Paul Salopek

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Dragonfly catcher,
How far have you gone today
In your wandering? — Kagano Chiyojo, 18th century Capsule hotel in #Hiroshima, #Japan. @outofedenwalk #EdenWalk

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」

孤独の地理 @outofedenwalk
https://natgeo.nikkeibp.co.jp/atcl/web/19/051900057/052800002/?ST=m_column

Seismic Scarecrows In Japan, gardeners vibe away crop pests.

SEISMIC 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 https://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org/seismic-scarecrows/

The 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

The Geography of Loneliness Navigating Japan’s emptied countryside.

Beyond 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. https://t.co/hFnCWu0yz7

Hunting and gathering in #Japan. Writers need their potassium. @outofedenwalk #EdenWalk

Out of Eden Walk: An eerie walk through Japanese ghost towns - The World from PRX National 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.

What’s it like walking 1000 kilometers through #rural #Japan? Among other things, mighty lonely. @TheWorld @outofedenwalk https://theworld.org/stories/2025/05/23/out-of-eden-walk-an-eerie-walk-through-japanese-ghost-towns

What a strange thing! to be alive beneath cherry blossoms. ― Kobayashi Issa, 18th century The @outofedenwalk trail begins in #Japan. #EdenWalk

The Geography of Loneliness Navigating Japan’s emptied countryside.

Setting 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 https://t.co/hFnCWu16oF

The Geography of Loneliness Navigating Japan’s emptied countryside.

THE 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 https://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org/the-geography-of-loneliness/

The Sea Point coffee house for retired fishermen. Tottori prefecture, #Japan. @outofedenwalk. #EdenWalk

새만금재판부_서한 존경하는 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...

A 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/ https://t.co/utnrfZP8GQ

Out of Eden Walk: Record-breaking heat in Japan is hurting rice farms - The World from PRX National 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.

Record-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 https://t.co/LE1sVrGyN4

Milestone 103: Flight of Imagination Pulitzer 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.

Every 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. https://t.co/9Q9KqAjR8X

Out of Eden Walk: Record-breaking heat in Japan is hurting rice farms - The World from PRX National 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.

The 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. https://t.co/LE1sVrGyN4

A 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 https://t.co/9Q9KqAkoYv

Out of Eden Walk: Sea Crossings - The World from PRX National 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.

How 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 https://t.co/OlFsx4DtQ7

Walking 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/

Cooked Crops Japanese farmers reel through the hottest year on record.

Walking 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.
https://t.co/Loqz09Pe4W

Walking 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
https://t.co/LmT9x7EABB

Cooked Crops Japanese farmers reel through the hottest year on record.

“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
https://t.co/Loqz09Pe4W

National Geographic's Paul Salopek talks sea crossings - The World from PRX National 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 […]

How 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/
https://t.co/LmT9x7EABB

Cooked Crops Japanese farmers reel through the hottest year on record.

10,000 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.
https://t.co/Loqz09Pe4W

An 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/ https://t.co/AjdNZQhkcd

Surprising places on the Out of Eden Walk - The World from PRX National 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.

Why 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

https://t.co/IDNbUj55Gr

MILESTONE #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. https://t.co/vpmTiC6Kag

Surprising places on the Out of Eden Walk - The World from PRX National 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.

You’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 https://t.co/IDNbUj55Gr

South 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 https://t.co/GwRHnuXDXX

The @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. https://outofedenwalk.nationalgeographic.org