Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild - Season 17

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.

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.

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.

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 ever had.

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.

Ben spends time with Rob, a man he previously met living in California's Slab City, and his 18-year-old son Damien, to experience what it is like to be homeless in the wild. Together, they dig a toilet, go fishing for crayfish, kayak the school run, and cut firewood for their campfire dinners.

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.

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 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 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 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.

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. He found out how these former teachers stripped away all complications of modern life, and how the couple, with their 30-year age gap, survived and thrived together to face the challenges of the wild. When he left them, their plan was to walk across Australia. 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. Peter suffered acute kidney failure and was given a 2% chance of survival. A four-year journey has seen him make an almost miraculous recovery and the couple have adapted to their new lives as "slomads": still travelling, but with the security of rest and recuperation in their cottage with their beloved new pets. The couple reveal they have started hosting philosophy and wilderness survival courses staying faithful to their wild "life less ordinary".