Travel writer's bid to walk equator's length starts in Port St Mary

Steven Primrose-Smith started his journey from Perwick Bay in Port St Mary

A travel writer has set off on a 40,074 km (24,901 mile) round-the-world walk, starting on the Isle of Man.

Steven Primrose-Smith began the trek to travel the equator's length from his parents' home in Port St Mary.

The latest in a series of journeys undertaken by the 51-year-old is expected to take up to seven years.

The motivation for his latest challenge was to "raise as much money as possible" for the humanitarian charity Médecins Sans Frontières.

Mr Primrose-Smith said the organisation, which is also known as Doctors Without Borders, did "great work" all around the world but its current efforts in Ukraine had made it "even more relevant".

'Finding stories'

His previous endeavours include several cycling expeditions, predominantly across Europe, during which he shared his experiences with others through writing about them.

The route for the current trek would therefore be "fluid", as it was important for him to "find stories" along the way, he said.

"When you're travel writing you want to find stories, and the stories are where people are," he said, adding: "I want to go to as many of the world's biggest cities as possible."

Places he hopes to visit during the journey include Istanbul, Mexico City, Tokyo, Shanghai and London.

Mr Primrose-Smith said he was also taking a number of audio language courses with him to help him engage with the people that he meets.

"Maybe at the end of this walk, in six or seven years' time, I'll be able to speak a bit of Japanese and Chinese and Croatian and Indonesian," he said.