Author Spotlight: Kevin Estela
We recently got the opportunity to chat with prolific outdoor writer and educator Kevin Estela. Kevin's knowledge base and instruction pedigree is truly impressive, and he's trained students all over the country across a broad range of survival, bushcraft, and self-reliance topics. If you have frequented Georgia Bushcraft events, you may have seen him or even taken a class with Kevin. Be sure to check out his best-selling 101 Skills You Need to Survive in the Woods and his new book, Beyond the Field, available next week in digital and print form.
GABC: Can you give us a quick introduction?
KE: My name is Kevin Estela and I've been an educator for most of my adult life. I started teaching swimming lessons, then canoeing and kayaking, before starting two separate careers simultaneously in 2006. I became a certified high school history teacher of 14 years and a survival instructor first with the Wilderness Learning Center as lead survival instructor under Marty Simon, then my first company, Estela Wilderness Education, later Fieldcraft Survival, and now my current company, Kevin Estela, LLC. While working as an educator, I also became a prolific magazine article author of over 200 articles in print and a few hundred more digitally. I am the best-selling author of 101 Skills You Need to Survive in the Woods and now Beyond the Field. It's hard to believe I'm not far away from celebrating two decades of outdoor education. It has been a wild ride that has let me podcast, travel the world, test products, and spend so much time in the wilderness.
GABC: What is the main focus of this book versus your previous book?
KE: Beyond the Field is a true field manual for those who have a decent baseline of understanding and experience outdoors and who want to do more. Think of it as a guide to taking a newcomer who has read a basic or beginner survival book and now wants to add more to their repertoire. So many students have asked me after basic survival classes, "What's the next step from here?" and I usually tell them to pick up hunting, fishing, canoeing, backpacking, outdoor camp kitchen cooking, winter camp, and so on. Well, that is what this book includes and more. Another question I hear frequently is, "Do you think I'm ready for an advanced class?" To that, I usually ask students if they feel comfortable teaching the basics to someone. The final chapter is all about sharing the skills and learning how to with proven techniques and strategies. Compared to 101 Skills, this book is a logical follow up but it is also a great standalone guide to many topics like marksmanship, camp hygiene, off-road driving, and more. Overall, the focus of the book is to give the reader a guide to become a better version of themself.
GABC: What is one misconception about survival and or bushcraft you hope this book clears up?
KE: It drives me crazy when people not into bushcraft or survival training think the only time to use these skills is in an emergency. Life is so much better with an appreciation of nature and I want to give people the inspiration to go out there and do more. You don't need to be a super athlete to do what I advocate and demonstrate in this book. Athleticism does help but equally important is willingness. Once you commit to training, you realize bushcraft and survival skills become part of your daily life instead of on demand in emergencies. Once you get outdoors and learn to relax, you begin to game how you can spend more time outdoors…how you can go further afield.
GABC: If someone could take away one key mindset or lesson from the book, what would you want it to be?
KE: That you never stop learning and the learning process includes teaching. I love being a student. From martial arts, to firearms training, to bushcraft and survival, I've attended the same courses I've previously completed just to see them with a different set of eyes. Training never stops. Even if you're injured or nursing a cold, you can train mentally, visually, and verbally with good training partners. You may take a liking to one instructor or school and complete the entire course catalog. Hopefully by the time you "complete" it, you realize you haven't completed your studies.
GABC: How would you define the biggest difference between bushcraft and survival?
KE: Think of an iceberg. What we can see above the surface are survival skills that are the most attractive because they have a sense of urgency and we can be lured by danger. Bushcraft is what you don't see under the surface. There is less urgency there, and it includes living skills that occur every day versus only after an emergency, which has become a survival scenario. Both bushcraft instructors and survival instructors have survival skills, but true bushcraft instructors have a much broader understanding of many more topics. The survival instructor can specialize in one focus (short-term 72 hour scenarios) and know a great deal about that topic while the bushcraft instructor may know that and much more. Both are important to your studies, and I'd recommend learning from those with different backgrounds like the primitive practitioners, military SERE types, and modern survival instructors.
GABC: What skill do you feel is the most overlooked or undervalued in terms of bushcraft/survival?
KE: Any of my students will tell you I am a navigation nerd as well as a cordage geek. Those are skill sets I love sharing, but I don't think either is the most overlooked. I'd have to say understanding how to handle food and create a camp kitchen is way up there. People know how to create traps but they may not know how to preserve food. Perhaps another overlooked skill is vehicle survival. We all want to rush to the woods, and we prepare for worst-case scenarios there, but what about on the way to the woods? Statistically, we're more likely to get into a car accident in our lifetime than a wilderness survival scenario. Most people only have basic drivers education under their belt and they could go a lifetime without taking a driving class for advanced highway driving or offroad. Just a sad reality. We should train what is possible and probable, and vehicle-related skills are high on that list.
GABC: When readers want to go beyond the book, where can they find you for in-person training?
KE: I'm traveling up and down the East Coast over the next year or so, pairing survival training with book signings. In the coming months, I'll be out in Colorado with the Survival University, teaching an emergency night out class as well as a practical bolt-action rifle course. Shortly after that, I'll be in Alaska co-hosting a resilience retreat with Brian Peters on Lake Iliamna. I'll be out in Boone, NC, at Winkler Knives to teach an introductory class on how to work with a pocket emergency kit and so much more. You know I'll be down at GA Bushcraft this fall and maybe some courses before then.
The best way to reach me is by email kevinestelaLLC@gmail.com and follow me on my website www.kevinestela.com or social media (Instagram and X) @Estelawilded. I always respond to messages and I'm always here for my students.