Ben travels to a remote island to live with a former Sydney businessman.
Ben Fogle joins a family in a mountainside yurt in Alaska.
Ben travels to New Zealand, to meet the family of Robert and Catherine Long, hunter-gathering in Gorge River.
Ben heads to a remote part of Texas to visit an ex-city slicker.
In this opening episode, Ben journeys to the swamplands of south Georgia in the USA, to live with 64-year-old Colbert, a former city fat cat earning big bucks in the world of high finance, who has turned Tarzan. Colbert now lives in his hand-built wooden cabin, totally off the grid and with no toilet – a far cry from the luxurious pad he used to own. From Colbert, Ben learns some of the vital skills needed to survive in this dangerous backwater, including skinning road-kill, spearing frogs, drinking swamp water and building a human nest. He also discovers that his host is a sex guru! Facing the dangers of living in the wild, humidity and mosquitoes, Ben embraces what it is like to truly live alone in one of the biggest swamps in North America.
Ben journeys to the foothills of the Indian Himalayas to live with former fighter pilot, 69- year-old Steve Lall. Steve turned his back on high society, instead opting for a simple farmer’s life in the mountains. He has fought for decades to protect his tiny private wilderness. Ben joins this mountain-dwelling renegade and his family in their remote, isolated home, a steep 2km climb from the nearest road. He gets hands-on with their harsh subsistence lifestyle, from ploughing with buffalo, chasing monkeys and human intruders, to the more surreal grave digging and naked meditation. Ben discovers that the hardships of this remote location are also the key to its beauty.
Documentary series in which adventurer Ben Fogle meets people who have given up the rat race to start a new life in the wilderness. Ben journeys to one of the 7,000 remote tropical islands in the Philippines to live with 'Jungle Neil' Hoag, a 45-year-old former cabbie from Florida who struggled to make a living before finding the love of his life on the other side of the world and becoming a coconut farmer.
Ben journeys to Central America to live with Ian Usher, a 49-year-old British former dump-truck driver who sold 'his life' on eBay and bought a tiny island off the coast of Panama for £30,000.
For the first time on New Lives in the Wild, Ben heads to Africa and the deep desert sand dunes of Namibia. He lives with 50-year-old Gideon David and his young family in the largest conservation area on the continent. Gideon is a master bushman who quit a city career in life insurance for the dry and dusty desert. Ben embraces the harsh and relentless work of farm life in temperatures pushing 40 degrees. He tends over 150 animals, repairs baboon damage to water pipes and even learns how to castrate sheep with his teeth! Ben also witnesses the reality of life when one has to think about raising children in these conditions, from hand-washing nappies to learning vital desert survival skills and hunting and eating oryx.
Ben is no stranger to remote parts, but this trip to Alaska will test him to the limit. His only access to his hostsʼ home is via bush plane. If he were to walk, the journey would take ten days and would take him right through grizzly bear country. Ben joins married couple Mike and Fran Turner, who welcome him into their simple, self-built log cabin. He discovers how they have created a self-sufficient lifestyle by working the land and trapping the animals around them. Despite battling against forest fires in the summer and freezing conditions in the winter, the family very rarely venture back into civilisation. Ben takes every opportunity to get stuck into forest survival, battling mosquitoes and learning to cope with 24-hour daylight. The new river season is beginning and there is heavy labour involved. Deep in the woods, he chops trees, learns about trapping and deadly forest fires, feeds fish guts to the plants and even eats bear.
Bill and Bob Stone are twin brothers aged 72 who fled their adrenaline-junkie pasts for a tough subsistence lifestyle hidden away in Americaʼs Wild West. In this unforgiving landscape, even with one of them recovering from a stroke, they carve out an existence and fight the challenges associated with growing old. Ben joins these canyon-dwelling renegades in their remote, isolated home, deep inside some of the worldʼs most striking and wild terrain. There he joins the boys cattle-wrangling, rock climbing and sleeping in a cave. One of the twins even persuades Ben to do a skydive. Ben also discovers more about the Stone brothers and why they decided to cut themselves off from civilisation. Once parachute instructors, police informants and bounty hunters, they are now organic farmers and doomsday preppers.
