Out of Eden Walk

How many years would you be willing to dedicate yourself to a science project? One, two, may be more? For Paul Salopek, retracting our ancestors’ migration out of Africa and across the globe, on foot will take about seven years.  He started his 21000 mile journey in Ethiopia and will conclude at the tip of South America. His epic modern pilgrimage is being funded by National Geographic.

Paul is retracting the path of early humans that traveled this way more than 60,000 years ago to reach different areas in the world. He finds out about the local customs and cultures at each of his iconic and not so famous stops. His experiment in story telling is defined by him as “Slow Journalism”. In an age when everything is instantly available, it is astonishing to see how popular his project has turned out to be!

He is joined off and on by John Stanmeyer, a photographer, who helps illustrate the blog that Paul is maintaining about his journey. You can read more about it at http://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.com/. Each blog post is an interesting capture of conversations with others, and captivating experiences. His simple but engaging writing style is what keeps the interest of his global audience focused on the next story.