Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 01/10/2025For news, updates, and storytelling from the Out of Eden Walk nonprofit, please follow our dedicated account: @outofedenwalk.social. We’re grateful for your continued support as the Walk unfolds across the world. 041
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 31/05/2025Dragonfly catcher, How far have you gone today In your wandering? — Kagano Chiyojo, 18th century Capsule hotel in #Hiroshima, #Japan. @outofedenwalk #EdenWalk 1131
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 29/05/2025孤独の地理 @outofedenwalk natgeo.nikkeibp.co.jp/atcl/web/19/0…natgeo.nikkeibp.co.jp寂しさの地理――ひと気のない日本の田舎を進む「何時間も本州を歩いても、私たちは人っ子ひとりと会わなかった。幽霊でも出そうな田んぼの中をとぼとぼ歩いた。博物館の展示かのように静かな、瓦屋根の集落を通り抜けた。不気味なほど往来のない、田舎道の真ん中を歩いた」 030
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 28/05/2025SEISMIC SCARECROWS: In #Japan, a land of earthquakes, farmers & gardeners use handmade, breeze-powered whirligigs to send tremors into the soil, to scare away mice & other crop raiders. #sustainable #gardening outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.or…outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgSeismic ScarecrowsIn Japan, gardeners vibe away crop pests. 051
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 28/05/2025The peasant hoes on. The person who asked the way Is now out of sight. — Yosa Buson, 18th century Osaka train station hotel. @outofedenwalk in #Japan. #EdenWalk 010
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 26/05/2025Beyond the tourist sites that lure millions to #Japan—the temples, dazzling city cores, & national parks—sprawls a world few outsiders see: a rural landscape stripped of people & steeped in loneliness. An @outofedenwalk dispatch from a Japanese ghostlands. t.co/hFnCWu0yz7outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgThe Geography of LonelinessNavigating Japan’s emptied countryside. 0126
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 25/05/2025Hunting and gathering in #Japan. Writers need their potassium. @outofedenwalk #EdenWalk 010
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 23/05/2025What’s it like walking 1000 kilometers through #rural #Japan? Among other things, mighty lonely. @TheWorld @outofedenwalk theworld.org/stories/2025/05/23/out…theworld.orgOut of Eden Walk: An eerie walk through Japanese ghost towns - The World from PRXNational Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek's walks through the countryside of Japan have been unexpectedly lonely. That's because he's been trekking through a region undergoing depopulation. Host Marco Werman speaks with Salopek about his all-too-rare encounters with people on this stretch of his journey, as well as the difference between traveling through natural landscapes that are uninhabited and traveling through towns that once thrummed with life, gone quiet. 011
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 21/05/2025What a strange thing! to be alive beneath cherry blossoms. ― Kobayashi Issa, 18th century The @outofedenwalk trail begins in #Japan. #EdenWalk 010
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 21/05/2025Setting out to hike across rural #Japan, my walking partner Soichiro Koriyama decided to photograph every person we met. I thought he was nuts. There would be too many people! But the opposite was true: We traversed a depopulated ghostlands. @outofedenwalk t.co/hFnCWu16oFoutofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgThe Geography of LonelinessNavigating Japan’s emptied countryside. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 19/05/2025THE GEOGRAPHY OF LONELINESS: Much of #Japan’s rural countryside is radically depopulated. Walking through it can be a weirdly beautiful, melancholy experience. @outofedenwalk #walking #EdenWalk outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.or…outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgThe Geography of LonelinessNavigating Japan’s emptied countryside. 010
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 18/05/2025The Sea Point coffee house for retired fishermen. Tottori prefecture, #Japan. @outofedenwalk. #EdenWalk 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 16/05/2025A few months ago @outofedenwalk wrote about the devastation of coastal wetlands in South Korea. Scientists, activists & the worldwide public have petitioned courts to halt the destruction of the last corner of intertidal habitat. Add your voice here. 1/ t.co/utnrfZP8GQdocs.google.com새만금재판부_서한존경하는 이주영 재판장님, 문지용 판사님, 고철만 판사님께 저희는 생태학, 조류학, 환경과학, 지리학 등 다양한 분야의 과학자들로 새만금 신공항 건설 계획이 초래할 수 있는 심각한 환경적, 안전적 위험성에 대해 깊은 우려를 표하고자 합니다. 새만금 신공항 부지는 유네스코 세계자연유산으로 등재된 ‘한국의 갯벌(Getbol, Korean Tidal Flats)’, 즉 서천갯벌 및 고창갯벌과 인접한 지역으로, 국제적으로 중요한 생태계의 보전과 관련하여 중대한 책임을 지닌 지역입니다. 특히 새만금 지역은 유부도를 비롯한 서천갯벌과... 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 14/05/2025Record-breaking heat waves are stunting #rice harvests in #Japan & compelling the country's elderly farmers to retire. A report from the blistering @outofedenwalk trail through Asia. #ClimateCrisis @TheWorld t.co/LE1sVrGyN4theworld.orgOut of Eden Walk: Record-breaking heat in Japan is hurting rice farms - The World from PRXNational Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek experienced record-breaking heat in Japan on his walking journey. Salopek witnessed the heat's havoc on the rice farms he passed by. