The Colombian jungle looked brutal on television, but the edit only showed part of the story.
The viewer sees the big moments: the heat, the insects, the lack of food, the struggle to build shelter, and the push to make it to extraction.
What the viewer does not fully feel is the slow grind between those moments.
The long hours.
The hunger.
The damp.
The insects.
The poor sleep.
The boredom.
The constant effort it takes to keep your head straight when your body is tired and your energy is dropping.
Steven Kelly, also known as Survival Ste, is a British TV survivalist, former 29 Commando Regiment soldier, survival instructor, podcast host, and founder of South West Survival.
My Naked and Afraid challenge was Season 17, Episode 5, “Runaway Bride”, filmed in the Colombian tropics. I was paired with Megan “Sunny” Forsythe, and together we faced a 21-day survival challenge in a harsh, mosquito-filled jungle environment.
You can view the episode listing here:
IMDb: Naked and Afraid Season 17 Episode 5 — Runaway Bride
This is my honest breakdown of what it was really like.
Before you read the full breakdown, watch the video here:
Watch: Surviving the Colombian Jungle on Naked and Afraid
This became one of my strongest-performing YouTube videos because people clearly want to know what survival TV does not fully show: the pressure, the discomfort, the decision-making, and the reality behind the edit.
The jungle is not difficult because of one single thing.
It is difficult because everything stacks up.
Heat, humidity, biting insects, wet ground, limited food, poor sleep, energy loss, and constant discomfort all start working against you at the same time.
In a normal outdoor situation, you have options. You can eat. You can change clothes. You can dry kit. You can go home. You can stop the exercise.
On Naked and Afraid, you do not have that safety net in the same way.
You are exposed. You are hungry. You are managing risk with very limited resources. Every decision has a cost.
That is where survival stops being about looking tough and starts being about priorities.
You have to ask yourself:
That is the real game.
Television has to tell a story. That means days of discomfort get compressed into scenes.
But real survival is not constant action.
A lot of it is sitting, waiting, thinking, conserving energy, managing morale, and trying not to let your head turn against you.
There are long stretches where nothing dramatic happens.
You are not catching food.
You are not building something exciting.
You are not having a big TV moment.
You are simply enduring.
That is where people get tested.
Not in the dramatic scenes.
In the quiet ones.
In the jungle, shelter is not about building something that looks good on camera.
Shelter has a job.
It has to reduce exposure, improve rest, manage water, keep you off the worst of the ground, and give you a base where you can recover enough to function the next day.
The priorities were simple:
That last point matters.
A lot of beginners try to build the perfect shelter straight away. In a survival situation, that can be a mistake.
You need something functional first.
Then you improve it.
In Colombia, the shelter problem was not about building a fancy bushcraft structure. It was about managing constant discomfort in a wet, humid environment while trying to protect our rest and energy.
In a wet, humid environment, shelter is never really “finished”. It is something you constantly adjust because the weather, insects, ground conditions, and your energy levels keep changing.
The lesson is simple:
Shelter is not a bushcraft display. It is a recovery system.
If your shelter does not help you sleep, reduce exposure, and protect your energy, it is not doing its job.
Fire is one of the biggest morale tools in survival.
It gives you warmth, comfort, light, water-boiling ability, cooking potential, insect smoke, and a sense of control.
But in a humid jungle environment, fire is not straightforward.
Everything wants to be damp. Tinder is harder to manage. Fuel quality matters. Fire maintenance becomes a discipline, not a one-time win.
The mistake people make is thinking fire lighting is the hard part.
Often, keeping it useful is the harder job.
You have to think about:
In Colombia, even material that looked usable could still be holding moisture because of the humidity. That meant fire management had to be treated like a daily job, not a single achievement.
A fire in that environment is not just a skill.
It is a system.
You either manage it properly, or you lose the advantage it gives you.
The insects were not just annoying.
They were constant pressure.
Bites affect sleep. Poor sleep affects patience. Low patience affects communication. Bad communication affects the partnership. Then small problems get bigger.
That is how survival problems stack.
Insects are not just a physical issue. They become a morale issue.
The episode was set in mosquito-heavy Colombian tropics, and that kind of pressure wears you down because it does not stop when the cameras stop rolling.
Smoke can help in some situations. Shelter placement can help. Avoiding the worst ground and stagnant areas can help. But the truth is, in that environment, there is no perfect fix.
You manage it.
You do not remove it.
That is an important survival lesson. Some problems do not disappear. You just reduce the damage they do to your body and your head.
People always ask about food, fire, shelter, and insects.
Those matter.
But mindset holds everything together.
When you are hungry and tired, your decision-making starts to drop. You become slower. You become more irritable. Small problems feel bigger. Comfort starts calling. Quitting starts making sense.
That is where my military background helped.
After 23 years in the British Army, including service with 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, I was used to discomfort, pressure, fatigue, and having to function without ideal conditions.
But Naked and Afraid was still different.
In the Army, you normally have a mission, a team structure, equipment, planning, and a clear command system.
On Naked and Afraid, the mission is stripped right back:
Stay in the fight.
Manage your energy.
Protect morale.
Do not make stupid decisions.
Last the days.
That sounds simple until you are hungry, bitten, damp, exhausted, and bored.
One thing I do not take lightly from my Naked and Afraid challenge is the partner I was given.
I was lucky to have Sunny beside me in the Colombian jungle.
