It’s minus 16 in the Scottish Highlands. Paul Harris pulls off his glove to check his phone and the cold bites his bones instantly. He looks at a patch of woodland and thinks: just lie down for 30 minutes. His body is shutting down. But his Royal Marine training screams louder — keep walking, do not stop. If you stop in that cold, alone, with no one knowing where you are, you do not get back up. He keeps walking.
Paul left the Royal Marines traumatised, unable to speak about his life. He walked out of his brother’s house with a sleeping bag, no tent, no formal preparation — just 24,000 miles of British coastline ahead and a need to keep moving.
Three years and two full laps of the UK later, Paul Harris — known as The Warrior Walker — has walked further around Britain than anyone alive. He’s raised money for the Samaritans and Mind, been interviewed on Sky News, and attracted the attention of adventurers like Levison Wood, Alastair Humphreys and Sean Conway. His book proposal is heading to auction next month with Harper Collins, Penguin and others competing. He now lives near Bristol, moving soon to Plymouth with his partner, rebuilding a life that the walk both saved and turned inside out.
The currency of the walk.
Paul couldn’t afford a tent when he started. The currency became simple — a room for the night, a dinner, a meal. Strangers invited him in, got their friends round, gave him a shower, washed his clothes, put money in his pocket. They asked him to tell his story. He would cry within minutes. He couldn’t speak about why he was walking or what had led him there. But over time, talking and walking became the same thing. The walk gave him a purpose and a goal he didn’t believe he could finish. The distance was insane — summer, winter, COVID. He did it twice. Thirty pairs of boots. Two blisters the whole way round.
A stag in the dark.
His first night on the first lap, Paul walked 37 kilometres to Langworthy Cove and bedded down in a divot facing the sea with no tent — just a sleeping bag a friend had given him. He woke in the dark with the sense someone was watching. He looked left, then right. Within arm’s reach stood a stag, massive, silhouetted in the darkness. He jumped up, swearing. It didn’t move. Then it turned and walked away. Paul packed immediately, walked into the village, and spent the rest of the night in the graveyard listening to the church clock chime every hour. The next day dozens of women messaged him saying the stag represents protection and a new journey. In Scotland, wild stags let him walk close enough to touch them.
COVID, cities and human connection.
Crossing from England into Wales during COVID, Paul walked six extra miles just to sit inside a coffee shop — something Wales allowed but England didn’t. He remembers thinking it was the most incredible thing. Months later he walked into Cardiff at Christmas, coming from ghost-town England into a decorated high street full of people. The sensory overload was completely overwhelming. After being so remote for so long on both laps, he now misses cities. He gets his energy, his endorphins, from people. He needs that community.
The come down.
After finishing the second lap, Paul felt a massive anti-climax. Alastair Humphreys had warned him — you are going to have a come down. Paul didn’t believe him. After three years of purpose, of people meeting him and giving him credit, it vanished. He found himself lying on the bed for ten hours, not wanting to be here. He raised money for the Samaritans and Mind on the walk, charities that exist for exactly this reason. His partner and close friends saw it and gave him love. The Instagram community rallied when he spoke openly. He hasn’t made any money from three years of walking. Some evenings it’s been super noodles for dinner. But he believes things are coming together — talks booked for next year, the book auction next month, moving to Plymouth with his partner who is starting teacher training.
The destination is almost irrelevant. It was the small coffees with friends and strangers, the interactions with people walking their dogs, the hugs, the crazy weather, the physicality.
— Paul Harris
In this conversation.
We hear how Paul was contacted by a ghost writer who has worked with Nirmal Purja, Tyson Fury and Usain Bolt, and a literary agent from the same agency as J.K. Rowling. We hear about his friendship with former Marine Mitch Hutchcraft, meeting Joe Wicks privately in London, and the urban legend that spread across the Isle of Skye about a crazy English guy in a red coat walking alone in the snow. We hear his belief that walking — even just 10 minutes, ideally alone at first — is the most powerful form of therapy, and that adventure can transform people without needing medication. And we hear his conviction that the destination is death, the start is birth, and everything in between is what matters — especially the small moments.
Call to adventure.
Walk. Just walk. It doesn’t have to be 20,000 kilometres. Start with 10 minutes, then 20. Ideally alone at first, so you have to sit with your own thoughts — then with others. Paul has created a tool on his website that takes your postcode and maps out local adventure routes in any direction. No excuses.
Pay it forward.
Paul supports Doctors Without Borders internationally — courageous people who shine a light into the darkest places in the world. In the UK he supports Rock2Recovery, the Royal Marine Charity, and any military charity that looks after men and women who served and weren’t properly looked after when they left. And his final challenge — pay it forward to yourself: speak to people, say hello, ask how they are. It’s remarkable what comes back.
About Paul.
Paul Harris — The Warrior Walker — is a former Royal Marine who walked 24,000 miles around the UK coastline over three years, completing two full laps. He raised money for the Samaritans and Mind, wore out 30 pairs of boots, and walked the final 135 kilometres on 90 minutes’ sleep to make a Sky News interview wearing a white Primark t-shirt because he couldn’t put shoes on. His book proposal goes to auction next month with major publishers. He lives near Bristol and is moving to Plymouth, advocating for adventure as therapy and the transformative power of simply walking.
Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands, on a night cold enough to kill, Paul kept walking when his body begged him to stop. That same refusal to quit — learned in the Marines, forged on 24,000 miles of coastline — is what carries him now through the harder terrain of coming home.