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Salopek about his conversations with rice farmers and how they've adapted their farming techniques as the heat continues to break records in Japan. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 14/05/2025Every 100 miles, we pause to record the scene along the @outofedenwalk's global trail following the pathways of the ancestors. Here's Milestone number #103: Trekking a forest in #Japan some 16,000 miles from the walk's starting point in #Ethiopia. t.co/9Q9KqAjR8Xoutofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgMilestone 103: Flight of ImaginationPulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek is retracing on foot the global migration of our ancestors in a 38,000 km, seven-year odyssey that begins in Ethiopia and ends in Tierra del Fuego. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 11/05/2025The latest @outofedenwalk trail dispatch on @TheWorld: Walking through the #ClimateCrisis in rural #Japan, through a scorched landscape of wilting farmers and heat-stunted rice crops—and a looming food security bottleneck. t.co/LE1sVrGyN4theworld.orgOut of Eden Walk: Record-breaking heat in Japan is hurting rice farms - The World from PRXNational Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek experienced record-breaking heat in Japan on his walking journey. Salopek witnessed the heat's havoc on the rice farms he passed by. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Salopek about his conversations with rice farmers and how they've adapted their farming techniques as the heat continues to break records in Japan. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 08/05/2025A quiet forest trail. An old hunter carrying a bucket of wild chestnuts for boar traps, a stooped ghost from the past—some ronin with sheathed blade across his shoulders. Then: the roaring void of a modern highway. #Japan Milestone 103. @outofedenwalk t.co/9Q9KqAkoYv 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 03/05/2025How do you cross seas & oceans on a global walk? You could fly. Or you could pound the docks until you find passage on cargo ships. Fellow passengers can include 800 camels. Or dozens of tipsy Turkish truck drivers. @outofedenwalk @TheWorld t.co/OlFsx4DtQ7theworld.orgOut of Eden Walk: Sea Crossings - The World from PRXNational Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has traveled many miles across land on foot since 2013, when he began his long walking journey tracing the footsteps of early human migration from Africa across the planet. But he's also crossed several sea crossings as well. Salopek joined Host Marco Werman to talk about them, the types of ships he took and the people he met along the way. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 29/04/2025Walking across #Kazakhstan on the @outofedenwalk, I befriended the archeologist Andrey Astafyev. Astafyev & his family helped me plant caches of food & water across a vast & desolately beautiful grasslands called #Mangystau. Today, he’s stumbled across a ‘lost city’ there. 1/ 010
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 27/04/2025Walking through rural Japan during the hottest summer on record teaches 2 things: First, ice cream is free at the cybercafé micro-hotels en route; and second, enjoy it while you can because, thanks to the climate crisis, Japan’s food security is cooked. t.co/Loqz09Pe4Woutofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgCooked Crops Japanese farmers reel through the hottest year on record. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 26/04/2025Walking across the world you hit coastlines. So you hop cargo ships. And on these vessels you meet characters. Like Jamal Osili, an engineer on the Red Sea who swoons over recorded birdsongs. Or 27 tipsy Turkish truckers floating in the Caspian. @TheWorld t.co/LmT9x7EABB 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 25/04/2025“We’ve tried switching to tropical fruits,” said a farmer named Tsunehiro Takami. “But the soil isn’t right. So we’re trying different kinds of rice.” In Japan, the climate crisis hits humankind in the only place it cares about: It's belly. @outofedenwalk t.co/Loqz09Pe4Woutofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgCooked Crops Japanese farmers reel through the hottest year on record. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 25/04/2025How does the @outofedenwalk, which is inching on foot from Africa to South America, handle sea crossings along the way? The answer: no planes. Instead, hop cargo ships hauling Ethiopian camels,Turkish trucks, & more. Some salty tales on @TheWorld 1/ t.co/LmT9x7EABBtheworld.orgNational Geographic's Paul Salopek talks sea crossings - The World from PRXNational Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has traveled plenty of miles on foot since 2012 when he began his long walking journey across the globe. But he’s also crossed a number of sea crossings, as well. Salopek joins Host Marco Werman for a conversation about those sea crossings, the types of ships he took and the […] 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 24/04/202510,000 years ago, we herded much of the large, ancestral megafauna roaming the Americas through our intestines, just as today we deploy our mechanical comforts & remodel the planet into a violent sauna. A report from the broiling rice paddies of Japan. t.co/Loqz09Pe4Woutofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgCooked Crops Japanese farmers reel through the hottest year on record. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 22/04/2025An exhibition in Paris, at the Picasso Museum, recalls the rise of fascism in Europe through the control of the imagination: Demonizing art led to dehumanizing people. The Nazis branded all nontraditional & unpatriotic art “degenerate.” Sound familiar? 1/ t.co/AjdNZQhkcd 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 17/04/2025Why do we travel (as opposed to take a holiday)? To seek difference, welcome chance. And how do we accomplish this? By releasing control. I’m startled when people ask, ‘Aren’t you bored by walking continents?’ Because every step is a surprise. @TheWorld t.co/IDNbUj55Grtheworld.orgSurprising places on the Out of Eden Walk - The World from PRXNational Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has covered a lot of ground: some 14,000 miles — on foot — through 21 countries so far on his now 11-year-long Out of Eden Walk. And because he’s exploring the earth at a walker’s pace, he can see things people miss when traveling by plane, rail or car. Salopek tells Host Marco Werman about surprising places only a walker would discover. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 15/04/2025MILESTONE #102 of @outofedenwalk: A little instant coffee. A little Hemingway's 'Old Man & the Sea,' A little immigration law-breaking. A little melancholy. The latest 100-mile recording of the surface of the Earth on a trek from Africa to South America. t.co/vpmTiC6Kag 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 13/04/2025You’ll see things on foot that you’ll never see driving. That’s the difference between genuine travel & mere transportation. And it applies both to walking your neighborhood & walking across the world. A report on global discoveries at 3 mph. @TheWorld t.co/IDNbUj55Grtheworld.orgSurprising places on the Out of Eden Walk - The World from PRXNational Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has covered a lot of ground: some 14,000 miles — on foot — through 21 countries so far on his now 11-year-long Out of Eden Walk. And because he’s exploring the earth at a walker’s pace, he can see things people miss when traveling by plane, rail or car. Salopek tells Host Marco Werman about surprising places only a walker would discover. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 12/04/2025South Koreans recently voted with their feet: When their president tried to steal power in a coup, colossal protests jammed the streets. That president is now impeached. Maybe #Korea should add K-democracy to its other main export—#Kpop. @outofedenwalk t.co/GwRHnuXDXX 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 11/04/2025The @outofedenwalk has a newly designed web site that includes some cool mapping features. Take stroll through our trove of half a million words & thousands of photos and videos. Let us know if you hit any obstacles. outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 09/04/2025What are those dots strung out across the world? Milestones: In-the-moment recordings taken 100 miles apart on a walk from Africa to South America. The landscape. The people. This one's at the Korean DMZ. Check out the @ArcGISStoryMaps. @outofedenwalk t.co/KMWPVorSbD 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 09/04/2025South #Korea appears to occupy a peninsula: In truth, it's an island, ringed by minefields & the sea. A report from a hike thru an outpost of contradictions--including soy-sauce maestros, old-fashioned courtesans, & 1/4 million pro-democracy protesters. t.co/GwRHnuXDXX 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 08/04/2025GOODBYE TO SOUTH KOREA: Some thoughts on walking 650 km across a country that functions as a laboratory of the future. #SouthKorea #Korea #EdenWalk outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.or…outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgGoodbye to KoreaExiting mainland Asia through a laboratory of change. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 05/04/2025A friend who helped the @outofedenwalk in #China, Zhu Dan, has joined another expedition to retrace the steps of eccentric 1920s explorer Joseph Rock through the wild mountains of #Sichuan. Traveler Micheal Woodhead, who tramped the same rugged routes in the 1990s, joined him. t.co/YNNrA... 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 02/04/2025A new MARGINLANDS podcast: @AratiKumarRao & @prempanicker talk literary orienteering with seer-novelist @nilanjanaroy about peering 'through' pulsing megacities (Delhi!) to the bruised natural landscapes that once nurtured them & that haunt them still. www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0L6GIJXs3kyoutube.comFrom The Marginlands: Ep2 Ft. Nilanjana Roy 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 29/03/2025Reposting this because on top of a brutal civil war, #Myanmar is now grappling with the heart-crushing fallout of a 7.7 earthquake. At least 1000 dead. Probably many more. Please lend a hand with a donation for food, shelter & meds. A reputable aid group: t.co/05YWbVp12W t.co...gofundme.comDonate to