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.intothewildgathering.com

www.wilderlands.co.uk/wild-weekends