Texas Survival School: A Testimonial

At the end of January 2023, I drove up to Allen, TX and spent the weekend learning some basic survival skills from Texas Survival School.

Bottom line up front: If you are interested in doing a hands-on, basic survival course and live in TX (or are able/willing to come to TX for a weekend), I highly recommend the Texas Survival School. https://www.texassurvivalschool.com/

I didn’t really know what to expect going out there; I know what the website said we were gonna do, but I went just hoping to learn new things and work on my ability to build fires because I would suck as a caveman; I’d be the designated forager. I’d taken a survival skills class years ago through REI, but it wasn’t as hands-on as I would have liked, and only lasted a few hours, so I was eager to see what TSS would do differently.

It was a fairly large class, which was kind of a surprise because the weather was pretty bad. I’m actually glad it was cold and wet, though, because it sort of puts you in a survival mindset. Never are you in survival mode when it’s sunny and 75 (I mean, unless you’re being chased by a guy wearing a mask, flailing around a chainsaw; that could happen…but also not quite the same survival I’m trying to prepare for). And it was good practice to build a fire in damp conditions.

The instructors (Ray, Cintronn, and Eric) were great; they were very approachable. I wasn’t intimidated at all. Two of the three were ex-military; one was an Army Ranger and the other was retired from the Navy. The location wasn’t as primitive as I was hoping. It was at Lake Lavon outside of Allen, TX. (To get there, I was driving past the kinds of houses fancy Dallas people live in. Not my world, in other words.) But, they told us the location was intentional because some people who take that class have never been camping before, so it was intended to ease them into the life, and not scare them off, which makes sense to me. They told us that the rest of the classes get progressively more primitive.

It was a very family friendly environment; they allow you to bring your under-18 kid for free so he or she can learn, as well. They also allow you to retake the class as many times as you want, at no extra cost. They do that because there’s so much material covered in such a short amount of time, it can be difficult to really take it all in.

But, yes; highly recommend it. I’ll be out there again this weekend to get WFA/CPR certified. And! I’ll be taking the Intermediate Survival class at the end of this month and I cannot wait to practice what I learned in the first class, and also learn more new stuff.

Here’s a highlight reel from the class that I took: