"Longing. Nostalgia. Wanting. Aching. Thirst. A walker who comes from far away becomes a safe receptacle for such inconvenient emotions. We listen without judgment. We carry your secrets away." Read Paul's latest dispatch from the trail in Japan: outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org/goodbye-to-j...

🎙️🎧 “As storytellers, if I sense a story is unfolding with the people I’m meeting, then I will share, ‘Hey, I just walked here from Ethiopia.’” — @paulsalopek.social to host Carolyn Beeler on @theworld.org Listen or read along with “Small talk on the Eden Walk” here: theworld.org/stories/2025...

“Japan I found steeped in yearning. Yearning, to be sure, might be the universal human condition: inescapable, without any particular geography. You experience it everywhere and often while walking through the world.” — @paulsalopek.social ✍️ outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org/goodbye-to-j...

#NatGeoExplorer @paulsalopek.social is walking from Ethiopia to Chile on the @outofedenwalk.social. But as he tells The World, “people are my destination.” The story of the walk unfolds through conversations he has with the people he meets along the way.

🎙️“Keep Myanmar in your heart, keep it in front of your eyes. Do whatever you can to help the people of Myanmar.” — @PaulSalopek Paul recently joined the @InsightMyanmar Podcast. Listen to the conversation at the link below. #WhatsHappeninglnMyanmar https://t.co/bRjKvP2Xg3

“‘I don’t like this place,’ announces Jang Yikweon. We’re hiking in a pretty little valley in rural South Korea, Jang & I, traversing a storybook landscape of electric green rice paddies, cozy farming hamlets, mossy hill forests.” — @PaulSalopek Read more: https://t.co/BBiV25rNlD

🎙️“Keep Myanmar in your heart, keep it in front of your eyes. Do whatever you can to help the people of Myanmar.” — @PaulSalopek Paul recently joined the @InsightMyanmar Podcast. Listen to the conversation at the link below. 🎧 #WhatsHappeninglnMyanmar https://t.co/GEtMVcRd6S

“I’ve been offered shelter [&] food. People give me their stories, which are precious, right?... I’ve written: I wake up, & the word that comes to mind is ‘yes.’ Yes, I’ll do this another day.” @PaulSalopek (Begins @ 1:39:26 min) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0klm4lv @BBCSounds @BBCRadioLondon

🔈 “Keep Myanmar in your heart, keep it in front of your eyes. Do whatever you can to help the people of Myanmar.” — @PaulSalopek 🎙️ Paul recently joined the @InsightMyanmar Podcast. Listen to the conversation here: https://t.co/2eer0PrKpo 🎧 https://t.co/jEnir4ukqR

🎙️ “That’s what human beings are . . . we kind of have these qualities of mud within us.” — @PaulSalopek to @carolynbeeler. Listen or read along: https://t.co/zS3PvpJiXs This story is part of an ongoing series produced by @TheWorld in collab with Out of Eden Walk & @InsideNatGeo.

“I started to think about what is mud after all, right? It’s earth, & it’s water & it’s motion. . . . Mud can’t just settle, or it turns into kind of stone after a while. It requires tides, requires movement. And I thought: That’s who we are. That is what life is.” — @PaulSalopek https:/...

“Let it be known that I’m something of a connoisseur of convenience stores. This goes way back.” — @PaulSalopek ✍️ Read the latest dispatch from the trail in South Korea: https://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org/articles/2025-02-cellophane-oasis #EdenWalk

🎙️🔉 Paul recently joined @TVNaga01 @bbc5live @BBCSounds for a conversation about Out of Eden Walk. Listen to the conversation, which begins at 02:12:55 mins, at the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0027jsx @PaulSalopek #EdenWalk

“A journey of 38,000-kilometers begins with a single step.” 🎙 Paul recently joined @radionz to talk about the Out of Eden Walk journey. Listen to the conversation, “Retracing the first human migration,” at the link. 🎧 https://t.co/DN9v5LHvKF

Families gather clams alongside the Daehang-ri shell mound, a prehistoric camping site near Saemangeum Seawall. Humans have harvested in the region since the Stone Age—a lifeway largely erased by a gigantic wetlands conversion: https://t.co/RNwi1LamHs 📷 Youngrae Kim @PaulSalopek

“Mudflats are nature’s wallflowers: superficially charmless but with ecologically rich inner lives. They are also quite rare.” -— @PaulSalopek Read “Mud Mausoleum,” Paul’s latest dispatch from the trail: https://t.co/RNwi1LamHs Photo by Youngrae Kim. 📍 Saemangeum, South Korea

