WAYPOINTS, a journey on foot

258pp., paperback, Reprint, London (2021) 2022

When he was 27-years-old, Robert Martineau left his desk job at a London law firm, flew to Accra and walked 1,000 miles through Ghana, Togo and Benin, to Ouidah, an ancient spiritual centre on the West African coast.

"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

"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

Robert Martineau is co-founder of TRIBE, a nutrition company, and TRIBE Freedom Foundation, a charity fighting human trafficking.