Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
A Wild Idea  By  cover art

A Wild Idea

By: Jonathan Franklin
Narrated by: George Newbern
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.19

Buy for $25.19

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Why would a San Francisco entrepreneur sell his company, fly to the ends of the earth, invest millions restoring paradise, then fight like hell to give it all away?

In 1991, Doug Tompkins left his luxury life in San Francisco and flew 6,500 miles south to a shack in Patagonia that his friends nicknamed "Hobbit House". Mounted on wooden skids that allowed oxen to drag it through the cow fields, Hobbit House had for a refrigerator a metal box chilled from the icy cold winds off the glacier. Rainwater dripped from a rooftop barrel into the rustic kitchen. Earlier tenants include a sheepherder with little more than his dogs and a rifle. Instead of the Golden Gate Bridge, Tompkins now stared at Volcano Michinmahuida, blanketed in snow and prowled by mountain lions the size of small tigers.

Shielded by wilderness and waterfalls and tucked into a remote forest with three times the rainfall of Seattle, Tompkins plotted his counterattack against corporate capitalism. As founder of Esprit and The North Face he had “made things nobody needed”. Now he declared it was time to “pay my rent for living on this planet”. Could he undo the environmental damage produced by his prodigious clothes manufacturing? Could he launch a new brand, one that promoted environmental conservation, preservation, and restoration?

In Patagonia, Tompkins adored his pioneer existence. All his belongings fit in a single duffel bag. When hungry, he fished from his front yard and harvested vegetables from a greenhouse. Tompkins kayaked along the rivers, ice-climbed glaciers, and waited until the ocean storms reached a frothy peak to pilot his wood-hulled crab boat into the raging waves of the Pacific. Within a hundred miles there were virtually no roads and his old farm was accessible to the occasional fishing boat and a battered airstrip.

Flying his small plane for hundreds of hours, he explored. The average plot of land is 10,000 acres, and the price per acre is as little as US $25. It was all for sale and about to be destroyed by clearcut logging. Zooming over treetops and around mountain peaks, Tompkins flew inside tight canyons and gaped at the singular beauty: active volcanoes, gliding condors, forests never logged, rivers never dammed - all so undisturbed, so exquisitely designed, without a single flaw. Could he protect this wild beauty? Place a frame around this perfect creation? For the ensuing quarter century that dream, that obsession became his life.

Only in death did it become his legacy.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Jonathan Franklin (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Love Books? You'll Love Audible.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Transform your day

Replace endless scrolling with endless listening. Chores can be fun.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Listen everywhere

Download titles to listen offline, wherever you are in the world.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Carry your entire Library

Your stories go where you go. Audiobooks don’t weigh a thing.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Listen and learn

Discover stories that can change your mind, your well-being, and your life.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Reach your reading goals

You can’t turn pages while you drive—but you can press play.

Placeholder Image Alt Text

Find your niche

WIth thousands of titles to explore, there’s something for everyone.

Try for $0.00 $14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

What listeners say about A Wild Idea

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    154
  • 4 Stars
    31
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    144
  • 4 Stars
    22
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    138
  • 4 Stars
    25
  • 3 Stars
    11
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

The details

A Hagiographic portrait of a rich environmentalist who saved millions of acres in Chile and Argentina.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Book!

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a roller coaster of liking and disliking Doug. It makes you really want to get out there and explore. Great listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Great listen, good writing about an extraordinary man. This should be a must read for any wild land conservationists

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One of environmentalism’s most important stories

I was pleased to come across this book, as I teach about sustainability and the outdoor products industry. This slice of history and the central figures occurred right under the noses of many of us, yet has been woefully under told. Kudos to the author for his efforts. Sadly, the narrator whose voice and tone are so easy to listen to, and which add flavor to the words, occasionally fails inexplicably on common words. Ibis is pronounced “ib-is” and filet is “fill-lit”. How can produced not catch such mistakes?? Oh well. I guess it’s ironic given Tompkins’s extreme attention to detail that these human errors persist.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One of the most important books you will ever read

If you believe in conservation this is one of the most important books you will ever read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • ML
  • 07-13-23

Well told story

Written and told with great clarity and significance to life and accomplishments made. Appreciated the work and complied stories.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

what one person can achieve , even a high school drop out!(I'm a retired teacher)

Too much to assimilate too fast. Take a second breath between sentences. I'm usually doing something while listening. Loved the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting story, well performed at best.

Thought it was interesting but the rich guy saves the world theme is kind of boring.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Thank You

Thank you to everyone for their dedication and hard work to make the parks possible and the Telly of the stories in this book. Thank you <3

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A wonderful book

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. What a wild ride through life and and an influence that will be apparent for generations. I might have slept with that Husky (plane) as well!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful