Scott B. Williams

Some of his favorite adventures include:

Over a year of solo sea kayaking on a journey
from the west coast of Florida to the British
Virgin Islands, in the West Indies, by way of
The Bahamas, The Turks and Caicos, The
Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.
Virgin Islands....

A 2600-mile solo sea kayaking trip from the
lakes of northern Minnesota to Vicksburg,
Mississippi, by way of the old fur-trade route to
Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, then upstream to the
headwaters of the Red River of the North,
overland to the headwaters of the Minnesota,
then down the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers....

Two extended jungle trips in Central America,
with fellow adventurer and writer, Ernest
Herndon, paddling the Rio Coco on the border
of Nicaragua and Honduras, and descending the
Patuca River from its upper reaches to the
Caribbean coast at Brus Laguna....

Numerous extended road trips out West to explore the
big wilderness areas of the Rockies, deserts and high
plains in a series of backpacking trips ranging from northern
Montana and Idaho to southern Arizona and New Mexico....

Buying an old 26-foot cruising sailboat and over
time converting it into a capable voyager, living
aboard at various times and sailing across the
Gulf to the east coast of Florida by way of the
Keys. He christened the boat Intensity, a name that
describes his lifestyle and cruising on a sailboat in
general....

But Intensity was destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina,
prompting him to begin construction on a new cruising boat:
a James Wharram-designed Tiki 26 catamaran. The Tiki 26 will be used
to return to the Bahamas and to explore the Central American
coast of the Western Caribbean.

Scott B. Williams has spent most of his adult life exploring a broad range of personal interests
on a never-ending quest to learn and experience new things. As a traveler who thrives on
adventure, he has always sought challenges and pursued his passions to the fullest.

A native of Prentiss, Mississippi, Scott B. Williams graduated from Pearl River Junior College
with an Associates in Applied Science degree in electronics technology and attended the
University of Southern Mississippi for three years, completing a diverse range of courses in life
sciences, English, technical writing, creative writing, math, business, and psychology.
In his early twenties, Williams worked as an electronics technician in a manufacturing and
testing environment, assisting a team of engineers in developing a robotic production line and
personally writing the operator's manual for the finished automatic test equipment. He has also
worked in the field as a service technician in radio communications and computer hardware.

Williams was a devoted martial arts enthusiast in his teens and early twenties, before his main
interest switched to the outdoors and adventure travel. He first studied Shorin-ryu for three
years and then switched to American Kenpo Karate. He went on to become a black belt
instructor in Ed Parker’s International Kenpo Karate Association and for a while managed
three Kenpo studios.

At the age of twenty-five, after discovering the freedom of sea kayaking and taking several
multi-day kayak trips to various barrier islands along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, Williams
decided to embark on a trip of lifetime to see how far south he could go in a 17-foot sea
kayak. This trip stretched over a period of many months from the fall of 1988 to the spring of
1990. In the summer of 1990, after returning to Mississippi, he began his 2,600-mile kayak trip
into Canada and through the heartland of America from Crane Lake, Minnesota to Vicksburg,
Mississippi.

Returning from these two extended journeys traveling for months at a time he found he had no
desire to re-enter the business world and resume work as an electronics technician. His
preference for more creative pursuits led him away from technology as he explored
a passion for working with wood, and for many years he was self-employed as a residential
carpentry contractor, building cabinets, custom decks, and taking on general remodeling
projects. His interest in sea kayaking and sailing led him to learn the craft of fine wooden boat
building, and he built several boats for his own use and for paying customers, ranging from
canoes and kayaks to a sailing catamaran. He later lived in Palm Beach, Florida, where he
worked with a master boat carpenter specializing in installing custom teak decks and building
yacht interiors. Upon returning to Mississippi he began his own business under the name
Teaksmith Marine Carpentry, and worked on yachts from the Mississippi Gulf coast to
southeast Alaska until Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the business on the Gulf coast.

Williams has always enjoyed writing and began publishing magazine articles about his sea
kayaking adventures in 1990. He began his first book, Exploring Coastal Mississippi, for
University Press of Mississippi in 2001 and soon after secured contracts for two additional
books from that same publisher. Drawing on his broad range of experience and varied interests,
he later expanded his writing pursuits to include blogging, web content writing and web site
design. He has written articles on a regular basis for several online publications and has been a
columnist for South Mississippi Outdoors and Recreation, a publication of the Sun Herald
newspaper. His articles have been published in such magazines as Sea Kayaker, SAIL, Cruising
World, Southwinds and Multihulls.

In 2009 he began writing began writing books again – this time under contract with Ulysses
Press, in Berkeley, California. Beginning with Bug Out: The Complete Plan for Escaping a
Catastrophic Disaster Before it’s Too Late, which has been a bestseller since its release in June,
2010, Williams has drawn on his extensive knowledge of survival to create a series of books on
this popular subject. A second book, Getting Out Alive: 13 Deadly Scenarios and How Others
Survived, was published by Ulysses Press in March, 2011. Williams then completed a follow up
to Bug Out, entitled: Bug Out Vehicles and Shelters, which was released in October, 2011. He is
currently working on his first novel under contract with Ulysses Press, and will be writing
additional related non-fiction books, including a third title in the Bug Out series.

Scott B. Williams

Scott B. Williams is a sea kayaker, sailor, boatbuilder, writer and photographer with
a passion for exploring and adventure.