Out of Eden: Paul Salopek's Walk from Ethiopia to Patagonia

In early 2013, National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek set out on foot from the birthplace of humanity, the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia. He walked in the footsteps of the first modern humans who left Africa to settle the unknown world.

This immense narrative journey spanned roughly 50,000 years of human history and 21,000 miles of the planet's surface—from our paleoanthropological "Eden" in East Africa north into the Levant; across the steppes of Central Asia to China; by sea from Siberia to Alaska; and then down the length of the Americas to the continental "Land's End" of our species in Patagonia.

The goal of the world walk—and the Out of Eden project—was to slow readers down and allow them to reflect on current events as a form of pilgrimage. By using the history of our migration as a backdrop for international news, Salopek examined the most important global stories of our day from ground level, at three miles an hour—walking into stories as diverse as human conflict and local innovations, mass migration and the Internet revolution, climate change and cultural survival.

National Geographic and the Knight Foundation funded the Out of Eden Walk's fieldwork and journalism. The walk's educational mission was supported by the Pulitzer Center. Learn more at http://www.outofedenwalk.com.