Craig Caudill

Craig Caudill is the Chief Instructor at Nature Reliance School and the in-house Survival Instructor for Dan’s Depot, both of which are headquartered in Central Kentucky. Craig was blessed to grow up with parents that enjoyed the outdoors. He spent his childhood years exploring creeks, and woods at his home and at the family farm. He spent many weekends with his dad and other friends, sleeping in tipis and lean tos in reenactment events as well as caves and other wild places. He also spent a great deal of time hunting and fishing, and was taught very important “woods ethics” by his dad.

At an early age he challenged himself with two distinct “woods sabbaticals” in which he walked into the wilderness with very minimal supplies (a knife) and stayed for nearly 30 days each. These two experiences left him understanding the limits to his knowledge of bushcraft and wilderness living. It was those two experiences that have led him to the last two decades of practicing and honing practical wilderness skills alongside, primitive skills (i.e. Native American and other aboriginal culture skills)

Besides his own regular, dedicated lifestyle of training he has also trained with notable instructors including, Richard Cleveland of Earth School, Tom Laskowski of The Mid-West Native Skills Institute, Rob Speiden of Nature Awareness Tracking School, and Dave Canterbury of the Pathfinder School and co-host of Dual Survival on the Discovery Channel, and Jon Moore of Primitivarts.org.

Mr. Caudill is also an accomplished author and has written a weekly column for his local newspaper, The Winchester Sun. He is a featured blogger for How to Survive Stuff and has guest blogged for over 30 outdoor/survival related blog sites. He has been featured on Kentucky Education Television for the show Kentucky Life with host Dave Shuffett. He has also written or been featured in several magazines including Self-Reliance Illustrated, Kentucky Afield, Wilderness Way, Backwoodsman and Kentucky Monthly. He is regularly interviewed for his survival knowledge on outdoor/survival related radio shows and podcasts.

He loves teaching both adults and youth, especially to those who are new to outdoor experiences.