Kevin McCloud heads to four far-flung corners of the planet to meet British families who have abandoned the daily grind of the UK for hand-tooled, off-grid living. Over the four-part run he watches a couple raise their toddler in a reclaimed timber shack on a beach in Tonga, visits a single mother running a guesthouse powered by a waterfall in Belize, shares a 50-acre homestead in Chile’s forest with a pair of teachers who generate their own electricity, and treks to a hand-hewn log cabin above the Arctic Circle where a former City worker lives at –30 °C with no road access.
Each 47-minute instalment follows the same rhythm: McCloud arrives by boat, light aircraft or on foot, sizes up the dwelling, questions the economics, then submits to the routines of chopping wood, hauling water or killing dinner. He keeps the architecture chat to a minimum, preferring to interrogate happiness indices, marriage strains and the arithmetic of £10 a week versus a London mortgage. The camera lingers on blistered hands and solar-panel wiring, never on safari gloss.
Produced by Optomen for Channel 4, the series aired under McCloud’s name from 8 June 2015; a further three episodes appeared without his branding in early 2017, though he retained presenting duties. The later outings swapped the original title card for the simpler Escape to the Wild, a change that went largely unnoticed against the backdrop of volcanoes and permafrost.
Production Details
Channel 4 / 1 Season / 4 Episodes / 2015
Main Cast
Kevin McCloud as Himself - Presenter