Ben journeys to the frozen north to live with 40-year-old Gaynor Leeper, a former high-flying London communications manager who gave up her old life to become an Arctic dog musher. Ben joins Gaynor and her new husband Milos in their hand-built cabin, which has neither electricity nor running water. He also meets the coupleʼs ʻfamilyʼ of 40 Alaskan huskies. The trio embark on a tough trek driving their pack of dogs through the icy wilderness. Ben learns how to sled and how to manage both himself and the animals in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees. Sleeping in tents during snowstorms and ice-fishing in order to have something to eat, Ben embraces life in one of the worldʼs harshest environments.
Ben journeys to southeast Asia to live with 31-year-old former city financier Jon Watkinson in his hand-made bamboo hut on a hidden jungle island on the Mekong river in Laos.
Ben meets a 61-year-old widow from Europe who has lived alone in an isolated camp in the Australian bush for eight years.
Ben ventures deep into the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee to live with the youngest 'wild' man he has visited to date.
Ben goes to see 47- year-old Rick, who lives on the ocean on a tiny sailing boat as a ʻsea gypsyʼ.
Ben meets a couple who along with their two teenage children have taken up a life of crofting on the island of Rum off the remote west coast of Scotland.
Ben meets Lynx Vilden a British woman who has spent more than half her years living, sleeping and hunting in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. He discovers how she has not only survived, but thrived in the harsh conditions.
Ben Fogle meets a husband and wife who gave up the city rat race to live as safari guides in an unexplored Tanzanian national park.
In 2015, South African Julia Pryke and her British husband Gareth Shone bought a derelict farmhouse in rural Hungary via the internet. Ben meets them and helps them to install a window and assist them in buying chickens at market.
Ben meets former war correspondent Julius Strauss and his Estonian wife Kristin, the former bureau chief at Reuters. They gave up successful careers as journalists in Europe for a new life as grizzly bear guides in the Selkirk Mountains.
Ben travels to Ibiza to meet a former merchant sailor.
Documentary series. Adventurer Ben Fogle meets people who have gone back to basics in remote parts of the world. Ben meets Micky and Trina Cofer, who along with their four children, left behind the comforts of America to become missionaries in the freezing tundra of Outer Mongolia. In temperatures of below minus 20, Ben builds his own ger (yurt) to sleep in, uses a freezing outhouse, attempts ice-fishing, joins a wolf-hunt and learns how to wrestle.
Documentary series. Ben Fogle meets people who have gone back to basics in remote parts of the world. Ben travels to a secret location in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, where forest dweller Tod Kershaw lives in a primitive skills community who have chosen not to live as members of modern society, but as opportunistic outsiders who scavenge other peoples' waste.
Documentary series. Ben Fogle meets people who have given up the rat race for an alternative lifestyle. Dina Zughyar and Mostafa Jabbour turned their back on the American Dream to start from scratch with a handful of rabbits and chickens on a small patch of barren land in the shadow of the Atlas Mountains. In their mud house in Morocco, the couple confess to Ben that it has been much harder than they thought...
Ben travels to an island off Australia's north-western cape to meet two people who were compelled to turn their backs on their former lifestyles after going through similar, tragic experiences.
Ben meets a couple who have made their home on a floating island they have built themselves which sits in the aptly named Freedom Cove on Canada's west coast.
Ben journeys to North Africa, to live with American widow Maryanne on the farm she's built on the edge of the Sahara. He discovers why she swapped her city abode for a simpler and tougher way of life in the Egyptian desert.
Ben travels to an island off the New Zealand coast to meet a man who gave up a career in medicine to live off-grid.
Ben Fogle meets people who have given up the rat race for an alternative lifestyle. In a remote part of Andalucia in Spain, Ben meets a couple from Brighton who gave up their careers to breed alpacas.
Ben Fogle meets people who have given up the rat race for an alternative lifestyle. In South America, Ben discovers why Mike Merrill, a former sound engineer from Texas, decided to build a backpackers hostel deep in the Guatemalan jungle. He also gets stuck into building projects, machete fishing and tubing a dangerous river to transport vital supplies, and sees how Mike interacts with the local Mayan people.
Ben travels to the Ozark Plateau in Missouri to live with a wilderness expert, Bo, who gave up life on the road with his bluegrass band to teach survival skills.
