“I love watching Naked and Afraid, but I know most people never experience that kind of solitude. He got it and he understood the gift of that silence.”

When Ezri Mayeri first heard about Back to Earth, he wasn’t interested.

“I kind of said yes just to get my mom off my back,” he laughs. “She saw a flyer for this wilderness program and thought it would be good for me. But I was reluctant."

At 14, Ezri was more at home in front of a screen than under the stars. He’d never backpacked, never carried a heavy pack, never slept outside for a week. “I was this scrawny teenage boy - nervous, intimidated. I remember thinking, do I even belong here?”