🔈🎙️ “I walk with local people who add their own voices, their own insights, and therefore, it’s constantly being refreshed; the journey is constantly being made new.” — @PaulSalopek 🎧📖 Listen or read along with @TheWorld: https://t.co/vQwAhTIDP3 @MarcoWerman @StephenProducer

“I struck my first ocean in 12 years at the coast of Dongbei—what used to be called Manchuria—in the frozen NE of China, almost a year ago. Stuffed inside a parka, I bent to pick up the burnished shingle on an empty shore.” —@PaulSalopek https://t.co/DqpMmmyfAa 📷 Zhang Qing Hua

🔈“Our ancestors took more than 50,000 years, after kind of rambling out of Africa, with no destination in mind, right — this is before destinations had been invented — to reach the tip of South America. I might do it in 15 or 16 years.” —@PaulSalopek to @MarcoWerman on @TheWorld https://t.co/Dw...

From Japan, the Out of Eden Walk marks 12 years, with North America on the horizon. @PaulSalopek is on a foot journey across the world. He provides an extraordinary record of humanity at a new millennium. Read more here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/impact/article/paul-salopek-explorer-story

“I’ll plumb these antique seafaring migrations in the years ahead, as I inch my way to the Out of Eden Walk’s final ocean: the bitter Antarctic waters off Tierra del Fuego.” — @PaulSalopek Read Paul’s most recent dispatch, “Bookend Oceans” here: https://t.co/DqpMmmyfAa

🔈From @emergence_zine: “This week, we return to our interview with journalist @PaulSalopek, who, for the last decade, has been on an epic journey retracing the migration pathway of some of the earliest humans out of Africa’s Rift Valley.” 🎧 Listen here: https://t.co/27m0KGQRSW

“I struck my first ocean in 12 years at the coast of Dongbei—what used to be called Manchuria—in the frozen northeast of China, almost a year ago. Stuffed inside a parka, I bent to pick up the burnished shingle on an empty shore.” —@PaulSalopek Read more: https://t.co/DqpMmmyfAa

✍️ “The Paleolithic bands of Homo sapiens hunter-gatherers I’m following didn’t stop at the blue wall here, of course. Neither will I. In the spring, I hope to board a cargo ship from Japan to Alaska.” — @PaulSalopek Read “Bookend Oceans” here: https://t.co/DqpMmmyfAa #EdenWalk

Thank you to @TheEconomist for joining us on the Out of Eden Walk trail in Japan. https://x.com/TheEconomist/status/1874221502477791430

A Korean battlefield along the Yeongnamdaero trail is commemorated by giant statues of Harry Truman and Rhee Syngman, allies in the country’s brutal civil conflict in 1950. ✍️ Read “Scholar’s Trail” here: https://t.co/UfLiH52YOi 📷 Photo by @PaulSalopek

“Being constantly on the go for over a decade . . . that’s a lot of places to look for a place to sleep. In South Korea, @PaulSalopek encountered. . . the ‘love motel’ — rented by the hour. A love motel is precisely what one may think, but it also is not.” https://t.co/0eyT0hzgHV

“Wearing a summery blue dress, pearls, & open-toed mules—& holding a parasol against the brutal sun—Kim leads the way up a restored, 2-km stretch of the Great Yeongnam Road.” —@PaulSalopek https://t.co/UfLiH52qYK Below: Walking Partner Lee Junseok & guide Kim Gwinam 📷 P. Salopek

“When I’m walking I’m thinking about writing. I’m thinking about a problem. About a paragraph or how something doesn’t work in a story.” — @PaulSalopek Out of Eden Walk marks 12 years, with North America on the horizon: https://t.co/tvorM2hU8e Photo courtesy Paul Salopek.

