A 12-year odyssey retracing the first human migration out of Africa
In short: Imagine a journey so slow it becomes a way of life. Paul Salopek has spent over a decade walking the planet at the pace of his own footsteps, weaving a global mosaic of human stories from the desert plains of Arabia to the peaks of the Himalayas.
Paul Salopek is currently in the 13th year of 'The Out of Eden Walk,' a project that began in 2013. The goal is to retrace the migration of Homo sapiens out of Africa, which occurred approximately 60,000 years ago. Starting from Ethiopia with a finish line in South America’s Tierra del Fuego, the odyssey covers an estimated 24,000 miles (38,000 kilometers). Salopek maintains a steady pace of 3mph (5km/h), transforming the trek from a standard expedition into a long-form storytelling project.
The journey is characterized by 'boot level' observation, where Salopek documents the human experience through personal interactions. He has chronicled 100-mile stretches more than 100 times, pausing to interview locals and document scenes as 'Milestones.' His path has taken him through the Central Asian Silk Road, the Pamir Mountains, and even a two-and-a-half-year period of COVID-19 lockdowns in China. He seeks to capture a 'global mosaic' of stories from people who rarely appear in history, from mystic healers in Kazakhstan to Syrian war refugees in Jordan.
Salopek’s methodology is rooted in a career of high-stakes journalism. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he has reported on the Human Genome Diversity Project and civil wars in the Congo. His approach to the walk is one of 'slow listening,' where he prioritizes feeling and thinking over rapid movement. By moving at a bipedal pace, he intentionally steps out of modern time to bear witness to climate change, humanitarian crises, and technological shifts, seeking to understand the complex questions of human existence rather than providing easy answers.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Paul Salopek is on a foot journey across the world. He provides an extraordinary record of humanity at a new millennium | National Geographic
- Also: Paul Salopek
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