Ben travels to Cambodia to live with a fellow Brit who is raising his own castaway tribe on a tropical island. Ben sleeps in a hammock, drinks rainwater and experiences how fragile life is for this family on their tiny island.
Ben journeys to the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas, to live with master craftsman Robert, learning why this 70-year-old former medical student ditched his education for America's counterculture 20 years ago, bought 200 acres of land deep in the woods, and raised a family of six children. Ben sees how far-reaching Robert's skills are, including cabin-making techniques dating back to the 13th century, and how his family have supported him in his dream.
Ben travels to New Zealand's North Island, where he meets a young nomadic family led by Amber and Andy, who spend their life exploring the country's wild landscapes. He hears how the family's lives changed forever after one fateful day, how they swapped the stress of the city for a life on the open road, the price they paid for chasing their dream and how the horrors of the past still haunt them today
French-Canadian Julien lives in a remote Buddhist monastery in the jungle-mountains of Thailand, far off any conventional map. Ben learns how and why this former teenage student from the West stripped away all complications of a modern life for a primitive Eastern and religious existence, and how this choice affected his family.
Norway In the Arctic Circle, the explorer meets Randi, the first Norwegian woman to climb Everest ahead of his own bid to scale the world's highest mountain. He embraces the tough and basic life on her 8.5 acre island by sleeping outdoors, and collecting raw building materials. Ben also experiences sea kayaking, and witnesses the northern lights.
Ben meets a nomadic couple in Bulgaria's Rhodope Mountains.
Jeff, Rose and their daughters are adventurous off-gridders.
Judith rejected a modern way of life for one close to nature.
Ben returns to where his own personal adventures began.
Scott and Casey spent their savings on a kite-surfing school.
Former festival director Karen has set up an artists' retreat in the heart of the Sahara. The impressive project required that she learn centuries-old techniques - and the art of patience.
Ben travels to highlands of Panama to meet a couple who turned their backs on a comfortable lifestyle in the US to try their hand at coffee producing. During the busy harvest season, Ben learns the finer details of how to craft his favourite drink.
Ben meets a 30-year-old British vet who swapped her job in Newcastle to provide medical care to some of the island's three million street dogs.
Ben travels to the coastal forests of southern Sweden to meet 24-year-old single mother Annalisa, a native Italian who left everything in her home country behind when she was a teenager, and is now developing a forest hideaway on the fringes of society for her and her toddler. Ben helps her chop wood and make her home baby-proof, while Annalisa goes busking to make a small living. They also go dumpster-diving in search of rubbish that can be put to good use to counter the amount of waste thrown away.
Ben meets a Glaswegian retired teacher who relocated to the mountains of Ethiopia, and leads an active life in her new home as she approaches her 70th birthday. She has made significant contributions to the local community, including setting up a school and building a restaurant on an isolated mountain top over the course of three years.
Ben meets Jaimie, an inventor who has built a unique home for his family on a remote island off the coast of Panama. Ben gets a taste of the unconventional family's daily routine, which includes scrubbing boat hulls, getting some exercise in a pedalo, hacking through the island's vegetation, and home schooling for the children. He also discovers the unusual family dynamics in the household and takes a look at some of his host's inventions, which include a computer game depicting his unusual life.
Ben journeys to the freezing coastal waters of Iceland to live with Hakon, a former carpenter who overcame alcohol and embraced a clean, solo life in the wilderness on an private island.
Ben meets a scientist in Siberia, who gave up his urban life to work in the Russian Arctic on finding ways to reduce the impact of climate change on the permafrost. His project makes use of steam machines and monster trucks, but away from his environmental work, he is working on the idea of bringing the woolly mammoth back from extinction.
Ben meets Lucy, who left Britain to start a new life with her husband Tim on New Zealand's north island. They now live with their two daughters in a yurt beside a river in the middle of 25 acres of woodland they have transformed into a farm. Ben discovers how the forest provides the family with everything they need, getting a taste of their daily routine of chopping wood and foraging for wild foods. He also discovers how the couple are providing their children with an alternative education and the campaign of activism Lucy has embarked on from their wilderness home.
