All these "new life in the wild" & "country life at half the price" people

[Velcropaws]

Much as I understand the attraction of countryside and animals (and I have a rural home myself) I do worry about some of the people filmed who aim to live off grid and have no mortgage. What will they do when they are old and can no longer rely on their physical strength to make a living? Similarly, I worry about some of the partners of the men who opt for this way of life having to bring up DC with very basic faculties. Each to their own of course and it's none of my business! But my experience has been that it takes a shed load of money to just fence land properly and invest in it to the point where you can make a living from it, to the extent that it will enable you to save for your DC's university fees or for your own care in old age.

I should mention as a pp has said that what happened after the cameras stopped rolling on Win the Wilderness was very sad, although it does illustrate the issues with all this stuff. I got sucked into watching It because I couldn't wrap my head around what any of them were thinking, then googled it afterwards and discovered It wasn't so rosy as presented.

It was about an elderly couple who'd been living in a cabin in a remote part of Alaska (so no running water, off grid, no other people, no road access, deep brutal winters, etc) but were too frail for that way of life anymore - they'd been trying to sell up for years unsuccessfully and then agreed to a reality show format where young British couples flew out to Alaska and completed challenges and interviews for the owners to select winners to take possession of the cabin and continue their legacy by living there.

The ones chosen weren't in a position to move out there and one of them had MS. I didn't quite understand why you'd pick them If what you wanted was a couple to continue running the cabin for another generation.

Of the original owners: The wife died after filming, the husband refused to surrender the property and ended up in a really toxic situation and estranged from his family.

Up until that it was just baffling and a bit shocking ( "I know nothing about the wilderness and have never been to Alaska, but want to permanently relocate to an isolated off-grid cabin in Alaska with my girlfriend of 12 months").

Essentially it was a group of people making irrational / delusional decisions and/or being exploited. The man who built the cabin seemed to have been living off telling his story for a long time so I'm not sure he was totally naive about getting into reality TV but who knows what really goes on in anyone's life. Maybe none of them ever thought it was intended to be real.

I suspect some of the people on shows like this plan to earn their living from marketing their lifestyle and story rather than living off the land as presented.

DH and I often used to dream of having gites in the French countryside with chickens and shit. Until we did several holidays in such places and realised that, whilst relaxing for a couple of weeks, the fact you had to drive 20km to find a pub that was open and the wifi/mobile connection is non-existent made that a no-go! And that was in the summer when you can sit by the pool and look at the sunflowers in the fields. As expats, we had many a candid discussion with the british gite owners, many of whom seemed to turned to drink and who ALL said how hard it was. I want to be near shops, and friends and restaurants and hospitals when I am old.

I always think there is immense privilege in this type of decision. Like the Grand Designs people who choose to build their own self sufficient house out of cow poo and sheep wool and spend the entire show talking about how skint they are, but yet they seem to have a sense of entitlement that suggests there's family money in the background as a safety net.

Last night's CLFHTP, the couple were given £1000 a month by parents and there was something about the mortgage being paid off too. It really spoilt the programme and was just said in passing.

@Tablow

I always think there is immense privilege in this type of decision. Like the Grand Designs people who choose to build their own self sufficient house out of cow poo and sheep wool and spend the entire show talking about how skint they are, but yet they seem to have a sense of entitlement that suggests there's family money in the background as a safety net.

"Our budget is £150,000."

And how much have you spent so far?

"£425,000 and the work is almost at the halfway mark, but we are happy that every penny has been worth it."

Me and dh lived rurally in our twenties. Was brill as we had no responsibilities and lots of time and energy. No fucking way I would live rurally with kids or entering old age. I like our libraries, trains, takeaways, restaurants, friends and shops in walking distance!

No Going Back on All4 had some absolutely astonishing decisions. The first series was filmed nearly twenty years ago so there are dribs and drabs online about what happened to people next. A tiny number made a success of it and are still there, most did not.

One that stood out to me was two brothers who bought a plot of land in Zambia to build a luxury safari lodge. They went way over budget and took years and years to complete the build... Then sold up and went their separate ways (probably because they were in so much debt and their relationships were trashed by the experience).

Series 5 was basically all follow up episodes from Series 1 and they still hadn't finished. When I googled the lodge the new owners are still running it and it does look lovely, but not convinced it can have been worth what it cost the original people (in money and personal sacrifices).

It is quite sad to see people trying to turn pure fantasy into reality and then trashing their lives instead.

My friends sister was on CLFHTP. Her husband’s parents are absolutely loaded and bankrolled a lot of it.

