[mks_dropcap style=”rounded” size=”52″ bg_color=”#168710″ txt_color=”#000000″]E[/mks_dropcap]very traveler is, in his or her heart, seeking adventure. While some prefer to get on a flight and only run the greatest risk of getting lost, meeting rude locals, or eating cuisine that doesn’t agree with them, others are interested in encounters that are way more intense. These voyagers with a madcap only truly feel alive when there’s a high chance of serious injury (or even death).

Sure, it takes tons of experience, planning, and training for every conceivable challenge in order to become one of these daring adventurers (and even then it’s still dangerous), but even the most milquetoast tourist can safely dip their toes into the insane survival travel waters. Here are five getaways where you’ll learn to survive and even enjoy enduring the extreme.

Live Like a Castaway

Nothing epitomizes survival like living on a deserted island like Robinson Crusoe or Tom Hanks in “Castaway”. Thankfully, you don’t have to endure the heartache of actually being cast away or the mental torture of making friends with a volleyball. Docastaway is a company that specializes in finding tropical islands for its customers to stay on for isolated vacations. Packages range from a comfortable stay with modern luxuries (with hotel-like housing and staff) to simply dropping guests off on an island alone with basic survival gear.

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Learn to Survive Using Primitive Technology

Would you be able to survive without modern technology? If you sign up for a course at Arizona-based Ancient Pathways, the answer would be yes. Founded by survival expert Tony Nester, who’s instructed or consulted everyone from Backpacker magazine to Army Special Operations, the company specializes in desert survival and primitive technology, and offers loads of courses for a variety of rates.

Take the Arctic Survival Challenge

When most people hear “wilderness survival”, they think of withstanding the elements in the desert or a thick forest. Truth be told, the most intimidating environment is probably the Arctic. Freezing temperatures, barren snow-covered ground, and biting winds make for an indomitable setting. Over the course of 8 days and 7 nights in January, Intrepid Expeditions will teach you how to survive in Northern Sweden, just inside the Arctic Circle. The company’s famous Arctic Survival Challenge features training lectures, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, dog sledding, and even a few nights sleeping in a shelter that guests build for themselves out of snow.  

Master Jungle Survival in the Amazon

Is there really any place on Earth that feels quite as threatening as the Amazon? Its rich ecosystem is both daunting and mysterious. Sure, it may look like paradise on earth, but it’s also home to piranhas. However, with Bushmasters’ two week jungle survival course, which takes places in the middle of the rainforest, you can learn from local Amerindian guides how to survive with nothing more than a machete. The course ends with you, on your own, putting those new skills to use.

Train Like an Operative

Not all survival is done in the great outdoors. Sometimes the most serious danger can be in society, among other people. That’s why the training at Covert Opps Adventures can be so useful…and give you major bragging rights. The two-day course take places at the ALTAIR Regional Training Facility in Florida, where actual members of law enforcement and the military train, and is overseen by Israeli counter-terrorism vet Garret Machine. Guests learn to fight hand-to-hand, shoot handguns (even from a vehicle), engage in combat in close quarters, deal with an active shooter, rescue hostages, fend off an ambush, and more, while using both live fire (shooting with actual bullets) and color marking rounds (like paintball).

What travel experiences have gotten your adrenaline pumping? Let us know in the comments section below.