SARA WALLIS
Ben in remote Oregon
C5, 9pm ADVENTURER Ben Fogle visits another person who has abandoned the rat race to set up a new life in the middle of nowhere.
These intrepid pioneers are not sitting in traffic, watching Love Island, traipsing round a supermarket or doing the school run. They also don’t have to interact with many people – which is good or bad, depending on your point of view.
“I was exhausted from people. It’s been such a relief to just be alone,” says 62-year-old Dan Price, the subject of this series finale.
A former professional photographer, Dan has embraced an isolated life in the wilds of Oregon for 30 years, since he and his childhood sweetheart divorced in 1990.
He quit his job and took up residence in a two-acre meadow hidden from the outside world.
He lives in a ‘Hobbit hole’, a tiny living space half underground, only accessed by a door that you have to crawl through.
“That’s not a door, that’s a dog flap!” notes Ben. Inside, it’s like the world of Alice in Wonderland, with tiny bottles for storage, no running water and only a small hot plate for cooking.
As always, Ben asks the big questions, and Dan reveals what he’s found hardest.
“Telling a five and a six-year-old child that we weren’t going to live together anymore,” he says. “It just broke all our hearts.”
But Ben discovers that Dan has always had a childlike love of the wild and is perfectly happy in his hideaway. He says, “It’s living in a state of bliss.”