The sister is finding it quite difficult and they’re probably going to give it a couple of years and then move

@User16395699 DH and I watched that. It was absolutely baffling, but addictive.

Eek, that doesn't sound good about the series user16395699.

And not everyone is Ben Fogle.

Agree there is often a financial endowment lurking in the background of these problems which is conveniently "skimmed over" in the commentary! Or a career in banking that allows the couple in question to retire in their early forties.

And I agree that people who go for the French gites option often end up working at least as hard as they did back in the UK, if not harder... .

I can never understand the retired couples on Escape to The Country who move miles away from everyone they know to the middle of nowhere where they will only have each other for company. I'd kill my OH if he was the only person I had to talk to every single day for weeks. I need to see my friends regularly just for a break.

I'm 'only' middle aged and for years I've been hankering after a rural property. Sadly I never had the budget and am only just considering my first purchase. I've revised my requirements which now include a bus stop, doctors surgery and a supermarket near enough to walk to.
As for CLFHTP.. its still megabucks . Like the London couple last week, I thought well they can afford it because they have a London flat to sell. It turned out they weren't even going to sell it so hardly a budget conscious choice.

Doesn’t Bear Grylls live in rural Wales with no running water or something? It’s probably fine for him because he pops in and out and stays in nice hotels for media stuff but I wonder how his wife feels.

I’m baffled by these people too and also at people who want to take on a pub or cafe in retirement or 50s/60s. Maybe an romanticised idea of what it will be like?

I do wonder about all these people who will make money from the land, when farmers are on the news every week complaining about how skint they are.

@JudyGemstone was that the couple who moved from London with a small child and she cried about missing her friends? DH and I thought at the end that they wouldn't stay. She seemed really unhappy.

@GoldenOmber Janet and Derek are always looking for an extra-large dining kitchen ‘for entertaining’, too. How often do you think all your friends will be heading up from Henley-on-Thames to a hamlet up a mountain road an hour outside Tregaron for some light dinner and charades, Janet and Derek?

I've seen that very episode. I watched a lot of Escape to the Country sitting with my brother as he was dying. There was a couple looking at very beautiful houses in a very beautiful bit of mid Wales which I know quite well, but at no point was there any mention of the fact that everyone in the communites they were looking at would be Welsh-speaking, and that although of course everyone can speak English they were going to need to learn Welsh, and sharpish, if they wanted to join the community in the way they were banging on about.

I remember it fondly because DBro and I laughed until we cried.

@BoarOnTheFloor

Doesn’t Bear Grylls live in rural Wales with no running water or something? It’s probably fine for him because he pops in and out and stays in nice hotels for media stuff but I wonder how his wife feels.

I’m baffled by these people too and also at people who want to take on a pub or cafe in retirement or 50s/60s. Maybe an romanticised idea of what it will be like?

No Going Back seemed to be a succession of people with no hospitality experience who were absolutely shocked that running a B&B etc was not like being on a permanent holiday themselves.

I think some people lose sight of the line between fantasy and reality.

I wish there were more follow-ups to some of these earlier programmes. I remember the ones who moved to a remote house in Italy with a young family.

But the Escape to the Chateau ones are just as bad - there is a couple on the ones showing at the moment owning an enormous one with still around 25 rooms to do up. They are in their 20s. Has to all be family money.

Like the London couple last week, I thought well they can afford it because they have a London flat to sell. It turned out they weren't even going to sell it so hardly a budget conscious choice.

And that was him going back "home". Wonder if he'll be able to give that up easily as she clearly hated it.

Oh no that's so sad about Win the Wilderness. The idea of living somewhere as remote as that made me shudder though and I live pretty rurally in UK.

Oh no...what happened on Win the Wilderness? Now off to Google. I just watched that program.

I’m glad it’s not me who feels the same.

I quite enjoy a bit of Ben Fogle “New Lives in the Wild”. There was one family who converted a coach and travelled around. The husband loved it but the wife wasn’t so keen. I didn’t know how long that would last.

There’s a sailing couple who do podcasts on the boat, “La Vagabond”. It=was quite interesting, because they started putting out podcasts showing the tough times. They wanted people to realise, from a mental health point of view, that their idyllic looking life, sailing the seas etc, wasn’t always rosy.

Escape to the Chateau annoys me. It all looks a bit make-do and mend, but probably has been designed and planned to the last inch, and their renovations cost more than they imply.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=UA0YDVXO7Pw

This thread has made me think of the SNL where Steve Carell and his wife retire and live in an RV.

I always have the same thoughts about the older couples, looking for huge gardens, that look like a full time job in their own right!