“The work is the work,” [@PaulSalopek] says. “The studio is between your ears, the four chambers of your heart. That’s the only space that matters. Everything else is negotiable.” From Japan, the Walk marks 12 years, with North America on the horizon: https://t.co/tvorM2hU8e

“I feel the complex questions are the ones that deserve my life. Not to become a guru, because I don’t have answers. I just have questions.” —@PaulSalopek Happy 12th anniversary to the Out of Eden Walk! Read the full story here: https://t.co/tvorM2hU8e @InsideNatGeo @NatGeo

“We are walking, Lee and I, along the same general route as the ancient [Yeongnamdaero] road: a jiggly, 650-kilometer-long transect from Seoul to Busan. Yet the famous pathway is elusive.” —@PaulSalopek Read “Scholar’s Trail” here: https://t.co/UfLiH52qYK #EdenWalk

100% of funds raised will go toward fulfilling our mission of connecting people across borders through the power of slow storytelling. Thank you from our whole team! Learn more about your impact here: http://www.outofedenwalknonprofit.org/campaign #EdenWalk

Thank you to @TheEconomist for joining us on the Out of Eden Walk trail. https://x.com/TheEconomist/status/1872281215832818084

THANK YOU! We’re deeply grateful to the Walk’s community for bringing us to our crowdfunding goal of $75k. If you haven’t yet joined our nonprofit org’s annual crowdfunder and would like to, there are 5 days left—and your donations are still urgently needed. 📷 Ethiopia, Jan 2013

Thank you to @TheEconomist for joining us on the Out of Eden Walk trail. https://x.com/TheEconomist/status/1871004555086807265

We’re 12 years + 25,000 km into the Walk. To support us moving forward, we’re hoping to raise $75k for the Out of Eden Walk nonprofit org by Dec 31. This community has helped to raise over $72k so far. Thank you! Join us: http://outofedenwalknonprofit.org/campaign Pictured: On the trail. China, ‘23

Thank you to @TheEconomist for joining us on the Out of Eden Walk trail. https://x.com/TheEconomist/status/1870137346466763255

There’s a familiar figure on the lower left-hand side of the cover. 🥾🥾 https://x.com/TheEconomist/status/1869786301051900176

Please consider lending support to Out of Eden Walk during our annual crowdfunder, taking place now through December 31st here: https://t.co/JLLd5vO6z7 As ever, our nonprofit organization needs your muscle to help us complete this next stage of our storytelling trek. #EdenWalk https://t.co/dJJ0u...

World Press Award-winning @NatGeo photographer @JohnStanmeyer has documented 11 Out of Eden Walk stories in @NatGeoMag. During our crowdfunder, taking place now, John has generously offered to contribute any one photo, selected from 12 shown here, to a member of our community.

Thank you to our friend and Walking Partner, @sidagarwal! https://x.com/sidagarwal/status/1868887441639457032

Thank you! With your generous donations, we’re almost halfway to our crowdfunding goal! Give today to double your impact. Donations are currently being matched at a 1:1 ratio. Half the world lies ahead on this foot journey. Support our nonprofit here: http://www.outofedenwalknonprofit.org/campaign ✨

After 12 years of walking steadily towards sunrise out of Africa, we’ll soon step out of Asia, steam across the North Pacific by cargo ship, & set off south to our finish line: Tierra del Fuego. Please support our nonprofit organization today: https://t.co/yrlDQVvt7Y @PaulSalopek https://t.c...

👣 Twelve years ago, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer @PaulSalopek left an ancient human fossil site at Herto Bouri, Ethiopia, and set out to walk 38,000 kilometers to the tip of South America. http://www.outofedenwalknonprofit.org/campaign #EdenWalk

✍️ “Lost or found on our trails from the African cradle to our ancestor’s prehistoric finish line at the bottom of South America, we always do better when walking together.” —@PaulSalopek, “Goodbye to China”

Our Board of Directors is matching all donations at a 1:1 ratio up to $30k during our 30-day crowdfunding campaign! As a nonprofit, we rely on public support to survive as funding from our partner organizations only covers about 50% of our operating costs. https://t.co/JLLd5vO6z7 https://t.co/80...

“This journey belongs to everyone. We need good pathfinders now more than ever. Slow down. And look. And listen. Take time to tell the story.” — @PaulSalopek “THE SPARK: On a Journey of Exploration” will be on YouTube Dec 6th. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DC2vWeGMGrK @acehotelkyoto #EdenWalk

Special announcement: We’re delighted to share that every gift from our readers will be doubled at a 1:1 ratio up to the next $30k raised in our annual crowdfunder, thanks to a matching campaign pledged by the Out of Eden Walk nonprofit Board of Directors: https://t.co/JLLd5vO6z7

Since 2013, Out of Eden Walk has been hard at work to build bridges of empathy and understanding through the power of slow storytelling. With your support, @PaulSalopek has traversed more than 24,000 kilometers reporting on the major stories of our time at a human level.