The WORST episodes of Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild
Every episode of Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild!
Ben Fogle travels round the world to visit people who have given up the rat race.
#1 - Northumberland
Season 16 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/15/2022
Ben travels to get a crash course in felling trees and the art of charcoal making.
#2 - Australia Revisit
Season 17 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/21/2023
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.
#3 - Dorset
Season 17 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/14/2023
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.
#4 - The Azores
Season 17 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/7/2023
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.
#5 - Zambia
Season 17 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/14/2023
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.
#6 - Oregon River
Season 17 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/7/2023
Ben meets Pirate Rob who lives for half the year in a sandbag house on a river.
#7 - Tuscany
Season 17 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/31/2023
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.
#8 - Uruguay
Season 17 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/24/2023
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
#9 - California
Season 17 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/17/2023
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.
#10 - Australia
Season 17 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/10/2023
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.
#11 - Sierra Nevada
Season 17 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/3/2023
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.
#12 - Pembrokeshire
Season 16 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/29/2022
The Watkinsons gave up their careers as vets to live greener on the Pembrokeshire coast.
#13 - Morocco
Season 16 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/22/2022
In this episode, Ben heads back to the stunning Saharan landscape of Morocco.
#14 - Norway Revisit
Season 16 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/15/2022
Ben finds former 'Stone Age' host, Lynx, living on a different continent than last time.
#15 - United States
Season 16 - Episode 8 - Aired 3/1/2022
A disabled retiree turned into a modern-day nomad travels across the United States and uses a renovated military transport vehicle for her journey.
#16 - Oxfordshire
Season 16 - Episode 7 - Aired 2/22/2022
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.
#17 - Sweden Revisit
Season 17 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/28/2023
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.
#18 - Shetlands
Season 16 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/8/2022
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.
#19 - Cornwall
Season 16 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/25/2022
We join Ben on the cliffs of Cornwall, where he is staying with Davina and Todd.
#20 - Greek island of Andros
Season 16 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/18/2022
Ben Fogle ventures to the lesser-known Greek island of Andros to visit Sandy.
#21 - Ireland
Season 16 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/11/2022
Ben ventures to the ‘Emerald Isle’ to visit Georg and Bettina, an elderly European couple.
#22 - Portugal
Season 16 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/4/2022
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.
#23 - Scottish Hebrides
Season 15 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/21/2021
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.
#24 - Suffolk
Season 15 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/14/2021
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.
#25 - Wales
Season 15 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/7/2021
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.