Stafford's expedition began with a friend, Luke Collyer, on 2 April 2008, on the southern coast of Peru.
Collyer left after three months, and Stafford completed the journey with his guide, Gadiel “Cho” Sánchez Rivera.
[10] He was also held up both at gunpoint and by bow and arrow, and arrested for both drug smuggling and murder – the latter occurring when he coincidentally arrived in an isolated settlement the same day as a community member had gone missing.
[13] Stafford's accomplishment of walking the Amazon river has been described by Sir Ranulph Fiennes as being "truly extraordinary...in the top league of expeditions past and present".
[19] The series Ed Stafford: Left For Dead, another survival show, premiered in the autumn of 2017.
[20][21] A survival show Ed Stafford: First Man Out with a competition format began production in 2018,[22] and premiered in early 2019.
In the show, Stafford meets one other survival expert each week in a different part of the world where each competes to complete a difficult trek with minimal provisions.
[24] After his Amazon expedition Stafford began a search for his biological parents, whom he managed to track with the help of his sister, Janie.
In August 2009 Stafford started writing a biweekly blog for the Prince's Rainforests Project.