As one of the world's most in-demand sporting coaches, 43-year-old Nikola Boric once travelled the world, welcomed everywhere he went. Now, he lives in a wooden cabin without electricity, water or heating, with just some pigs and goats for company. Experiencing Nikola's new life in the woods above the village of Kokocak on the edge of Papuk Nature Park, Ben tries to understand what drove Nikola to make a sudden decision to quit everything and retire to such a forgotten corner of the world, finding a new life of purity and self-sufficiency away from mainstream society.
Ben visits an ex-photographer who lives an isolated life in the wilds of Oregon, harvesting weeds for nutrition. There, Ben experiences a Native American-inspired sweat lodge.
While we may all feel a little isolated under the current circumstances, some people really have got away from it all, setting up home in some of the most remote locations on earth. Ben Fogle returns to see how some of them have fared, starting with the Long family in New Zealand. You may remember they were two days’ walk from the nearest road, so it was very much a hunter-gatherer existence. “Bewitching, but horribly tough – like camping for ever” is how RT described it. So how have the children coped with such an isolated upbringing, and how have the parents maintained their relationship? SUMMARY Ben reunites with people he previously met in some of the most remote locations on Earth, discovering how life has changed for his hosts.
You’ll remember Colbert. He’s hard to forget. In 2014 Ben Fogle visited the eccentric 60-something who’d built his dream home (a wood cabin with no electricity and no running water) in the oppressive, mosquito-ridden swamps of Georgia, USA. Ben couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to live there. He struggled with Colbert’s basic lifestyle and his unconventional attitude (his embarrassment over their campfire chat about sex was obvious) but he obviously admired him too. He returns to learn that a few years ago Colbert’s beloved home burnt down. Undeterred, the wildman rebuilt it. “I feel overwhelmingly blessed. I’m one of the richest people in the world,” he says with a smile. SUMMARY Ben reunites with a man with a gift for craftsmanship living in the swamplands of Georgia. Ben discovers he has experienced a life-changing accident in the six years since they last met, but remains as competitive as he was on their original encounter.
A life-threatening parachuting accident was the catalyst that persuaded Jim Alston to pursue his "Robinson Crusoe" dream, while his partner Kim Nguyen also had a near-death experience in a horrific car crash. In 2017 Ben Fogle went to visit the pair on the aptly named Wilderness Island off Australia’s north-western cape, where he got a lesson in the art of mud-crabbing and the necessity for fresh water (which the island was without). Ben now returns to find Kim and Jim have now built an eco-resort and gained an extended family. "This island has served as therapy for both of them," he concludes. SUMMARY Ben reunites with a couple living off the west coast of Australia, and discovers the logistical nightmares they have overcome to make a home for themselves on a desert island, as well as enduring the extremes of the Australian climate. While they have recently had cause to celebrate, their lives are becoming increasingly difficult, which may result in them moving on.
Ben Fogle reunites with a former medical student living in the woodlands of Arkansas. Ben discovers the impact a series of injuries have had on his physically demanding wild lifestyle, including a simple lapse in concentration that nearly cost him everything. However, none of this has prevented him honing his talents as a craftsman and embracing a life surrounded by nature.
Ben Fogle is reunited with seafarer Rick, who has moved on to pastures new since their original encounter. When Rick last appeared on the series, he was living off the coast of French Polynesia, but he has since made a fresh start on the Pacific island of Fiji. In the intervening years, Rick has acquired a new boat and is now travelling alone - but remains as enthusiastic as ever about his unusual lifestyle and believes that anyone can follow in his wake and gain a newfound sense of freedom - if they have the right attitude.
Tonight it’s all wood and white water, as he returns to Canada to relive a memorable stay in bear country, with former war journalist Julius Strauss and his partner Kristin. And with such spectacular scenery, not to mention a cosy wood cabin to kip in, you can see why he fancied coming back. The big question is, will they spot any grizzlies this time? SUMMARY Ben Fogle revisits former war correspondent Julius Strauss and his wife Kristin, who live in British Columbia. Their home is in the middle of a mountainous region that is home to grizzly bears, and on his first visit, Ben was shocked to discover the impact hunting had on the animals. Years later, the couple's campaigning has helped introduce new protections, but now a new problem has arisen - wildfires during the dry summer months. They must engage in constant fire drills to be prepared in the event of a blaze.
Ben meets a Pembrokeshire family living on the side of a rugged mountain, where they catch and forage for their own food and salvage junk for homemade inventions. Ben helps them put their latest creations to the test in all weathers, and learns about the special global policy for utopian living that they have signed up to.
Ben Fogle meets a former film-maker who has made a home in the highlands of eastern Iceland, and set up a wilderness centre exploring 200 years of local history. Ben takes part in an ancient tradition where thousands of sheep that have spent the summer in the mountains are sorted, as well as bathing in a hot waterfalls, riding horses on the plateau, and smokes trout with dung.
Ben ventures off the wild coast of Northern Ireland to the tiny, remote and rugged island of Rathlin. He stays with 41-year-old Rauri Morgan, a former HR executive who turned his back on corporate life to move into an ancient family heirloom. Ben embraces modern-day foraging, ancient myths and legends, and eccentric property maintenance, and discovers that Rauri's paradise has been found in the most unlikely of places, but that there is more than meets the eye to both him and his place on the island.
Ben meets Jake Williams, a 70-year-old hermit living on the edge of a forest in the Cairngorms, who has made a home on the site of an ancient settlement and enjoys a diet of roadkill stir fry. Ben helps him with some wild gardening and gets a taste of his musical talents and mischievous sense of humour.
Ben Fogle meets an author in Co Galway on Ireland's west coast who has turned his back on both money and technology, experimenting with living using only what he can source from the land. His frugal lifestyle involves collecting water, sparse winter foraging, fishing, sheep-wrangling and writing by candle-light.
Ben revisits Amanda Owen and her family at their remote farm of Ravenseat in the Yorkshire Dales, who have gone on to star in Our Yorkshire Farm since he first met them. Ben discovers how they get by in the tough world of farming and meeting the latest addition to their flock.
Ben revisits Emma, who lives a completely organic and off-grid life in an overgrown Welsh woodland, and has managed to make herself completely independent from the outside world. Emma reveals how she has needed to adapt her lifestyle as she has got older, and introduces the others who have joined her. Ben helps them to construct a communal mud hut and learns about the building's spiritual purpose.
Ben meets a family that has created a new home in the Devon countryside - but having had to fight to be allowed to build on the land, they now find peace hard to adjust to. Nevertheless, they continue in their drive to be as self-sufficient as possible. However, Ben spots a new development in their lives that could present them with their next big challenge.
Ben journeys to Fair Isle, the most remote inhabited island in the UK, where he is reunited with Tommy, an American who has lived in an off-the-grid stone cottage for 15 years. Tommy reflects on how recent world events have led to the island becoming even more isolated than previously, reveals how he copes with turbulent weather, and invites Ben to join him in painting the rugged landscape.
Ben revisits Simon and Debbie in Exmoor National Park.
Ben returns to Scotland to revisit the Goddard family, who were living a wild and weather-beaten existence in an off-grid static caravan on the Isle of Rum. Now five years later, Ben discovers them living on the mainland, having swapped their caravan for an actual house. Still remote and surrounded by wilderness, they open up about how they altered their circumstances to make wild living work for them.
The presenter ventures deep into the Scottish Highlands to meet Iona and her young family on the near-10,000-acre wilderness estate that she grew up on. Whilst in their company, Ben drives cattle on horseback, digs out a dam to ensure the family's hydro-electricity supply and gets to grips with the annual deer cull, and hears how Iona's past prepared her for this extraordinary life in the wilderness.
The presenter meets the Powell family who are living an off-grid existence in a hidden valley in the Black Mountains in Wales. Whilst in their company, Ben climbs into a ravine to maintain the family's hydro electrics, explores the forest with the spirited children, and helps plant the biggest new woodland in Wales for a generation.
Ben journeys to the Suffolk countryside and a secretive patch of woodland, to spend the week with unique character Will, 50, who could be described as a true British caveman. Ben embraces Will's Stone Age-style existence in the forest and discovers how a childhood passion carved Will's future, the price he paid for following his dream, and how he is steering it back around as Ben meets him at a new stage in his prehistoric life.
Ben travels to a unique, tiny island in the Scottish Hebrides where he meets ex-social care worker Philip, who has embraced a new way of life in this small, alternative community. In his company, Ben spends the week cut off from the outside world, in an old lighthouse keeper's cottage, where he experiences the unusual routines of the island's community.
Adventurer Ben Fogle journeys to the mountains of central Portugal, to live with Alex, a British man who traded in his lucrative retail career for his own mountainside hideaway.
Ben ventures to the ‘Emerald Isle’ to visit Georg and Bettina, an elderly European couple.
Ben Fogle ventures to the lesser-known Greek island of Andros to visit Sandy.
We join Ben on the cliffs of Cornwall, where he is staying with Davina and Todd.
Ben journeys to one of Britain's furthest outposts, the Shetland Islands, to meet Helen and Jason, a couple just a few years into their new life on the edge of the weather-beaten island of Yell. He discovers why they needed to escape the demands of urban life, and witnesses the obstacles they now face as they pursue their wildest dreams on this beautiful, historical and remote island.
Ben travels to get a crash course in felling trees and the art of charcoal making.
Ben is much closer to home than usual - he's in rural Oxfordshire with a multi-generational family. Ben learns about the obstacles the family have overcome and how they've spent two decades honing their skills and living off the land.
A disabled retiree turned into a modern-day nomad travels across the United States and uses a renovated military transport vehicle for her journey.
Ben finds former 'Stone Age' host, Lynx, living on a different continent than last time.
In this episode, Ben heads back to the stunning Saharan landscape of Morocco.
The Watkinsons gave up their careers as vets to live greener on the Pembrokeshire coast.
Ben travels to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the USA to meet Mike Basich, a snowboarder who left the world of professional sport behind to reconnect with nature and pursue a quieter life. Ben joins him in his extraordinary hand-built log cabin and follows him as he embarks on a life changing project.
Ben heads Down Under to meet Bette, an elderly woman living alone in a ramshackle house in the wilds of northern Queensland. She is a no-nonsense personality and refuses to cook Ben any dinner. But as the week progresses she warms to her guest and explains what drew her to the harsh Australian wilderness 30 years ago. She also talks about her complex relationship with men, and reveals how she has been seriously threatened when defending the natural world around her from development.
Ben heads to Slab City in California to meet an extraordinary homeless artist called DNA, who Ben had previously met whilst in the area making another documentary. Ben joins DNA in his 'Mad Max' camp on a desert hill, an extreme place to seek refuge, but like most residents in Slab City, he discovers DNA had few choices. Ben learns the harsh reality of what it's like to be homeless in the US, and the downward cycle that people can find themselves in.
Watch as Ben Fogle journeys to South America to visit Rhona, a British born actress who left the bright lights of Hollywood to live alone in a remote valley in Uruguay. Ben is instantly intrigued by the juxtaposition in lifestyle and learns that ill health, a difficult childhood and disillusionment with Tinseltown culture have all led to his host's new life. He discovers that Rhona is now committed to rehabilitating horses and the pair attend an animal auction looking to rescue any mistreated animals. There Rhona reveals that she has had to adapt to the machismo culture of rural Uruguay… or rather it to her. Rhona has also nearly been seriously injured while venturing out onto her land. Ben realises that if something does go wrong, Rhona's isolation means she has no one to call on. That night he experiences nature's fury for himself when a violent storm hits while he shelters in a fragile biodome. But despite the difficulties, his fellow Brit insists that this is the best role she's ev
Ben heads to Tuscany to visit British couple George and Sophie who breathed new life into a Tuscan farmhouse. Ben discovers how George's adolescent desire to live a self-sufficient existence seeded an ambitious plan to create a lifelong project and how a chance encounter enabled Sophie to find what seemed improbable. Ben travels into the heart of the stunning Casentinesi Forest National Park to join his hosts and their young children in their progressive off-grid home, a three km walk to the top of a mountain. Their continuing renovations of the ancient, ramshackle buildings sees Ben put to work in return for his stay as he embraces honey collecting, tends their extensive vegetable garden, makes homemade pizza and gruelling repairs on the track up to their house so they can get a vehicle to it, and deals with their wayward cow who destroys all their crops.
Ben meets Pirate Rob who lives for half the year in a sandbag house on a river.
