Living the Montana Dream: Tom Breathnach escapes to US cabin heaven

Of all his US travels, a winter trip to the stunning Montana mountain wilderness has been the best yet, says Tom Breathnach

'Montana delivers the trip of a lifetime'

I'd just awoken to a dream, to an ethereal wilderness, to almost being a real life tile square on a #getawaygoals Instagram feed. What started as a simple search for an off-grid escape in the US had led me to the far-flung state of Montana and its spectacularly rugged region of Glacier Country. And as I was discovering, my base of Northwest Montana Retreat, a remote off-grid cabin six miles up a pine-shrouded mountainside from the town of Troy, was just about as soothingly unplugged as I could get.

For two days I’d been switching off from the daily hustle and switching on to nature, in the most idyllic possible sense. I’d no electricity, running water nor Wi-Fi but was enveloped in the lap of wilderness luxury amid the screensaver-like backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. Beautifully appointed with a rustic TLC, my stove-fuelled cabin offered a cloud-like comfort, toasty warmth and in an age where social media drives travel choices like never before, it was supremely aesthetic.