Bear Grylls Bought a ‘Derelict’ Island With ‘No Power’ and ‘Rats’ at 25 Instead of a London Apartment—Here’s How It Looks Decades Later

Bear Grylls made an unusual decision decades ago, when he acquired a marital starter home with his wife, Shara Grylls.

“At 25, just married, we bought a small, abandoned, off-grid island from an ad in the back of a magazine,” the British adventurer, 52, wrote in a Nov. 3 Instagram caption.

Grylls revealed that the purchase of St. Tudwal’s Island West cost them around $120,000.

“There were many who thought us crazy,” he continued. “The best adventures start with nay-sayers. Thank you Shara for being brave and saying yes!”

While the comment section had users divided over the relatability of purchasing an entire island—with one commenter wondering how “celebrities get so far out of touch from reality and regular people”—there were also a handful of people who stepped in to point out that even when adjusted for inflation, the island was less costly than the average U.S. home.

The “Running Wild With Bear Grylls” star explained the decision to the Sunday Times in 2021, noting that snapping up a Welsh island seemed like a more exciting use of the couple’s money.

“In 2001, we were going to buy a London flat for $288,000, but we bought a houseboat on the Thames [now sold] and the island together, and it cost less than the apartment. So we decided on the path less trodden and an amazing adventure,” he said.

Grylls shed some light on just how dilapidated the property was 25 years ago.

“The island had a 200-year-old lighthouse and two lightkeeper’s cottages, but [the houses] were derelict with no power, no water, no roof, and rats,” he said. “I remember my first bath sitting in 3 inches of water pumped from the old tanks we’d cleaned out. There was rubble everywhere and rain coming through, but it was a great moment.”

Considering Grylls has made a career out of his ability to survive in extremely harsh conditions, it’s not entirely surprising that he was able to get through a few rough years before the island would become a more suitable dwelling.

It took a decade to get permission to build a slipway, which Grylls said they finished just a few years ago.

“It has been life-changing for us,” he said of the addition. “Previously we had to keep a boat on a mooring, row ashore, and walk a mile up the beach with all the shopping.”

Eventually, the two lightkeeper’s cottages were combined into a single home with four bedrooms. But the island is still off-grid.

“It’s 20 acres and 5 miles offshore with no mains, electricity, or running water,” Grylls told Vanity Fair in 2012. “It has a little lighthouse beside our house and is surrounded by amazing sea cliffs, seals, and dolphins. It is my favorite place on the planet!”

To travel to the destination, Grylls and his family take a “30-foot, high-speed ex-lifeboat,” which he described as a “rigid inflatable boat with twin 300-horsepower engines behind it that can tackle any sea it needs to.”

He said the house is “as tough as you get.” Thanks to “2-foot-thick old limestone walls,” it retains heat in the winter and stays cool in the summer.

“But when those gales come in, you can still feel it almost shake,” Grylls admitted. “Sea spray reaches the windows despite the 150-foot elevation.”

While St. Tudwal’s may lack some of the modern amenities guests might typically expect, the Grylls family does “sometimes have friends” visit.

“They need to be up for an adventure and prepared to get stuck there if the weather turns,” he said.

Grylls has recently made headlines for his connection to disgraced former comic Russell Brand, who was recently found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault.

Grylls helped baptize Brand in a ceremony in the River Thames in 2024, after the allegations against the actor had come to light. Prior to the baptism, Brand appeared in a 2023 episode of Grylls’ show, in which the pair traveled across the Hebrides Islands.

“Brand’s faith seemed genuine to me at the time when I was a guest at his private baptism,” Grylls wrote in a Nov. 6 X post. “I have attended a few now. Even visiting in prisons with people who have committed terrible crimes. It’s part of our calling as men and women of faith, to love and serve anyone. It is the sick that need healing.”

Noting that “judgment is for the courts and God,” Grylls added that “it is right that justice has now been served.

“I can’t imagine how hard this time has been for the victims, the heroes of the day,” he said.