Ben journeys into the heart of Zambia to live with a British family who have built a safari lodge on the edge of a national park. Ben uncovers what prompted this intrepid couple to start a new business and a family in the unforgiving bush, and learns how they have had to overcome fire and flooding to keep their African dream alive.
The presenter travels to the Azores islands, a remote archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, to meet Magnus, Lucy and one-year-old Frey. The family live in an off-grid cottage on a steep sloped mountain which Magnus's nomadic father bought in the 1980s, and they have spent the past 15 years taking on the gargantuan task of restoring the property and land.
Ben joins Chris, a former paratrooper, in the beautiful county of Dorset on the south coast of England. Ben spends a week with Chris who, despite losing nearly everything, has spent the last five years walking the UK's coastline. Ben discovers what has motivated Chris and how he has turned his life around, found love and raised thousands for charity. Ben join Chris and his faithful dog companion, Jet, 27,000 miles into their walk where they've now hit the Jurassic Coast. And they're no longer alone – Chris met his partner, fellow hiker Kate and now they are parents to baby Magnus. Ben learns what Chris calls "the art" of living wild on the road, once as a solo experience, but now with a young family. He learns how to desalinate sea water and forage the nature around him, embraces river washing and charming local fisherman for food, while beginning to understand what it's like to "wild parent" and where this intrepid family are heading next.
Ben returns to rural Western Australia to catch up with charismatic widow Barbara. Since he last saw her, she has faced a serious cancer scare and a devastating bush fire that nearly destroyed everything.
Ben heads back to Sweden to revisit Annalisa, a single mother who was developing a forest hideaway on the fringes of society for her and her young son. Now three years later, Annalisa has a new partner and an enviable homestead, and Ben learns of the extraordinary journey the trio took during the pandemic and how they sustain their thrifty life with such passion and ambition.
Join Ben as he revisits global nomads Miriam and Peter in the vast forests of the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria. In 2016, the couple walked the length of New Zealand and Ben then found them on an intrepid journey across South-Eastern Europe. He joined them as they left one camp to hike to another, their entire world in their backpacks, foraging and hunting as they went, sometimes travelling up to 25km a day. Now, four years later, he finds them back in Bulgaria, but living in an off-grid cottage. He discovers that disaster struck while they were walking Australia and the couple had to radically change their life.
Ben meets more people who chose to venture down alternative paths to everyday life, beginning with musician Vanessa Forero, who moved from her native Yorkshire to a remote mountainside in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia. Together they tackle home improvements, from a new cable car to building walls, receive a visit from an indigenous leader, and Ben hears one of the most extraordinary survival stories he has ever heard.
Ben explores the Great Blasket Island off the coast of Ireland, staying with Dan and Emily who are island caretakers on Europe's rugged western frontier. Ben discovers how the couple have adapted to their new lives on the island and what they've achieved while living there. Plus, he experiences fixing a water pump, catching sheep, foraging seaweed and swimming with seals.
Ben travels to an island on Norway's coastline to meet his host Elena, a former Middle East peacekeeper, and experience the hardships of living in the environment. Ben joins Elena and her partner on a mountain climb, before helping them finish their guest house, cleaning a beach, kayaking on frozen waters and gardening in the harsh landscape.
Ben travels to Southeast Asia, meeting entrepreneur Niall who now helps the country's street-dogs after trading in his previous career. The pair explore his self-built dog sanctuary on the island of Koh Samui, where Ben is joined by volunteers and other dog-loving locals to help out with daily chores. Niall and Ben prepare food for the pooches in the sanctuary and across the island, before making dog beds from oil drums and a canine splash-pool.
Ben returns to the Arctic circle to revisit old friend, and fellow adventurer, Randi Skaug, who is living on her remote island off Norway's northern coastline. When Ben last met Randi, he embraced life on the island and discovered how his host was the first Norwegian woman to climb Everest. Now, five years later Ben's back to find out how the intermittent years have treated Randi.
Ben Fogle heads back to the jewel of the Indian Ocean to catch up with British vet Janey, who set up a rescue centre for Sri Lanka's street-dogs. Five years on, Janey's centre looks even more impressive. The vet speaks about her new struggles, such as being left alone during the pandemic, and Ben witnesses the impact her charity is having.
