I woke in a tangle of warm legs and half-dreams, to the distant tapping of a woodpecker somewhere outside the cabin.

Jet was sprawled sideways across the foot of the bed, Luna had wedged herself diagonally into my ribs, and I was pinned in place like a man who’d lost a slow, affectionate wrestling match in his sleep. Apart from my wife also being there (which, to be clear, was impossible given the available square footage), there really wasn’t anywhere else I wanted or needed to be in that moment.

Naturally, I chose to ruin it.

As the kids stirred, I unleashed a Dutch oven of such historical magnitude that it deserves its own blue plaque. I lay there smiling, waiting for the aromas to strike their innocent nostrils. Consciousness returned immediately and what followed was a two-on-one wrestle of epic proportions. I was no match for the Bushwhackers though, and tapped out within seconds.

Once everyone had regained oxygen, we raised the blinds and looked out across the valley as the fog peeled back to reveal the Brecon Beacons in all their brooding glory. Breathe.

I asked the kids for three things they wanted to do that day.

Jet: “Pancakes, a hike, and use my telescope to see the stars.”
Luna: “Pancakes, climb a tree, and make a den.”

No mention of screens, just a shortlist of wholesome ambition.

I caught myself smiling again.

We were staying in an Unyoked off-grid cabin, a company that’s perfected the art of making it incredibly easy to disappear. Their whole premise is beautifully simple: ‘temporary relief from the concrete jungle’. That idea usually gets pitched at nature starved, burnt-out adults, but it turns out kids need it just as much. Maybe more. 

The science is well documented now: strip away the dopamine blasts and the background noise, and something shifts when kids are in nature. Attention softens. Emotions settle. Play stretches out again. Unyoked remove enough friction for that shift to take place.

We arrived on the Friday night in darkness and downpour, bombing it down after school pickup through rolling Welsh lanes. We parked up, loaded our gear into a wheelbarrow, and squelched along a forest track beneath giant oaks before spotting the cabin at the far end of a field, glowing faintly in headtorch light like a woodland Taj Mahal.

The kids lost their shit immediately. This happens with all new accommodation, but the oversized bed really tipped them over the edge. Wrestling commenced. Board games were deployed with Pass the Pig emerging as the clear crowd favourite.

I lit the log burner, slid a Bob Dylan CD into the stereo (the physical act of it feeling almost ceremonial), and then bricked my phone. For the uninitiated, Brick is an app that lets you lock yourself out of the worst bits of your phone. Social apps gone. Notifications dead. Digital umbilical cord cut.

After dinner we climbed into bed and I turned narrator, reading a few chapters of The Wager in my finest Morgan Freeman voice over a Spotify backing track of atmospheric seafaring music. Mutiny and cannibalism may not be recommended bedtime content for children, but it worked, with both asleep within minutes. Jet now also has a worrying fascination with colonial British naval disasters.

Day two unfolded in a state of analogue bliss.

We ticked off everything from the morning briefing: tree climbing, den building and bombing down muddy hills. We chased sheep, rescued a pheasant and kicked a stone approximately 3km down a country lane to see who could get the furthest. We invented a jump-ditch game that deserves Olympic recognition, cooked homemade pizzas in the outdoor pizza oven and encountered exactly one other human all day: a man walking his dogs in five-degree rain wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and the relaxed grin of someone who doesn’t need to book an off-grid cabin to disconnect from modern life.

But let’s not romanticise it too hard.

This was still an eight and six-year-old, hopped up on novelty and the residual power of watermelon sours. Harmony was…intermittent.

I think this is where the Unyoked experience really landed for me.

There’s a particular emotional whiplash in parenting that feels sharper when everything else is stripped back. One minute, Luna gives Jet a surprise hug and a kiss and I’m flooded with the certainty that I am absolutely nailing this whole fatherhood thing. Heart full. Chest warm.

Two minutes later, a sibling punch is thrown, tears flow and language is used that definitely wasn’t on the phonics curriculum. Joy evaporates. Anger surges. My response is sharper than it needs to be. Snappy and unhelpful, I regret it almost instantly.

This happens more than I’d like to admit.

Being off-grid didn’t magically fix that, but it did make it harder to outrun. Without distraction, there’s nowhere for those moments to hide. You feel them fully and see yourself more clearly. That, as uncomfortable as it is, might be part of the point.

The cabins themselves are a big part of this. They’re beautiful without being precious. Thoughtful without being flashy. Everything you need, nothing you don’t.

You have to work just enough for it: hauling gear, lighting fires, making food slowly. The kids loved rolling up their sleeves to help and the reward is baked into that effort. The rhythm forces you to be present.

Simple, it turns out, isn’t a downgrade. It’s the feature.

On the soggy Sunday departure, as I ferried bags up and down the hill, I passed a young, child-free couple returning to their car. They looked radiant and wrinkle-free, with the air of people who’d just completed a Vipassana meditation retreat; relaxed in the way only those who’ve slept well and had unbroken conversations can be.

Inside my car, meanwhile, my children were engaged in a full-contact disagreement. The vehicle physically rocked.

We exchanged polite smiles and pleasantries to the soundtrack of muffled screams. They’d clearly completed the unyoking process.

Ours was still in beta.

There’s never been a more important time to model good, old-fashioned analogue fun. For kids and us scrambled dads too. If you do book an Unyoked stay here are my tips / survival guide: