studies, eventually graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Depth Psychology and Holistic Health. Then in 1991, Lundin founded the Aboriginal Living Skills School in Prescott, Arizona, for which he has been a survival instructor more or less continuously.

Lundin’s TV career began in 2004, when he hosted Lost in the Wild on the Discovery Channel. Later, he co-starred on Dual Survival, another Discovery Channel program, from 2010 to 2014. Lundin is also the author of two books: 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive (2003) and When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need to Survive When Disaster Strikes (2007).

Generally attired as a North American Indian, when Lundin appeared on Dual Survival, he nearly always wore shorts and went barefoot, in spite of the weather conditions or terrain. Can you imagine the calluses on Lundin’s feet? He also lives off-the-grid in Arizona, paying zero for utilities!

23. Les Stroud

In 1990, Les Stroud, a Canadian-borne survival expert and wilderness guru, became a guide for Black Feather Wilderness Adventures in northern Ontario, Canada. Four years later, Stroud and his new wife built an off-the-grid shelter in the wilds of Ontario, where they spent their one-year honeymoon, the adventures of which became the documentary, Snowshoes and Solitude. Then Stroud hosted two one-hour survival specials for the Discovery Channel, eventually produced as one show entitled, Stranded.

Next, beginning in 2004, Stroud hosted 23 episodes of Survivorman, a series of wilderness adventures for which he had to survive for one week in each place. (Stroud video-taped these episodes all by himself, please note.) In 2010, Stroud hosted a series of documentaries entitled Beyond Survival with Les Stroud, in which he studied various endangered, indigenous tribes around the world.

From 2012 to 2015, on the Science Channel, Les Stroud continued producing Survivorman episodes; and then in 2018 Les Stroud produced two specials and nine episodes of Survivorman Bigfoot.

In episode one of the latter show, Les Stroud traveled to the mountains of Alberta, Canada, looking for signs of Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Skookum, a Skunk Ape or Gigantopithecus, as the creature is variously known. Certainly skeptical regarding the existence of such a huge beast, Stroud said, “I need to see one.” In many of the episodes, various Bigfoot enthusiasts and researchers helped Stroud along the way, providing advice, expertise and/or thrilling anecdotal accounts.

In 2016, Les Stroud produced four episodes of Survivorman and Son,in which Stroud and his teenage son, Logan, were dropped into various wilderness locations throughout the world—British Columbia, Wabakimi, Ecuador and Mongolia. And beginning in 2023 Stroud has been featured on the PBS show Wild Harvest.