HIDEAWAY DREAM
IDEBUT
T has been more than two decades since Ben Fogle shot to fame after marooning himself on a remote Scottish island for the BBC reality show Castaway.
It was an experiment to see whether a group of strangers, cut off from the world for a year, could create a self-sufficient community.
Not only did the experience launch the telly presenter’s career, 22 years later it forms the very foundation of his retirement plan.
When he calls time on showbiz, Ben says he’s going “off the grid” with wife of 16 years Marina, in the remotest possible location.
“I think we all have our retirement mapped out,” said the dad of two. “For some people it’s a golf membership, a convertible car and lots of wine for lunch.
“For me, it’s always been a little cabin on an island somewhere with my own canoe and loads and loads of dogs and I just forage.
“That’s basically what I’d do all day. My grandchildren and children will come to visit me and my wife and it’s just a simple life. That’s all I want, a little off-the-grid house.
“Right now I’m hooked into the material world and I’ve always liked this idea that maybe I could abandon all of that.”
That deep-rooted call to nature is probably why he’s so dedicated to his Channel 5 programme, Ben Fogle: New Lives In The Wild, which returns this week for a new series that marks 10 years since it began.
In it the 48-year-old travels the globe to meet men and women who have swapped traditional lifestyles for lives full of adventure.
In this series fans will meet Alex Sully, who quit a high-flying retail job for a 35-acre Portuguese farm.
Pensioner Sandy Britton gave up her family wealth to run a refuge for animals on a tiny Greek island.
Davina Foster and Todd ReadBloss ditched London to raise their kids in a remote part of Cornwall so they wouldn’t be impacted by racism, and Austrians Georg and Bettina Peterseil have been living in the bog land of Ireland’s County Mayo for more than 40 years.
The one thing that links all the people featured on Ben’s show is that they have followed their dream – something he thinks a lot of British people are too scared to do. Ben said: “We all have excuses why we’re not going to do something.
“There’s always a reason not to get out of bed early and go for that run, to eat that one extra packet of crisps, to have that drink…
“But if you actually follow those hopes and aspirations, as all of the people that I’ve met over the last decade have done, then you can find that happiness so many of us are looking for.” So why are so many people seemingly unfulfilled by their current daily lives?
“I think at the heart of all of this is a lot of us have made our lives very complicated.
“We think we’ve made it simpler with technology, apps and online delivery, but they have actually made our lives way more complicated. And by making them way more complicated, they’re much more stressful.
“It’s almost like we have created a vicious circle of anxiety.”
He added: “I think we’re quite gluttonous, and not just in our consumption but also when it comes to spending.
“Whatever we do, we do to extremes. What I’ve found is that
Technology, apps and online delivery have made our lives more complicated BEN FOGLE ON WHY HE THINKS SO MANY PEOPLE LIVE UNHAPPY LIVES