Story
My Challenge: Desert Island Survival Expedition in Panama
I’m taking on a wild, life-changing expedition to Panama with Desert Island Survival to push my limits, learn real survival skills — and use the journey to give back along the way. I’ll be travelling off the beaten path, facing challenges, and showing that travel can be more than just seeing new places: it can be a force for good.
What I’ll Be Doing
On 26 February 2026, I’ll join a small team on an uninhabited island off Panama’s coast, learning to live with only what nature provides — building shelter, finding water, catching food, and facing heat, storms, insects and isolation.
For the first five days we’ll train side-by-side: learning bushcraft, constructing shelters from palm leaves, starting fire without matches, catching fish, foraging for food, and collecting fresh water. We’ll sleep in hammocks, cook over open flames, and prepare our minds and bodies for what comes next.
Then the boat leaves. No guides. No phones. No contact with the outside world. Just our tribe, the skills we’ve learned, and the wild — three full days of total isolation where we must find water, hunt and fish, and work together to stay alive.
Help Us Make a Difference
💛 Be the Reason a Child Smiles Again
This expedition is entirely self-funded, which means every penny you donate goes directly to SOS Children’s Villages — where it transforms lives.
Across Panama and over 130 countries, SOS Children’s Villages creates loving, family-like homes for vulnerable children who have lost parental care or are at risk of losing it. These are not just shelters — they are sanctuaries of hope, where children receive education, healthcare, emotional support, and most importantly, a sense of belonging.
Your donation helps break the cycle of abandonment and trauma. It gives a child the chance to heal, grow, and dream again. It means a child who once felt invisible now feels seen, safe, and loved.
In 2023 alone, SOS reached nearly 3 million people worldwide — supporting families to stay together, responding to emergencies, and helping young people build independent, empowered futures.
As one child from the programme said:
SOS Children’s Villages showed me that, with all I had gone through, life was not all about harshness. I had a smile. They understood me. And now, I can be free.