Emergency Relief for Myanmar: Help Earthquake Survivors, organized by Better BurmaEmergency Relief for Myanmar: Help Earthquake Survivors Now A… Better Burma needs your support for Emergency Relief for Myanmar: Help Earthquake Survivors 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 29/03/2025Avisha Jain walked 150 km along the Luni River in #India, expecting to find a beloved lifeline. Instead she saw a river on life support—plundered for sand & polluted. Another sobering yet lively @moving_upstream report from our partners at @veditum t.co/bgPSKz1eag 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 28/03/2025After plodding for 2 blistering months across the #Korean peninsula, walking partner Lee Junseok logged a GPS map of personal waypoints. It's Homeric: wasp stings, surprise Mexican lunches, monsoon downpours, English high tea in village huts, K-pop malls. t.co/Uyo8KaPGMy 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 28/03/2025A comedian’s union joins massive protests in #Turkey against the increasingly authoritarian rule of president Erdoğan, who imprisoned his main opposition a week ago. Turkey’s democracy & economy have tumbled backwards since @outofedenwalk hiked through in 2014. 📸Nil Delahaye. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 26/03/2025‘It would take me years of reading, thought, and experience to learn again that in this world limits are not only inescapable but indispensable.’ —Wendell Berry Trying to weigh mercy at the #Busan fish market, South #Korea. #EdenWalk 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 25/03/2025Walking partner Junseok Lee got a bit emotional finally toeing the green ocean waves in #Busan, South #Korea. After slogging 650 km across Korea in the fiery heat, his dad called to ask where he was. “It’s done,” Lee said into his phone. He was home. t.co/Uyo8KaPGMyoutofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgA Long Walk HomeA walking partner in South Korea discovers that people are the destination. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 24/03/2025‘It's no fish ye're buying—it’s men's lives,’ wrote Walter Scott, 19th century poet, about the fatal risks faced by deep-sea fishers. Actually, it’s fishes lives you’re buying: 1 to 2.7 trillion wild ocean fish a year are eaten by humans. Busan fish market, South #Korea 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 22/03/2025Walking partner Junseok Lee (left) & photographer Jun Michael Park step to the finish line of the @outofedenwalk in South #Korea, the port of #Busan. Busan-born, Lee wept when he finally reached dockside. Unspooling behind: two months of blistering summer trails. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 22/03/2025The bleakest legacy of the #Covid-19 pandemic—5 years on? To the deaths of 7 million across the world, I'd add the death of trust. Whether in China or the US, skepticism of science, due to the official responses, ensures the next plague will be deadlier. t.co/UbHMHnx5nctheworld.orgOut of Eden Walk: Walking through COVID - The World from PRXNational Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek was thousands of miles into his Out of Eden Walk when he had to pause his journey in Myanmar to wait out the COVID-19 pandemic. Host Marco Werman speaks with him about the experience of walking and reporting through Asian regions made inaccessible by quarantines and lockdowns. 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 21/03/2025It seems like another lifetime-the memory is so awful-but #COVID began erupting cross the globe only 5 years ago. I was walking in #Myanmar when the virus erupted. My 4-story hotel emptied overnight. Starvation became a reality. A look back with @TheWorld. t.co/jmNNRvdLDl 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 18/03/2025Family farmers toil in small plots near the end of @outofedenwalk’s 650-kilometer foot trail through South #Korea, the port city of #Busan, visible in the distance. #EdenWalk 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 18/03/2025Frog ecologist Jang Yikweon searches rice paddies near Miryang, South #Korea, for frogs, which are threatened by habitat loss to massive economic development: rapid urbanization and industrial agriculture. A tree frog, Dryophytes japonicus is among his quarry. #EdenWalk 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 17/03/2025A great pleasure to chat with @AratiKumarRao and @prempanicker about long-wave storytelling on their brand-new podcast MARGINLANDS: story structures, news literacy, environmental reporting…and what the iambic beat of walking does to prose. @outofedenwalk t.co/TmD96pn1cp 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 15/03/2025Serious play. Walking partner Junseok Lee and field biologist Jang Yikweon head out into the golden tomorrows—a glowing, sunset paddy near Miryang, South #Korea. They will hunt frogs to sample for species diversity. #EdenWalk 000
Paul Salopek @paulsalopek.social · 13/03/2025GLANCE BACK: Mud-slogging through the monsoons of northern #India with @Pri_Borpujari, Virender Singh—and our brave-hearted donkey, Raju. Summer, 2018. #EdenWalk outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.or…outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.orgGoodbye to RajuOn foot across the world—in the grace-filled company of animals 000
