Ben travels to an island off the New Zealand coast to meet a man who gave up a career in medicine to live off-grid.

Ben Fogle meets people who have given up the rat race for an alternative lifestyle. In South America, Ben discovers why Mike Merrill, a former sound engineer from Texas, decided to build a backpackers hostel deep in the Guatemalan jungle. He also gets stuck into building projects, machete fishing and tubing a dangerous river to transport vital supplies, and sees how Mike interacts with the local Mayan people.