The Warrior Walker: How I Found Resilience, Purpose and Meaning on Britain's Coastline

In 2020, Paul Harris aka 'The Warrior Walker' set off on a walking pilgrimage around the UK that would rebuild his life from rock bottom and change the way he saw the world forever. Weighed down by a traumatic military past, a brief but surreal moment as a reality TV contestant and a temporary teaching career in Thailand, Paul was forced home when a visa mix-up tipped his life over. Having surveyed the wreckage, where there was no real family to speak of, very few friends, and a collapsing, long distance relationship to grieve, he seriously contemplated taking his own life at the age of 36. Then a random text from a friend delivered a route map to emotional safety during what were possibly his final few hours. Paul, why don't you walk the British coast path? With only £300 in his pocket and a 30-kilo rucksack on his back, Paul decided to leave his life as he knew it and took up wild camping, slept rough, struggled along the coast paths of Devon, Cornwall and Wales in the sideways rain, and wading through knee-high snowdrifts around the Scottish islands and the burning summer sun on England's east coast. Walking was therapy. Nature was restorative. The path was his friend. The Warrior Walker is more than just one man's journey of self-discovery. Paul's story shines a light on the kindness of strangers, of the coast path that gave him purpose, about discovering family and true love, and how even wrong turns can lead you to exactly where you need to be. In a world where so much human interaction is cruel, divisive and distant, this is an important reminder that there is light even in the darkest of moments.