Here is Paul’s eloquent message to participating students:

Welcome, my fellow travelers in the Project Zero program. I’m excited to share my long, slow journey with you as I trek through the deserts, cities, mountains, villages, farms and industrial zones that today dot our ancestors’ ancient migration pathways across the globe. Using history and science–and each of you–as my guides, I hope to learn new things along the way about culture, the environment, technology and other global issues–beacons that will guide us as we each walk into the future.

This is what our wandering forebears did: they literally learned their way across the planet by adapting to new challenges and environments on the long, meandering journey that made us fully human. This is why the “Out of Eden Walk” isn’t just Paul’s walk: it belongs to you, too. So let’s walk together, via the Internet. I look forward to hearing your ideas and comments about the trip. I will respond as often as I can from the trail. And I hope you’ll share a few of your own walks with the rest of as well.

And here’s what participating students from Australia, Canada, India, UK and the US had to say when they were asked to share what they found exciting or interesting about Paul’s walk:

• Paul’s idea of walking around the globe retracing the path our ancestors took is completely amazing. What I like the most about this walk is that Paul is going to physically do this even though we live in a world of technology, where everything is at a click of a button.
• I’m really excited to learn about all of the cultures that Paul will be experiencing and all of the locals he’ll be meeting, and their reactions to him. I’m really excited to magnify the little gaps between the places which are heavily reported on by media, and learn about things outside our textbooks.
•  I am excited to learn about the different cultures, traditions and customs Paul will encounter on his journey through continents and the similarities and differences between diverse races, castes, religions. I really want to read about Paul’s interaction with people across the globe, their varied perspectives and their reaction to him and the momentous journey he has undertaken.
• One aspect of Paul’s journey I’m interested in is that Paul is going to be witnessing and blogging about issues on such a micro level, one will be able to realize the actual severity of these problems, which we hear about so often.Paul will be able to show how issues like climate change, gun control and poverty are affecting communities all across the world. This can help us in our understanding of these problems and might even lead to some pretty good solutions.
• I wonder how Paul will cope being away from home for seven years. I also wonder how Paul will face the many dangers on his walk not just from wildlife such as snakes but also geographic obstacles, the weather and bandits.
• I think that the most interesting thing about what Paul is doing is finding out about the cultures and history of other countries, and how the world is going to change over the seven years.
• Digging deeper into the past can give us a clearer understanding of where we are today and what our future may hold. For me Paul’s walk is travel in a time machine. In the next seven years he will revisit our past traditions and cultures, beyond today’s political and cultural boundaries. This will knit together the past, present and future. This is what excites me the most about Paul’s walk.
• The thing I find most interesting about Paul’s walk is the fact that he is willing to take a large chunk out of his life because he is so dedicated to his work, I find this quite inspiring.
• What I think is interesting about Paul’s walk is that it lasts 7 YEARS, I mean seriously when he finishes his walk, we are going to be in college!