Ben Fogle: New Lives In The Wild
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Ben Fogle: New Lives In The Wild
8.2

Ben Fogle follows in the footsteps of various individuals, who against all odds, have willingly forsaken the luxuries and lifestyle of the modern world, for a less-than-ordinary life in the wilderness.

Seasons & Episodes
Portugal

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.

Ireland

Ben heads to Ireland to visit Georg and Bettina, a couple who've lived there for 40 years.

Greek Island of Andros

Ben Fogle ventures to the lesser-known Greek island of Andros to visit Sandy.

Cornwall

We join Ben on the cliffs of Cornwall, where he is staying with Davina and Todd.

Shetlands

Ben journeys to the Shetland Islands to meet a couple on the island of Yell.

Northumberland

Ben travels to get a crash course in felling trees and the art of charcoal making.

Oxfordshire

Ben is in rural Oxfordshire where he spends the week with an unconventional family.

Arizona Desert

A disabled retiree turned into a modern-day nomad travels across the United States.

Norway

Ben finds former 'Stone Age' host, Lynx, living on a different continent than last time.

Morocco

Ben heads back to the stunning Saharan landscape of Morocco, where he first met Karen, an artist who had turned her back on urban life to live in the desert.

Pembrokeshire Coast

The Watkinsons gave up their careers as vets to live greener on the Pembrokeshire coast.

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.

Wales - Mountain Valley

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.

Suffolk

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.

Episode 4

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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 travels to the vast forests of the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria to join Miriam and her husband Peter, a couple who have chosen life as nomads, hiking through some of the world's most striking wildernesses.

Ben visits the vast wilderness of North West Canada to meet Jeff and Rose and their five daughters, a family of adventurous off-gridders who rely on hunting big-game animals to survive.

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.

In a remote part of Andalucia in Spain, Ben meets a couple from Brighton who gave up their careers to breed alpacas.

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 Pacific Northwest to live with former punk wild-child Lynx who lives, hunts, eats and sleeps in the wilderness.

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.

Ben joins a couple beginning a new life in rural Hungary.

Ben travels to Ibiza to meet a former merchant sailor.

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.

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.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 and meets hunter-gatherers.

Ben heads to a remote part of Texas to visit an ex-city slicker.

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Details Of TV
Location
Language English
Release 2013-04-22
Producer Renegade Pictures