Where the Wild Men Are with Ben Fogle

Ben Fogle journeys to the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas, to live with master craftsman Robert. He learns why this 70-year-old former medical student ditched his education for America's counterculture 20 years ago, bought 200 acres of land deep in the woods, and raised a family of six children. Ben sees how far-reaching Robert's skills are, and how his family have supported him in his dream.

Ben travels to New Zealand's North Island, where he meets a young nomadic family led by Amber and Andy, who spend their life exploring the country's wild landscapes. He hears how the family's lives changed forever after one fateful day, how they swapped the stress of the city for a life on the open road, the price they paid for chasing their dream and how the horrors of the past still haunt them.

Deep into the jungle mountains of Thailand on the border with Myanmar and far off any conventional map, Ben spends time with 40-year-old French-Canadian Julien. He’s been a Buddhist monk for almost half his life, living in a remote monastery. Ben learns why this former teenage student from the West stripped away all complications of a modern lifestyle for a primitive Eastern religious existence.

In the Arctic Circle, Ben Fogle meets Randi Skaug, the first Norwegian woman to climb Everest. Ben is planning to scale the world's highest mountain himself and needs some tips and advice. He embraces the tough and basic life on Randi’s 8.5-acre island by sleeping outdoors and collecting raw building materials. Ben also has a sea kayaking adventure and witnesses the Northern Lights.

Ben travels to the vast forests of the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria to join Miriam and Peter, a couple who have chosen to live as nomads, hiking through some of the world's most striking wildernesses. The couple have decided to live without a permanent home, carrying their only possessions on their backs. Ben helps them forage and hunt for food and even undertakes some unusual washing techniques.

Ben meets Jeff and Rose and their daughters who live in the vast wilderness of north-west Canada. It’s late autumn, and before long the family will be locked in by two meters of snow, in a region where temperatures often hit -30C. Ben joins them on a moose hunt adventure and discovers that one animal will sustain them all year. And he learns that even the youngest children are expected to work.

Ben Fogle travels to Ireland’s rugged Atlantic coastline in the bleak midwinter. He stays with Judith, an 80-year-old who rejected a modern lifestyle for one closer to nature. Ben learns how she and her late husband created a unique utopia and discovers how, even at an advanced age, she is determined to remain alone in her solitary cottage nestled in a remote hillside.

Adventurer Ben Fogle travels to Brazil to meet Chris, a Scotsman who has chosen to make his home in one of the most remote areas of the jungle near the Amazon River. He discovers how Chris’s love affair with the rainforest began when he had a near-death experience, and how he fought for almost three decades to protect this part of the world. Ben also has a close encounter with a tarantula.