In a challenge like that, your partner can make or break the experience. It is not just about survival skills. It is about attitude, communication, patience, humour, trust, and the ability to keep moving forward when everything feels uncomfortable.
A bad partnership can destroy morale quickly.
A strong partnership gives you something to hold onto.
Sunny brought that.
She had grit, heart, and a strong mindset. We were both going through the same hunger, insects, long days, poor sleep, and pressure. Having someone there who understood the struggle made a massive difference.
The edit shows moments, but it cannot fully show the trust that builds when two people are trying to survive together with very little comfort and no easy escape.
For me, Sunny was not just someone I was paired with for a TV challenge.
She became a proper friend through shared hardship.
That kind of experience bonds people in a way that is hard to explain unless you have lived it. You see each other tired, hungry, frustrated, vulnerable, and still trying to push forward.
There is no pretending out there.
The jungle strips everything back.
I came away from that challenge grateful that Sunny was my partner.
We went through something difficult together, and because of that, we are now friends for life.
Hunger on survival TV is not like missing lunch.
It changes the way you think.
You become slower. You become more focused on calories. You start measuring tasks by whether they are worth the energy.
That is where survival becomes tactical.
You cannot just do things because they look impressive.
You have to ask:
That is one of the biggest lessons from the challenge.
Survival is not just knowing skills.
It is knowing when to use them.
Small wins matter more than people realise.
A better night’s sleep.
A working fire.
A shelter improvement.
A bit of food.
A better water routine.
A moment of humour.
A short conversation that lifts morale.
In a survival situation, those things are not small. They keep the wheels turning.
When everything is uncomfortable, morale becomes a resource.
You have to protect it.
That is why attitude matters so much. You can have all the survival knowledge in the world, but if your mindset collapses, your skills become harder to access.
A lot of people watch from the sofa and think they would handle it easily.
Most would not.
That is not an insult. It is reality.
Survival TV removes comfort, privacy, routine, food security, clothing, sleep quality, and control.
Those things are easy to underestimate when you have never lost them all at once.
The challenge is not just surviving the environment.
It is surviving yourself in that environment.
That is the bit people often miss.
If your shelter does not help you rest, it is not good enough.
A shelter should reduce exposure, improve sleep, and protect energy. If it only looks good, it is not doing the job.
Fire gives more than heat.
It gives focus, comfort, control, water-boiling ability, cooking potential, and psychological strength.
Every task has a cost.
Spend energy badly and you pay for it later.
They attack sleep, patience, and morale.
The bite is only part of the problem. The real damage is what constant irritation does to your head.
Having Sunny as my partner made a real difference.
A good partner does not remove the hardship, but they help you carry it.
Survival is not about looking hard.
It is about making good decisions.
Training gives you tools.
It does not remove discomfort.
You still have to live every hour of the challenge.
Yes.
Any honest survivalist should be able to look back and see things they could have done better.
That is how you improve.
I would always reassess:
The point is not to pretend you were perfect.
The point is to learn.
That is why I talk about these challenges now. Not to make survival look glamorous, but to show what pressure actually does to people.
This video became one of my strongest-performing YouTube videos because it sits right in the centre of my brand:
Real survival experience.
Survival TV insight.
Military mindset.
Practical lessons.
No fake outdoor fantasy.
That is what I care about.
Showing people what survival really looks like once comfort disappears.
Surviving the Colombian jungle on Naked and Afraid was not just a physical test.
It was a test of patience, hunger, discomfort, communication, decision-making, and mindset.
The TV episode showed the challenge, but there is always more behind the edit.
It did not fully show the long empty hours, the mental grind, or the full value of having the right partner beside you.
I was lucky to have Sunny with me.
We shared something difficult, and that creates a bond that lasts.
That is why I keep breaking these experiences down — because survival is not about pretending to be tough.
It is about staying useful when things are going wrong.
And that lesson applies far beyond the jungle.
Watch my full breakdown here:
Surviving the Colombian Jungle on Naked and Afraid
If you want to learn practical survival, bushcraft, fire lighting, navigation, shelter building, outdoor confidence, and military-inspired fieldcraft, train with me through South West Survival in Devon.
Book survival training here:
South West Survival Courses
You can also watch and listen to more real survival breakdowns through The Survival Debrief Podcast, where I speak with survivalists, adventurers, TV personalities, military people, and outdoor experts.
Podcast links:
Follow Steven Kelly:
Steven Kelly appeared on Naked and Afraid Season 17, Episode 5, titled “Runaway Bride.”
Episode listing:
IMDb: Naked and Afraid — Runaway Bride
Steven Kelly’s partner was Megan “Sunny” Forsythe, known as Sunny on the challenge.
The challenge was filmed in the Colombian tropics.
The standard Naked and Afraid challenge is 21 days. My Colombian jungle challenge was a 21-day survival attempt.
The hardest part was the combination of hunger, insects, poor sleep, humidity, low energy, and mental pressure.
No single thing breaks you. It is the way everything stacks together.
The edit cannot fully show the long empty hours, boredom, morale dips, small frustrations, constant discomfort, and mental grind between the big TV moments.
Shelter, fire, water management, energy conservation, teamwork, and mindset all mattered.
In survival, knowing skills is not enough. You need to know when to use them and when to save energy.
Yes. Sunny and I went through a difficult survival challenge together, and we became friends for life after the experience.
