

Into The Wild Festival promoter Huw Wyn grew up in his mother’s hotel in Wales then moved to Spain. Lisa and Huw talk growing up feral in Andalucia, hitchhiking across Europe, dropping fish-packing in the Netherlands to run off to Glastonbury, the Arabian Nights vibe of Cairo, the poetic side of being a London bin man, working in an orphanage in India, Mother Theresa in Calcutta, meeting the Dalai Lama, studying Tibetan medicine in Scotland, the remote Buddhist kingdom in Ladakh, hitching 2000 miles to Mount Kailash in Nepal, Tom Hardy at his festival, rewilding, den-building and much more.
On this episode we cover:
Growing up ‘feral’ in Spain
Mopeds and sunshine
The contrast of rural Spain
Drunk teachers having affairs
Leaving school at 15 tempted by the beach
Festivals after Covid
Running Into The Wild
The largest nature based festival
Wildcrafts, bushcrafts, fire making
A very child-friendly festival
Spending lockdown walking through the South Downs
Gary Schneider – ‘become famous for five miles’
Discovering the frogs, swans, buzzards and deer
Realising how much wildlife has been lost
Becoming passionate about rewilding
Knepp Castle – West Sussex
Setting up Wilder Lands, wild weekends
Workshops in denmaking, yoga, meditation
Writing handwritten letters to David Attenborough
Jay Griffiths – Wild
Alan Watson Featherstone
Folklore, mythology, rewilding
Tom Hardy turning up at his festival
Lisa bumping into Huw all over the place
Following a ‘wild bunch of English travellers’ to Morocco age 16
Hitchhiking across Europe
The Argentinian priest he met in the Alps
Getting a lift off the only one-legged lorry driver in France
Joining the free-festival scene at Glastonbury
Bunking in for free and having his mind blown
Working in a fish factory in Holland
Finding Egypt life-changing
Taking a boat up the Nile
The Arabian nights vibe of Cairo in the 90s
The poetic side of being a bin man
The lasting impact of losing his dad age 6
The old monastery in Anglesey his mother turned into a hotel
Working in an orphanage in India
Meeting Mother Theresa in Calcutta
Meeting the Dalai Lama
The culture shock of staying with the India High Commissioner
From having to kick out the rats in the loo
Being picked up in a bomb-proof Daimler
Staying in the room Princess Diana was in the week before
Dining with the ambassadors
Travelling to the remote Buddhist kingdom in Ladakh
The shock death of his girlfriend’s brother mountain climbing in Canada
Rushing back to the UK for the funeral
Meeting a man in a London nightclub who took him back to India
Studying in a Tibetan monastery in Scotland
Hitching 2000 miles to Tibet’s Mount Kailash in the back of trucks
Being arrested by the Chinese
Hanging out with nomads
Barely recognising himself in a mirror
Eggs, chips and cold beer in Nepal being the best meal he ever had
Sitting on the roof of a bus on the way to Kathmandu
The old blind women singing at a Sufi festival
Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Iceland and the Mid Western American states of Arizona, Utah, California
The out of this world landscapes of the USA
The American RV travelling culture
Missing people and places all over the world
His mother and grandmother’s extraordinary lives
Losing his father age 6
Lisa planning to get his 82 year mum on the podcast
How it all could have gone badly wrong!
Teaming up with Brighton author Neil Ansell – The Last Wilderness – to buy land for a rewilding project
www.wilderlands.co.uk/wild-weekends