Ben Fogle: New Lives In The Wild Episode Rating Graph

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.

Jeff, Rose and their daughters are adventurous off-gridders.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

Judith rejected a modern way of life for one close to nature.

Ben meets a nomadic couple in Bulgaria's Rhodope Mountains.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 has returned to the Amazon to meet Chris, a Scotsman that has made his home here.

Kimberley Region, Australia

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 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.

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.

Adventurer Ben visits musician Vanessa Forero, and finds out what took her from her native Yorkshire to life on a remote South American mountainside.

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 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 returns to where his own personal adventures began.

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 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 visits the wilds of central Portugal to meet Luke and Sarah, who gave up their careers to put down roots on a deserted sheep farm. As Ben helps them clear their land, forage acorns for the pet pigs and garden, he learns about the financial and physical troubles they have faced and their wider travelling adventures.

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 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 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 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.

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

en 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.

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 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 reconnects with his old British friend Paul Ferber and his family in Thailand. He learns why they left their Cambodian island home since he last saw them, where Paul was raising his own castaway tribe and defending sea-life from the illegal trawler trade. Now, they discuss how his tribe feel about their new jungle home, and whether their long-standing battle with pirates has continued.

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.

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...

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

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 travels to the forests of Chile to meet northern Brit Scott and his young family at their hand-built off-grid cabin in the woods. He learns about the challenges they've faced in their two years of wild living, such as freak floods, forest fires and Scott losing a finger. Ben also sees how nature offers a form of therapy to his anxiety-ridden host.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Ben heads to northern England to stay with a man who traded in his house for a life on the road, travelling the UK and joining a community of full-time nomads who survive off the grid. Ben meets Paul in Lincolnshire on board his 30-year-old converted military truck. They travel to the coastline to stay overnight on the beach, go on a road trip and meet up with Paul's nomadic community. Along the way, Ben is intrigued how such a lifestyle is possible in the UK, with its strict camping laws

Ben visits Sri Lanka to stay with Naveen and Anke at their home in the country's highlands. They discuss why they moved away from civilisation, the struggles they had settling into their new lives and if they mean to entirely sever their ties with the outside world. Ben makes himself useful fixing a burst pipe, rendering walls with cow dung and making supply trips to a town

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 a remote island to live with a former Sydney businessman.

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

Scott and Casey spent their savings on a kite-surfing school.

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.