Out of Eden Walk: SUMMER SPRINT COMPLETE!

**UPDATE: We are grateful to everyone who gave, shared this campaign, or cheered us on during the Summer Sprint week!

Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of this community, we are thrilled to share that the campaign not only reached its goal—it surpassed it. Together, supporters like you raised $24,371, providing vital support for the essential work and operating needs that keep the Out of Eden Walk moving forward. We also sincerely thank Dave Pond and Sherry Hemby and the David and Erin Elliott Family Fund for pledging a match of $7,500 to maximize the impact of this campaign!

Every gift, large and small, reflects a shared belief in the power of slow, human-centered storytelling to foster curiosity, empathy, and connection across borders. We are deeply grateful to everyone who helped make this campaign such a success. Thank you for ensuring that the Walk can continue taking its next steps.**

For one week, we’re inviting our supporters to sprint so that the Walk can continue moving slowly. For the duration of the campaign, 100% of dollars raised will go directly toward fulfilling our nonprofit mission. Your support makes it possible to share stories from this historic global trek, build new education partnerships and classroom resources, offer workshops for media professionals on the upcoming route, collaborate with local creatives and storytellers, and meet rising field costs due to routing and inflation. While previously we’ve asked for your participation only once a year, rising costs have created a need for additional support. Out of Eden Walk is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and all donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

Time remaining in campaign:

-41Days -6Hours -24Minutes -11Seconds

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The Out of Eden Walk has always embodied the values of slow journalism—moving at the pace of a human footstep (or, this season, a kayak paddle) to tell stories that require patience, presence, and time. But sustaining this work depends on the generosity of strangers—the same fuel that has kept Paul walking across 17,000 miles and 14 years—and, occasionally, a swifter pace.

New to Out of Eden Walk? Let us introduce ourselves.

Founded by National Geographic Explorer and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Salopek, the Out of Eden Walk is a multi-year, 26,000-mile journey that retraces the pathways of early human migration. Traveling on foot from the Horn of Africa through the Middle East, Asia, and finally the Americas, Salopek is documenting humanity at the pace of three miles per hour. Out of Eden Walk is one of the most ambitious reporting projects of our time: a “slow journalism” expedition that brings depth, empathy, and historical perspective back to a world overwhelmed by speed and noise.

Map credit: Jeff Blossom, Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis.

Why Now?

Because in an age of shallow media that often polarizes and divides, our deepening trove of cross-cultural slow journalism offers audiences a more humane, meaningful, and inclusive alternative to today’s angry narratives of nativism, intolerance, and xenophobia.
Because by slowing down our lives to a more human pace, we bring to light the vital connections among people and the natural world that are missed by moving too fast—insights that can help guide us through a challenging new century of climate crises, income inequality, and conflict.
Because walking reawakens wonder. And wonder is what unites us: We are building a storytelling community across borders that shares its own rediscovery of the Earth at the pace of a human footstep.

Patterns of connectivity. Alaska, 2026. Photo by Paul Salopek.

Today, the Walk is entering North America, marking one of the project’s most complex and geopolitically significant phases. The opportunities and potential in this moment are equally consequential.

Support and Impact

An IRS-classified 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Out of Eden Walk is an independent and nimble institution that has underpinned Salopek’s journey since its inception.

Public support is vital to every aspect of Out of Eden Walk’s mission. It will carry the journey to its final destination in Tierra del Fuego, expand K–12 educational programs that engage tens of thousands of students worldwide, make it possible to launch a new Out of Eden Walk workshop model, the “Slow Storytelling Lab,” to support journalists working in challenging media environments, and to preserve and share a singular archive of multimedia storytelling for generations to come.

Out of Eden Walk teaches Storytelling and Photo Camps in collaboration with National Geographic Society and Kirsten Elstner. Here, at a Storytelling Photo Camp in Uttarakhand, India, students practice slow journalism techniques during a 5-day Camp. India, 2018. Photo by Paul Salopek.

The project’s creative output to date approaches 500,000 published words, along with tens of thousands of photographs and videos. Thematically, Out of Eden Walk’s “slow journalism” addresses many of the pressing dilemmas of our day: war, mass migration, spiritual isolation, sustainability, cultural preservation, and more, with the depth and nuance they deserve—thus serving as an antidote to today’s frenetic, 24/7 media cycle.

High in the Tian Shan mountain system near the expansive, high-altitude Issyk-Kul Lake in Kyrgyzstan. 2016. Photo by Paul Salopek.

Out of Eden Walk’s supporters recognize what a project of this scale and potential represents:

An unprecedented archive of life across the globe at the turn of the 21st century.
A long-view intellectual and journalistic undertaking that serves diverse educational applications.
A global civic asset that deepens understanding across cultures, combating disinformation and intolerance. As Salopek sets out on the final 10,000 miles of his walk across the Americas, philanthropic support is critical to bringing the journey to its conclusion and to building its enduring legacy: strengthening a diverse community of journalists and storytellers and ensuring that the Walk’s impact extends far beyond its final steps.

Walking Partner Siddharth Agarwal measures the fluoride level in water from village wells in the Thar Desert. Agarwal is the founder of Veditum India Foundation, a not-for-profit climate research, media and action oriented organization based out of Kolkata, India. Photo by Paul Salopek.

THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE JOURNEY!

Out of Eden Walk: SUMMER SPRINT COMPLETE!

Robin Gamrath-Schauman

Dave Pond and Sherry Hemby

The David and Erin Elliott Family Fund

Anne Lynch Hansen

Timothy Kujawski

Arul Siva Murugan Velayutham

Pamela Green

Joanne Fuchs Fuchs

Mancho Manchev

Chiara Giacomelli

Leila Reynolds

Edwin Smelt

Tim Kirley

Helen Heindel

Rayne Adams

Harinder Sidhu

Luminita Stanila

Linda Cobb

Amy Batchelor

Sarah Mattingly

Jan Eberhart

Phil Norris

Judy Thompson

Jonathan Brelsford

Laura Okawa

Howard Ausden

Dion Good

David Badstubner

Sean Jones

Laura Kerr

Don Belt

Michael G Hankinson

Jane Lerma

Debbie Pastors

Arati Rao

David Williams

Natasha Tang

Patrice Duquette

James Duncker

Benjamin Goggins

Janet Whitesides

Jon Paradiso

Maylene Cobb

Laura Wareh

Greg Wathen

Jaron Huq

Anne Mackenzie

Sharon Goetz

Jo G Griffith

Kathryn Gavin

Adron Gardner

Trang Tien

Michael Shaughnessy

Patricia Charman

Bill Whiteside

Susan Goss

Kathy Hubbell

Ken Kumpe

Greg Hull

Margaret Lau

Richard Woodward

Jonathan Miller

Mary Rowin

Meg Gleeson

Jan Dams

Nancy Chao

Robyn Kruger

Cynthia Barry

Julie McGhee

Joe Willi

Nancy Harbert

Joyce Michael

Flynn McRoberts

Amy Thompson West

W. Steven Danford

Mary E Wissel

Lillian Spencer

Dami Roelse

Holly Larner