Fri, Jan 31, 2014
Ben spends a week with US former businessman Colbert in his home state Georgia swampland 'jungle hut'. It's an austere life after he left finance and his marriage behind to live from the land and water. Ben couldn't get used to his vile diet and living conditions among dangerous critters and bugs, yet admires his spirit, zeal, dexterity and ingenious solutions. Colbert' sunny side shows fully when he gets a rare visit from his two teenage grandsons, as doting and adored, who prefer his pristine paradise over theme park holidays.
Top-rated
Fri, Feb 7, 2014
Ben journeys deep into the foothills of the Himalayas in India to meet Steve Lall and his family. Steve, a former fighter pilot, decided he could not live in an organised society, and turned his back on his privileged upbringing. In the remote mountain property Ben helps Steve chase off intruders, and finds out about the tough subsistence lifestyle in the mountain wilderness. Ben also helps plough the fields with a team of buffalo, tends to Steve's future grave plot, and meditates naked with him, enjoying the stunning vista.
Fri, Feb 14, 2014
Ben travels to a remote part of the Philippines to meet Neil, originally from the States. Here he meets Neil's family, living in a bamboo house on a hillside, where he helps kill a chicken and a pig, and learns about the school run - native transport style. Ben is intrigued to find out more about this complex man who gave up on the American Dream to live with his adopted family in a very alien culture.
Fri, Feb 21, 2014
Ben travels to Panama where he meets fellow Brits Ian Usher and Vanessa Anderson, his first British 'new lifers'. Vanessa and Ian recently met, and Vanessa moved from London to Bocas del Toro to join Ian in his small, off-grid Caribbean island home. Ben wants to know more about why Vanessa made this huge leap of faith. Ben also helps the new couple with projects around the island, and finds out more about how Ian came to be here. In 2008, following a difficult divorce, Ian listed his 'whole life' for sale on eBay, then set off on a two-year journey to achieve his bucket list of lifetime goals. Walt Disney Pictures bought the rights to his book "A Life Sold", and he spent the money building a new home on this tiny overgrown island in a remote Panamanian archipelago.
Fri, Nov 21, 2014
Ben tastes life in the Namibian desert with Dennis 'Boesman' (local term for the native Bushmen) who left the rat race after a business career in capital Windhoek to farm the hard way with his wife, Japanese agricultural engineer Yuri, and their daughter aged four. Ben stays in their broken caravan -nothing in ever thrown away- and struggles with the scorching heat, yet risks in barefoot despite thorns. Using abundant solar power, Dennis achieves virtual self-reliance, a constant struggle due to the extreme aridity, provided he shoots and guts two 'gemsbok' (the local giant antelope) a year, helped by Ben who gets mixed feelings.
Fri, Nov 28, 2014
Ben joins a senior, fully self-reliant world of former New York farmer who, desperate by broken marriage, business going down hill and asthma, sold everything and followed his boy's dream, becoming an Alaska trapper. Its' so remote Ben can only reach it by son Nate's water-plane There he even found a like-minded wife, who does must of the gardening on top of domestic chores and general two man-jobs, even the heaviest lifting, like their indispensable boat. Otherwise most sympathetic Ben's emotional barrier concerns the killing of wild animals by the three sled dogs-owning couple, which eats a year from a moose and a grizzly but also sets many traps to sell furs as only 'cash crop'.
Fri, Dec 5, 2014
Ben joins the senior brothers Bob and 'Wild' Bill who moved to a desert patch they bought in Utah from Oklahoma after a thrill-hungry life of daring career switches after one of them daringly testified to talk a drug gang into jail, requiring him to leave in witness protection and ironically bounty-hunt criminals in the hideout region. Undaunted, they keep up self-reliance even after a cardiac crisis left Bob brain-impaired. The former contractors now need the minimal comfort of the house they built around a mobile home, Ben must dwell in the cave storage the previous owners blasted with dynamite from the rocks and helps out with endless chores like logging to boast their meager pensions, half of which are spent on food supplements. The 'nearest' neighbor farm worries about the seniors in such a remote place, where rock slides are common.
Fri, Dec 12, 2014
Ben stays with a couple that live north of the Arctic Circle, Gaynor is from London and she quit a good paying job to go and live and marry Milos a Slovakian expat in northern Sweden. Here they operate a dog sledding tour business. Temperatures can go down to -52 at night during winter.