The Wild Year

The Wild Year by Jen Benson

With a baby and a toddler, mounting debt, work demands and stress trampling over their desire to spend time together as a family in nature, Jen and Sim Benson move out of their rented accommodation, sell up their possessions and decide to live in a tent for a year as nomads around rural Britain.

I've read a few other biographies of people that for whatever reason have had to make the decision to take to travelling about the UK with little more than a tent to live in. I've never read about a couple that had to go that with their children who were very young.
It might seem an idyllic lifestyle but of course this is not the case especially in the ever changing weather that we get here.
I very much enjoyed hearing about the life that Jen and Simon and their children experienced with the highs and lows that doing it , and the way that they shared their journey with us the reader.

The wild year is about family that going camping for a year . I found it very interesting and fascinating. I like the front cover is very pretty and that’s what drawn me to the book. I like how there is picture on each chapter as well.
Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this book.

The first question I had when I first came across this book was : how on earth does one camp in winter? I have lived in the UK for a few years and I vividly remember how cold it could get even in spring! My curiosity as to how this family with a baby and toddler to boot survived and even thrived!

I must say I found the story quite engrossing but I sure am glad they are doing better now and no longer have to live in tents!

I enjoyed this book detailing the year this family spent living wild with 2 small children .Full of ups and downs it gave a really insightful story about their adventures .

A young family trying to balance home, work and crushing debt make a daring decision. Jen and Sim move out of their rental, sell their possessions and decide to travel rural Britain for a year, living in a tent….with a baby and a toddler. What may seem like insanity to some people, for the Benson’s the decision to reconnect with the natural world will become the best decision they’ve ever made. Granted, there are plenty of small catastrophes along the way, but ultimately, this young family connects with both nature and each other in ways that will have a profound impact on them all. I only wish I was as brave

Really enjoyed reading about this young families year long adventure living in the wild.Finding them selves having financial problems they decide to take a year and move to the wild two babies the two parents embark on this adventure,#negalley#Th

When this book opens, the author, Jen, and her husband, Sim, are struggling to make ends meet, are under a great deal of stress, and are generally unhappy with some of the circumstances of their lives. With a toddler and a newborn, Jen is at home all day with them, trying to freelance, while Sim is gone all day working for a cycling charity. They are a long way from where they were when they met and married—they bonded over their love of the outdoors and ‘wild running’ when they worked in an outdoor shop. Now they have to use credit cards to pay for groceries and find themselves with mounting debt just to acquire the basics. Jen doesn’t qualify for maternity benefits because she is freelancing and their landlord won’t allow tenants who get housing benefits. When Sim has time off, they decide that they will go camping just to get away from the stress. Jen feels herself relax and is able to sleep well for the first time in ages—until the last night when she is stressed and awake wondering how they will manage. Then she has an idea. They are short on money, but have an abundance of gear, so what if they gave up their rental and lived in tents for a year, camping around various parts of the UK? They decide to give it a go and this book is an account of their year as well as thoughts about the difficulties faced by regular people during hard times.

I loved this book. It’s well written and really captures both the stress of their pre-wild year life and the joys and difficulties of living in a tent with two very small children in all kinds of weather. In spite of their experience being outdoors there were things they learned the hard way. The adventure was even more interesting because they began their year in November, so jumped right into the experience with some less-than-ideal weather! The book also gives readers a sense of what is possible. We are right there with Jen and Sim as they discover what they need and how much they don’t need and how much they’d just gone along with conventional wisdom. It was only when they could not make it work and thought outside the box that they found solutions. The book brought back memories for me because my husband and I embarked on a similar sort of journey a decade and a half ago, getting rid of most of our stuff and moving from the west coast to the east coast, tent camping across the northern US for 99 days. Later, when we got to our destination, we lived in a tent for a few months until we found work and an apartment. I was surprised to love the experience as much as I did and I still remember it fondly. I was delighted to read this book and I highly recommend it.

WOW, I needed this book.
Benson, details her journey with her husband and two young children packing up their lives and setting off on a year of living in a tent and traveling all around the UK. She talks about the crippling debt they had to deal with, the rising costs of living that overwhelmed them, and then the joys (and some of the hardships) of living in nature with young kids and unpredictable weather.
I felt this book was so relatable in a way I didn’t know I needed. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the writing. I highly recommend this book.

When financial pressure started to wear them down, Jen Benson and her husband made the incredibly brave decision to take a year out and live in a tent, travelling around the UK with their two small children. The Wild Year is such a lovely, wise, gentle book. I really enjoyed it.

a true story of a family that decides to live in a tent and travel around Britian for a year. very interesting read.