Every Alone Season Ranked, From Good to Untouchable

Ranking Alone seasons is subjective, but it doesn't have to be lazy. I'm scoring the twelve completed US seasons on three things: how far the survival bar got pushed (winner days plus the field's average), how close the finish was, and whether the season delivered a moment or setting that changed how the show is remembered. Season 13 is still airing, so it sits out. Here's the full field first, then the tiers.

Rank	Season	Location	Winner	Winner days
1	S6 Arctic	Great Slave Lake, NWT	Jordan Jonas	77
2	S3 Patagonia	Patagonia, Argentina	Zachary Fowler	87
3	S7 Million Dollar	Great Slave Lake, NWT	Roland Welker	100
4	S11 Arctic Circle	Mackenzie Delta, NWT	William Larkham Jr.	84
5	S9 Labrador	Northern Labrador	Juan Pablo Quiñonez	78
6	S8 Grizzly Mountain	Chilko Lake, BC	Clay Hayes	74
7	S5 Redemption	Selenge, Mongolia	Sam Larson	60
8	S1	Vancouver Island, BC	Alan Kay	56
9	S10 Saskatchewan	Reindeer Lake, SK	Alan Tenta	66
10	S4 Lost & Found	Vancouver Island, BC	Jim & Ted Baird	75
11	S2	Vancouver Island, BC	David McIntyre	66
12	S12 Africa	Great Karoo, South Africa	Nathan Olsen	34

The untouchable tier

Season 6 is the one everything else is measured against. Around day 20, Jordan Jonas killed a bull moose, the first big-game kill in franchise history, and turned a starvation contest into a stocked-larder win at 77 days. The field averaged 45 days, one of the deepest fields the show has ever run. It has the signature moment and the survival depth at once, so it takes the top spot.

Season 3 is right behind it on the numbers alone. Zachary Fowler's 87 days is one of the longest US winning runs on record, and he beat runner-up Carleigh Fairchild by a single day (87 to 86), the tightest finish the US show has ever produced. Patagonia also gave the franchise its first non-Canadian setting.

The high tier

Season 7 belongs here for the milestone: the format switched to a fixed 100-day threshold for a $1,000,000 prize, and Roland Welker was the only contestant to reach it. It's the one time the show changed its own rules and the number still landed. Season 11 pushed 84 winning days above the Arctic Circle and produced its own one-day margin (84 to 83). Season 9 in Labrador ran a 78-day winner three days clear of Karie Lee Knoke, both of them starving through the finish.

The solid middle and the floor

Seasons 8, 5, 1, and 10 are all good television without a defining hook. Season 8 had another one-day finish (74 to 73); Season 5 was Sam Larson's redemption win after placing second in Season 1; Season 1 is where the whole format's DNA was set. The team format of Season 4 and the early-installment roughness of Season 2 land lower.

Season 12 in the Great Karoo sits at the bottom, and the data explains why: the field averaged just 16 days and Nathan Olsen won at 34, the lowest winning total of any completed season. A semi-arid desert punished the usual water-and-forage playbook, and the whole cast collapsed fast. It's a fascinating outlier, just not a deep watch.

For a beginner-friendly path through the catalog, see the best seasons for first-time viewers, and for the raw numbers behind these placements, the records of Alone and the winners hub have the full breakdown.