Staying in a Cabin in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England

Over the years I have stayed in many and various types of accommodation. I’m talking all extremes and here are some of the places I have slept overnight on what has become a crazy journey:

• Night train to Moldova
• A Salt Hotel in Bolivia
• A boat anchored in Antarctica
• Tents on the Inca Trail in Peru
• A Writer’s Lair in Guatemala
• Backpacker’s Hostels the World Over
• Posh hotels and resorts
• Airport Floors
• A mock Big Brother house

Yet I had never spent a night in a cabin in a Forest in England until recently when I stayed at the excellent Forest Holidays resort deep in the heart of a Gloucestershire Forest, the Forest of Dean. I stayed in the forest retreat here for a night and was in a nice wooden log cabin.

I shared the cabin with photographer Sean Tucker and celebrity chef Nick Weston from Hunter Gather Cook.

I really enjoyed my stay here in the Forest of Dean, it was a really different experience than the usual backpacking trail and city tours that I do. Here are my favourite five things about my stay in the log cabin and the forest retreat.

1.Hot Tub
For most people staying in a forest, a hot tub comes as a huge bonus and luxury. As I sat and relaxed watching the moon, a stray white barn owl ducked down just above the hot tub and I enjoyed this moment of true peace and quiet at one with nature.

2.Self Catering
For anyone wanting to stay in the Forest of Dean, the self-catering aspect to the huts are a huge bonus. You have a fully functional kitchen here, so you can bring your own food and cook your own feast at night. We actually did some foraging for food and cooked our own, will write more about that!

3.Local Bar in the Forest
You can sit and relax with nature and have a fresh pint of beer in the forest. I was in Hut 78, which is actually the closest one to the “local bar” at the resort’s reception. I had a pint of Guinness and we also ate here – I went local and tried Gloucestershire sausages.

4.Nature walks
At night, you don’t leave your accommodation door and step onto a busy main street. That’s what I loved about this place. I was out in the woods here. It was a far cry from my days in cities like Tegucigalpa, Rome and Hong Kong where my hotels stepped out onto an urban street of mayhem. Here you sleep near wild boar, deer and rabbits.

Leave your cabin for a walk and embrace the freedom of it all, by day it is a lovely forest for a walk. As I was there in Autumn, you get the whole beauty of the fallen leaves.

5.Cosy Rooms
The rooms in the log cabin are very cosy. We had a lounge with comfortable sofas and a TV. The kitchen also has a table to eat at. The bathroom was clean and tidy. In the bedroom I got a decent night’s sleep.

While staying in the log cabins at the Forest of Dean, we had a load of cool adventures along the way including foraging for food in the wild, a night vision tour, lighting camp fires and making our own food recipes from foraged food.

Here are the videos from my time in the Cabin in the Forest of Dean: