VERMONT Magazine Fall 2022 | Page 11

first . “ When they first reached out to me , I thought it was a joke . I brushed it off until they reached out a few more times . I thought , ‘ What do I have to lose ?’”
The first season of Naked and Afraid that Cumings participated in aired in 2017 . It was filmed in the mountains of Colombia in 2015 , where she was immersed in the wilderness for 21 days . “ I was way out there ,” says Cumings . “ We had to take motorcycles and ride on horseback to get where we were going , because there was no other way to get in there .” Cumings adds that although the experience was certainly challenging , she also enjoyed her time out in nature . “ Being off the grid in the middle of nowhere without having to worry about bills was the best thing about it . It was difficult , though , because you have nothing but time to think about everything . Still , it put a lot of things in perspective for me . Things that used to stress me out don ’ t really bother me anymore .”
Two years after the taping of her initial Naked and Afraid adventure , Cumings was able to combine her knifemaking business with her reality television career when she participated in her first Naked and Afraid XL challenge in 2017 . “ I got to bring a bow and arrow that I used for hunting and a survival knife that I made myself ,” says Cumings .
Photo credit : Ryan Bent Photography
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