A 400-kilometre walk from Nairobi to Lugari, on foot. It took thirteen days and the team is home. 378 kilometres are still unclaimed — back one from KES 3,000, or any amount.
400 of 400 kilometres covered on the road from Nairobi to Lugari. Arrived in Lugari on foot — 400 kilometres in thirteen days. The team is back in Nairobi.
400 kilometres on foot, following the A104 Nairobi–Malaba Road through the Rift Valley and up into the western highlands. Ten walking days, twelve towns, one finish line. The highlighted stretch is the ground already covered.
This is the planned route, drawn from the towns along the A104 Nairobi–Malaba Road. It is not a recorded GPS trail. The highlighted stretch is the 400 kilometres confirmed so far. Daily distances are confirmed as each stage is walked. Open the corridor in OpenStreetMap →
| Day | Leg | km | Total | What it is like |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Westlands → Limuru / Rironi | 36 | 36 | A sustained climb out of the city |
| 2 | Rironi → Mai Mahiu | 38 | 74 | The escarpment descent into the Rift |
| 3 | Mai Mahiu → Naivasha | 40 | 114 | Rift floor, flat and open |
| 4 | Naivasha → Gilgil | 42 | 156 | Rolling farmland |
| 5 | Gilgil → Nakuru | 42 | 198 | Rolling, finishing in town |
| 6 | Nakuru → Salgaa | 38 | 236 | Busy trunk road — the most demanding day for road safety |
| 7 | Salgaa → Mau Summit → Timboroa | 38 | 274 | Altitude, cold and mist |
| 8 | Timboroa → Eldoret | 44 | 318 | A long descent |
| 9 | Eldoret → Turbo | 40 | 358 | Descending, warmer |
| 10 | Turbo → Lugari | 42 | 400 | Agricultural and humid — the last stretch |
The walk left Nairobi on foot and reached Lugari four hundred kilometres later. It took thirteen days, not the ten we planned. The distance at the top of this page is the whole route, confirmed stage by stage as it was walked.
The road runs through Limuru, down the escarpment into the Rift, along the floor past Naivasha and Gilgil, through Nakuru, over Mau Summit and down into Eldoret, then west through Turbo to Lugari. It is a road most Kenyans have travelled sitting down. Very few have seen it at walking pace. We have now seen all of it.
Our founder did not do it alone. Clients, colleagues, volunteers and people we had not met before it started joined for stretches of it: a kilometre, a morning, a full day. That was the point of it.
Every one of the four hundred kilometres has been walked. Twenty-two of them carry a sponsor's name. Three hundred and seventy-eight do not.
Backing one now means the walking is already done. You are claiming ground that was covered on foot, and the record of it reaches you exactly as it would have on the day — the photograph of your kilometre, your name on the wall, the dedication if you want one. Nothing about it is retrospective except the timing.
Wellness Solutions Africa has worked out of the same Nairobi studio since 2013. In that time the room has become something specific: a place people are sent when the pain has not resolved and nobody has properly looked at how they move. They get assessed, they get a programme, and most of them get better.
This walk funds the next stretch of that work, and it takes the work out of one room and onto a road that runs through communities who have never had access to it.
At selected stops along the way we plant indigenous seedlings with the communities hosting us, and hold open movement sessions where there is appetite for them.
These happen at particular places we have arranged, not continuously along the highway. A walking team cannot plant a four-hundred-kilometre corridor, and we are not going to say otherwise. Where the stops landed depended on who says yes and when we got there, and we publish each one after it happens rather than before. The ones still to come are the communities that hosted us on the way through.
Four hundred kilometres, four hundred names. KES 3,000 is roughly what one kilometre of this costs to cover, which is why most people start there. It is a suggestion, not a price. Give more, give less, give what the week allows. It all goes into the same journey.
What backing a kilometre gets you:
Contributions below KES 3,000 are pooled towards the next kilometre on the route and are just as welcome. Nobody is turned away over the size of what they can give.
Larger stretches work the same way: five kilometres, ten, or a quarter-stage of twenty-five. For organisations wanting a full day or a named stage, talk to us and we will put something together properly.
Three things, in this order.
Keeping the work available. The assessments, the practitioners who do them, and the room they happen in. This is what lets someone walk in with six months of unexplained back pain and walk out with a plan.
The walk itself. Thirteen days of food, water, physiotherapy, road safety, accommodation and the vehicle that carried it all — three days longer than budgeted, because the road decided that and not us. Long-distance walking on Kenyan trunk roads is not something to do casually, and we did not do it casually.
Trees and community sessions. Indigenous seedlings planted with the communities that host us, and open movement sessions in the towns where there is interest.
We publish what comes in and what it covered.
Can I still sponsor now that the walk is finished?
Yes. Three hundred and seventy-eight kilometres were walked and are unclaimed, and backing one
works exactly as it did on the road — we walked it, you get the record of it.
Do I have to walk anything?
No. Backing a kilometre means we walk it and you get the record of it.
What if I am nowhere near the route?
Walk your own kilometre wherever you are and send it to us. We are collecting them from everywhere,
and they go up alongside the ones on the road.
How is this handled?
Wellness Solutions Kenya Ltd invoices and receipts it as a commercial sponsorship, with the
deliverables listed above. If your organisation needs paperwork in a particular form for your
finance team, tell us what you need and we will provide it.
What happens to kilometres nobody takes?
Every kilometre gets walked either way. Nothing you receive depends on anybody else signing up.
We have spent twelve years telling people that movement changes what a body can do. This is us walking the width of the country to prove we mean it, and to put the work in front of the communities living along that road.
24 of 400 kilometres are spoken for. Names go up here as each payment clears, in the order they came in.
Some of the most useful things anyone has done for this campaign cost nothing at all.
Water, physiotherapy, connectivity, a meal, a place to sleep, seedlings, a support vehicle, or a team that wants to walk a stretch together. If you are on or near the Nairobi–Lugari road, there is almost certainly something useful you can offer.
Partner with usNobody is expected to walk all 400 km. Meet us where the route passes closest to you and walk a kilometre, a morning, or a full day. Tell us roughly where you are and we will tell you when we are near. If the route is nowhere near you, walk your own kilometre wherever you are, and send it to us — we are collecting them.
Tell us where you areIf you know a company whose people would benefit from this work — or one already investing in staff health, community wellbeing or tree cover — an introduction from you is worth more than any advert we could buy. One name and an email is enough.
Make an introductionBack a kilometre at any amount, walk a stretch with us, or send this to one person who would want to know about it.
Sitting all day? Back or neck pain?
Start with a Postural Assessment. Leave your name and number and we will call you to set a time. No account needed.
