Public radio’s longest-running daily global news program.AboutContactDonateMeet the TeamPrivacyTerms of use©2026 The World from PRXPRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402.Out of Eden Walk: Getting by on the generosity of strangersOn a long trip away from home, some of the most memorable moments come from the hospitality of strangers. National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has come to rely on hospitality daily on his Out of Eden Walk, traversing the path of human migration. Host Marco Werman speaks to Paul about hospitality, starting in Japan with a recent stay in a traditional roadside inn.7:30Yoshiko Yamana prepares dinner for guests.After a long trip, the first thing you tell people when you get home might not be about the bed you slept in or the communal breakfast in the hotel lobby, but hospitality does make a big difference in how you experience a place — whether it’s a spare bed in a stranger’s house or just someone taking the time to show you around. National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek knows this. For over 12 years, he’s been tracing the path of human migration on his Out of Eden Walk, a trip that spans multiple continents and offers different welcomed experiences.Paul Salopek: Marco, we were walking, me and my Japanese walking partner, a fellow journalist, into an industrial city called Shunan, on the main island. It was getting late in the day, and as is sometimes the case in Japan … we couldn’t find any lodging. In desperation, my friend Soichiro called businesses to say, “So, you know any place in your neighborhood?” And that’s how we turfed up the Migita guesthouse, which is kind of invisible online and run by an 84-year-old woman named Yoshiko. Yoshiko Yamana, 84, runs Migita ryokan, or guesthouse, along with a handful of helpers who, like the plates and teacups, have rendered service for decades.Soichiro Koriyama/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkYoshiko Yamana’s Migita ryokan was built more than a century ago.Soichiro Koriyama/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkWell, as a fellow storyteller, Marco, you bump into people who your storyteller’s radar blinks on, and you say, okay, here’s a person that you might pass on the sidewalk, not even notice, right? She’s quite petite. She’s got an elfin kind of aura about her … smiling, friendly, super polite … but she’s had a very hard life. She grew up in a small village near this city during World War II. She remembered the B-29 bombers flying overhead en route to Tokyo. Her father disappeared into a POW camp in Manchuria and didn’t come back from the war until four years later — a ghost of his former self. The thing about this generation of Japanese is that they’re often quite reserved about sharing personal details. What I could gather from bits and pieces is that she was basically forced into a forced marriage, which didn’t work, and she left after six months … scandalizing her village, and had to leave. So, she came to the city and somehow opened up this ryokan, the Migita Ryokan in Shunan.Water-worked hands: “My neighbors joke about me,” says 84-year-old Yoshiko Yamana. “They say I’ll still be here washing sheets in 30 years.”Soichiro Koriyama/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkIt was of a kind. So, my project depends a lot on chance and serendipity, so I can’t really plan ahead. I rely on — in the moment — acts of compassion, right? And I wouldn’t be talking to you today if this didn’t happen over and over like a daily miracle. I’ve been admitted to shepherds’ huts, I’ve been admitted to big palaces, I’ve been admitted to even caves, inhabited caves. So, I think this, for me, is an affirmation. The energy that keeps me going is finding people who share, not only their stories, but also a cup of tea and maybe a place to rest your head.Yoshiko Yamana passes her days in the kitchen amid shelves stacked with tin, wood and porcelain cooking implements.Soichiro Koriyama/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkI’ve been asked this before, and I’ve got to say it’s, you know, there’s a lot of bad news in the world, Marco. But I’m happy to report that the vast majority, the staggering majority of the human population, above 90%, across cultures, borders, languages and ideologies, is hospitable. That said, there is a distinction, maybe a little bit economically, that is not surprising, a bit of a banal observation, that the people who have the least are often the most hospitable, right, because they know suffering and they can recognize it in others. I’m sure all the time. And I’m sure many of my hosts were probably too polite to point out how many thousands of faux pas I was making [laughs]. That’s compassion for the clumsy dumbbell who’s kind of staggering through your doorway with a backpack on and sweaty and smelly and with dirty clothes, right? Something about Japan that stands out is that I think the traditions of human interactions and hospitality in the case of this conversation are even more extremely codified, more highly refined and developed. So, for example, when coming into somebody’s house, you take your shoes off, of course, and everybody knows that I took my shoes off. But sometimes, in some homes, you put your shoes in a certain place, you know, to the left and not to the right. So, I’ve had hosts or hostesses kind of very quietly, when they think I’m not looking, take my shoes and move them. So, there’s even a kind of microgeography to hospitality. Yoshiko Yamana bought the derelict Migita ryokan, which housed navy officers during World War II, in 1965.Soichiro Koriyama/National Geographic, Out of Eden WalkYeah, I do, but it’s been a lifelong thing, Marco. I left the United States when I was five and a half and moved to another culture. And so, kind of growing up within different cultures, as a minority of one, you become sensitive to this. And what I say often, the mantra of my project is, I’m not walking to a place — geographically I’m walking to the tip of South America on the Out of Eden Walk — but what I’m walking to every single day is other people. People are my destination, because I know from a lifelong experience even, Marco, similar to you as a war correspondent, that there’s goodness there, and you just have to look for it.Parts of this interview have been lightly edited for length and clarity.Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonders of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.