A spellbinding travel book, exploring the psychology of walking, pilgrimage, solitude and escape.

At the age of twenty-seven, and afraid of falling into a life he doesn't want, Robert Martineau quits his office job, buys a flight to Accra and begins to walk. He walks 1,000 miles through Ghana, Togo and Benin, to Ouidah, an ancient spiritual centre on the West African coast.

Martineau walks alone across desert, through rainforests, over mountains, carrying everything he needs on his back, sleeping in villages or on the side of paths. Along the way he meets shamans, priests, historians, archaeologists and kings. He begins to confront the lines of slavery and exploitation that binds his home to theirs. Through the process of walking each day, and the lessons of those he walks among, Martineau starts to find the freedom he craves, and to build connections with the natural world and the past.

In an extraordinary account of an adventure, and the inner journey that accompanies it, Martineau discovers how a walking pilgrimage can change a person.

About the Author
Robert Martineau is co-founder of TRIBE, a nutrition company, and TRIBE Freedom Foundation, a charity fighting human trafficking. Waypoints is his first book. He lives in London.

Reviews
A story of tenacity, told with humility, in a West Africa experienced deeply at the pace of a walk. I loved this book - its thoughtfulness, turn of phrase and lightness of touch as the author escapes one life to rediscover another. -- Sophy Roberts, author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia
Martineau segues effortlessly from practical desert challenges to striking encounters... [he] finds trust in the road and learns to trust his unrest... there is a sense that the waypoints he encounters inspire a new, and encouraging, optimism. -- Caroline Eden * Times Literary Supplement *
[Martineau] is fine and thoughtful company for the journey, sensitive to the fraught history of Europeans who have used Africa and Africans as a backdrop for their exploits * Washington Post *
Waypoints wonderfully explores how walking animates resilience in times of stress, anxiety and worry, illustrating, through personal experience, how the journey is often our collective human goal. -- Shane O'Mara, author of 'In Praise of Walking'
An astonishing dream-like journey... Martineau has written a deeply affecting book which sears itself on the memory like the sun of the western Sahel. -- Philip Marsden, author of 'Rising Ground', 'The Spirit-Wrestlers' and 'The Crossing Place'
A wonderful book. -- Giles Foden * i *
An epic journey and a book worthy of it. A thrilling and poignant meditation on the elusive reasons for getting out of bed in the morning; a dazzling kaleidoscope of colour, sensation, and time. An important new voice has arrived. -- Charles Foster, author of 'Being a Beast'
Terrific... a travel-writing gem. -- Tim Butcher, author of Blood River
Stepping out in the spirit of Bruce Chatwin and Rebecca Solnit, Robert Martineau ranges through forest and desert, literature and philosophy, in search of an answer to why we are drawn to wander. Although he walks over a thousand miles, Waypoints is less a tale of endurance than a form of meditation. In elegant, searingly honest prose, he treads the same line as John Muir, for whom 'going out was really going in'. -- David Farrier, author of 'Footprints'
As soon as I picked it up, I couldn't stop reading... immediate and soulful and searching. -- Pico Iyer
At the age of 27, Martineau, a lawyer in London, quit his job and embarked on a 1,000 mile walk with a backpack through West Africa... This is his story, beautifully-written, of how his pilgrimage of sorts changed him forever. * Evening Standard *
An extraordinary, dreamlike journey through west Africa. The evocative, delicate writing leaves you feeling the very ground under his feet as he makes his way on this most astonishing pilgrimage in search of adventure and meaning. -- Adharanand Finn, author of Running with the Kenyans
This is a book about how to travel: curious, observant, informed and poignantly honest. It is a marvellous and sensitive portrayal of the author's inner and the outer world. -- Jay Griffiths, author of 'Wild: An Elemental Journey'
His touch is light, his brushwork vivid, the account is full of surprises and refreshingly free of pomposity... A poignant illustration of the random kindness of strangers. -- Michela Wrong, author of 'In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz', 'Borderlines' and 'Do Not Disturb'
Waypoints is a paean to the transformative power of a long journey on foot, and to walking's capacity to define and illuminate our sense of self. Martineau writes with remarkable intelligence and honesty, and a singular reverence for the people and places he encounters along the way. A magnificent book. -- Ben Saunders, polar explorer and endurance athlete
Waypoints is an insightful, personal and genuinely moving account of what can be achieved with two feet, a backpack and a desire to keep on going... Waypoints is a rousing celebration of all that can be learned by getting off the path - this is an exceptional debut. -- Vybarr Cregan-Reid, author of 'Footnotes'
With just forty possessions on his back, he walks, remembers, reflects and encounters. Martineau weaves together philosophy (Nietzsche, Thoreau), history (the slave trade and its scars) and glorious descriptions of the landscape, all the while demonstrating the power of walking to heal mental wounds. * Tatler *
Tired of long hours at his desk in a London law firm, the 27-year-old flies to Ghana, and starts putting one foot in front of the other. His stroll ends up covering 1,000 miles and three countries... many people struggle with what's going on between their ears but [Martineau has] found a simple solution: get walking. * Daily Mail *
An engaging meditation on life and walking and a fascinating glimpse into Martineau's interior journey. * Travel Writing World *
This is a vivid, beautifully observed account of a trek through West Africa, but its true power lies in the way Martineau's deeply personal journey becomes a meditation on movement, belonging and being. Eclectic, spare, and at times redolent of Erling Kagge and Bruce Chatwin - there is a hint of greatness here. -- Daniel Metcalfe, author of 'Blue Dahlia, Black Gold: A Journey into Angola'



Book Information
ISBN 9781787331365
Author Robert Martineau
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Jonathan Cape Ltd
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 402g
Dimensions(mm) 222mm * 141mm * 25mm