Paul Salopek: The Out of Eden Walk

"The auditorium was hot and the acoustics were poor, but [Paul] Salopek's words were captivating. He explained that he had become dissatisfied with the standard method of international reporting, for which correspondents helicoptered into countries with little notice, reported, filed, and helicoptered out. 

Storytelling, he said, requires the writer to come in at ground level with the subject. His solution to this problem was to walk. He indicated a world map projected on the wall behind him, with a route traced out in a squiggly lineit was a footpath. He would start in Herto Bouri, Ethiopia, and proceed twenty-four thousand miles to Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of South America. 

The project would be called the Out of Eden Walk, since the route followed the migratory path of our human ancestors, and Salopek would publish regular stories on the project through National Geographic." Salopek's "24,000 mile odyssey is a decade-long experiment in slow journalism." 

More in this compelling interview.

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