Thinking of running away from the world? Then you'll need one of these log cabins, hillside villas, mountain retreats or island homes, from £75,000 to £6 million

I won't bore you with the details of my week, but it wasn't great. There were miscarriages of justice, people being hit by cars (thankfully not seriously so) and a trip to a dentist which was extraordinarily long, and of course painful. And that's even before the misery of listening to the news.

So it's at times like these that my mind — like yours, I'm guessing — turns to the idea of running away from it all to go and live in a cabin in the woods.

Not forever, you understand. Some people might be able to just walk away from their everyday lives and spend decades in the wilderness like the hermit Chris Knight ('I drove until I was nearly out of gas. I took a small road. Then a small road off that small road. Then a trail off that.').

I am not one of those people. I like kitchens with gadgets, and central heating, and nice views, and a comfy bed. So what is out there for a Hermit Lite looking for some peace?

First stop: Sweden, the land of 267,570 islands, of which 266,570 are inhabited — and a country which, thanks to climate change, has been labelled 'The New Mediterranean. Last year I came across a private peninsula for sale on an island near Stockholm, and it's still available, but at around the £5 million mark it's quite steep. So now I've set my sights slightly lower, at this place on the Trosa Archipelago, to the south of the Swedish capital.

Built just under 20 years ago, it's not big — just over an acre of land, and a house of approximately 1,500 sq ft — but there are three bedrooms, wonderful views and an interior which looks like its escaped from a 1980s Habitat catalogue. In a good way.

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There's one downside — or two, if you count the £1.625 million price — and it's something that's also an upside: this part of Sweden is popular, so there are plenty of other people around the area. That means there are shops and restaurants and doctors, but not the out-on-our-own-away-from-the-world feel you really want out of a good log cabin retreat.

So, in search of more seclusion, I turned my attention to Canada, the 233rd least-population-dense country in the world, according to this list I found on Wikipedia (that sounds like it could be nonsense, but in its defence the list does seem to be based on figures from the United Nations publication World Population Prospects.)

Canada has just 12 people per square mile, and at this property near a place called Pemberton, in British Columbia, you can believe it.

The initial signs, as I speed-read the blurb, are promising: 'a private haven with sweeping views, generous space, and endless possibilities', for sale at just under £850,000 in the mountains away to the north of Whistler.

As I flipped through the pictures, something about this house was missing: namely, the house itself. This property turns out to be merely a plot, and my brain had missed the words 'the opportunity to create' before the quote in the previous paragraph. As mentioned already, roughing it completely isn't really on the cards, and thus nor is building a house from scratch.

The search continues. Perhaps somewhere warmer? After all, the last time I went skiing (which was also the first time) I ended up doing a sort of pole-vault-somersault-pirouette which involved the ski poles lodging in my ribs and flipping me upside down. I can live without repeating that experience, so how about, say, Greece? After all the last time I went to Corfu (which, again, was also the first time), I had a lovely experience.

I was in luck. A Corfunian (no, I'm not sure if that's a word either) country estate is on the market at around £1.9 million, and the house is very much present and correct. As are the seven bedrooms, swimming pool, mountain backdrop, and access to the beautiful beach at Palaiokastritsa, on the island's north-west coast. It's even an easy drive to Corfu Town and the airport; absolutely ideal.

There's even a red telephone box beside the swimming pool. Really. You couldn't make it up.

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Still, though, as beautiful as the house is — isn't it just a little too close to town? Do you really want views of other houses as you hide away from the world?

You don't, so it was time for one more look. And for getting away from everyone while still staying warm, Australia felt like the place to go. One promising option turned out to be only an hour from Brisbane; another one, pictured here looks gorgeous, has eight bedrooms and great views.. But it turns out to be commutable, which is good of course, but not really the vibe we're after right now. It's also priced in the region of £6 million, which really is quite a lot.

The other thing about an out-of-the-way property in Australia is that you expect it to be big — very big. The sort of place that it could take the best part of the day to walk across, and that search led me to this property: almost 15,000 acres of rural Queensland, near whose closest village is, amusingly, called Cheeseborough.

There's literally miles of space in a holding described as a 'development property' without a price listed by the agents, Savills, yet it's still not so far from the highway that you couldn't get there and back relatively easily. But this is really working land, a huge farm needing management, and anyone who's seen Clarkson's Farm knows that such things aren't to be taken lightly.

So all that more or less leads us back to where we started — and also to thinking that perhaps Scotland would be a better bet after all. This house in North Uist, in the western isles, is fresh to the market with an 'offers over £75,000' price tag. It's not a log cabin, it needs complete renovation, and it's tiny. But what a place to get away from it all.