Stephen Pern

Stephen Antony Nigel Pern (born 18 August 1950) is an English travel writer and documentary maker noted for chronicling long-distance journeys on foot.

Early life and education Pern was brought up on a dairy farm on the outskirts of Hastings, East Sussex. He has a twin brother, Jeremy, a golf course architect.

He graduated from Durham University with a degree in geography and anthropology in 1971.

Career Early career and military service After leaving university he worked for two years as a game preservation officer in Nigeria with Voluntary Service Overseas. In 1974 he spent six months in Colombia teaching English as a foreign language. He left active military service with the rank of lieutenant on 6 October 1977, transferring to the Regular Army Reserve of Officers.

Travel writing and television While serving in the army Pern had read Journey to the Jade Sea (1964) by the explorer John Hillaby, which suggested that no one had ever walked around the entirety of Lake Turkana. His account of the walk became his first book, Another Land, Another Sea (1979). His second book, The Beach of Morning (1983), is based on a 500-mile walk from the shores of Lake Chad south along the border of Nigeria and Cameroon to the Benue River in 1980.

In 1982, Pern embarked on a trek across the Continental Divide from Antelope Wells, New Mexico to Canada. The resulting book, The Great Divide (1987), has received praise from fellow hikers for being a stylistic departure from more typical backpacking literature, as the writing emphasizes self-deprecating wit and vivid character sketches rather than the emotional "journey of self" prose common to the genre. Contemporary reviews were generally positive, with critics highlighting Pern's "irreverent" observations on everyday Americans and interesting descriptions of local ecology.

In 1990, his long-distance walk through the mountainous spine of Japan was documented in the Granada Television film Down the Spine of Japan. Preferring to see Japan as a "total stranger", Pern deliberately avoided researching the country and as a result the documentary has an "unrehearsed" feel.

Later work In 2012, Pern set out on a seven-month, 3,000-mile walk around Britain, visiting more than 100 bothies. During the journey he installed hooks in the shelters for walkers to hang wet clothing and equipment — having previously noticed from many years of walking that bothies often did not have enough or lacked them altogether.

In 2021, Pern released a second self-produced walking documentary, Time on Legs, chronicling a trek around mainland Scotland, Shetland, Orkney, and the Isle of Lewis.