Rambling man
By day, Peter Elia works as an information officer at The Wallace Collection. In a parallel life, he’s a social media star with an Instagram account that documents his hiking adventures. He talks to the Journal about travel, solitude and the joy of meeting strangers
Words: Clare Finney
Images: Peter Elia
A mathematician who works in a museum; a city boy who spends all his leave in the countryside; a self-described people-person who takes himself off hiking for days on end, despite having “a terrible sense of direction”. Labelling someone a ‘mass of contradictions’ seemed lazy and glib until I met Peter Elia: worker at The Wallace Collection by day, and by holiday a cult Instagram sensation. Entitled The Man Who Hiked the World, his dazzlingly colourful chronicle of photography and scribblings from the globe’s “great walking routes” has garnered 91,000 followers at the time of writing—I hope, by the time you have finished this, it will at least be 91,001—making it one of the largest hiking Instagram accounts on the internet.
“I set up this Instagram page in 2016 mainly because I liked the David Bowie song, The Man Who Sold the World,” he recalls. “I did like hiking, but in a kind of Cotswolds, spot of afternoon tea, nice hotel kind of way.” Though he’d hiked in Nepal, Peru and India on his gap year, at 44 years old it was a slightly spontaneous trip to Greenland that launched Peter’s parallel life. “I first thought, when my friend asked me to come, that’s a bit too next-level for me,” he laughs. “But I fancied a change, so I went with it. I didn’t even take a camera, just took my mobile.” On the way he made a video diary and uploaded it to YouTube, “for myself as much as anyone. It’s not every day you hike round Greenland.” Nor is it every day a fair-weather hiker’s video diary is picked up by the editor of a Danish magazine, who finds it entertaining enough to ask for an article: but fortune favours the brave—especially when they come with a self-deprecating sense of humour and an eye for epic landscape shots.
The rest is social media history. “This editor asked me to write about the experience for an article, and supply some photos, and I said yes, not really thinking about it. I didn’t realise his Greenland Facebook page had 250,000 followers.” Fast forward to the hours immediately following the article’s publication and his phone was “going mad with notifications. I thought it had a virus,” he laughs—but it was Peter himself who was going viral, as hundreds of largely Danish readers flocked towards his Instagram page. He put two and two together quickly—he is a maths graduate, after all—and “got the idea of this being a good formula: contacting magazine editors, offering photos, getting publicity, and building a platform” to follow his hiking endeavours. “I’d love to say I’d been found organically, but after the initial rush it’s been quite hard work to get to 91,000 followers,” he says openly. “You don’t get to that level without work unless you’ve managed to get tea with Kate and Will or something like that.”
That he walks great distances carrying his camera and camping equipment gives him, he says, “a unique perspective”. “It’s easy to park the car and get a snap of a nice view from the road,” he explains when we meet, over coffee in Souli Foods, the Marylebone cafe that is currently exhibiting some of his work. “But I will hike for 100 miles to get pictures not seen before, and that makes me stand out.” He doesn’t need to elaborate: an image above my head of the echoing mountains and wind-whistling plains of southern Kyrgyzstan, where he hiked with nomads last year, is all the convincing I need.
Endearing and epic, awe-inspiring yet conversational, Peter’s Instagram account is a mirror of the man. Heart-stopping photos of cobalt lakes and snowy peaks are captioned with song lyrics like ‘Cold as Ice’ or ‘Get It On’, complete with musical note emojis. Landscapes from Svalbard, the Norwegian wilderness where there are more polar bears than people, are indiscriminately interspersed with shots of the South Downs, where I was walking only last weekend. The resulting impression is—fittingly for an information assistant at The Wallace Collection—exactly that of a knowledgeable attendant guiding you through a gallery; someone friendly and engaging, who assumes neither ignorance nor expertise. It is accessible in every sense of the word. “Anyone of decent fitness can do the hikes I do. I don’t use ropes, there’s nothing technical, and it’s not expensive.” On the contrary, enabling his followers to circumvent overpriced tour companies is a key part of his mission. Whether you’re scrolling through his Instagram, or venturing into The Wallace Collection, Peter’s happy confidence makes everyone feel at ease.
Which is why, to a monophobic city mouse like me, his decision to spend hours alone, without signal or streaming services, can seem baffling. Peter is personable. He grew up in London, with parents who both hailed from large cities. How has he learnt to love hiking solo? “At first, it was very difficult—because you’re on your own, with no excuses. It’s just you and your thoughts, and you have to start confronting yourself about things—because what else are you going to do?” If the job’s not right, you have to address it. If the relationship’s not working, you have to think about it, he explains. “In London, it’s easy to distract yourself with friends and work and so on, but out there, you have to sit comfortably with yourself if you’re to hike comfortably with yourself.” If hiking has made Peter a better person—and he insists it has—it’s because he has spent so much time outside, moving. “There’s a reason that, when people are upset or angry, they say they are going for a walk to ‘clear their head’.”
Besides, he smiles, you are rarely alone for long. “In most places I hike, I have a conversation with every person I bump into.” In that respect, it is the opposite of London, where “even if you see someone you know on the tube, you tend to keep your head down because you’re busy. Walking in the countryside on your own is actually the vehicle that allows you to speak to everyone freely, without distractions,” he continues. “People have shared their food with me. I’ve even shared mine, on occasion.” He prefers to steer clear of social media while hiking, in order to fully engage with the experience. He uses his phone for Maps.me, a navigation app you can use offline, but his Instagram page can wait until he gets home.
Though the idea of drawing a line between The Wallace Collection’s galleries and Peter’s Instagram page feels glib, it’s hard not to broach the subject. After all, Peter has spent the past seven years surrounded by some of the greatest paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries. “I don’t have an arts background, but I’ve been there a long time. I’ve given a few talks. If you take an interest, you get to know the pieces pretty well,” he says modestly. “My favourite area is the 19th century gallery, which covers the Romantic period. It’s all about being apprehensive about modern technology and looking back at simpler times—toward nature, and pastoral scenes.” Though Peter happily acknowledges that his success, and indeed his sense of direction, depends on his iPhone, “this is the art that has influenced my photography most”. We’re still in this cycle, he continues. “Donald Trump, Brexit, the climate crisis—it’s all making us all nostalgic for the simplicity and beauty of nature. That’s the sort of relief I hope to offer in my photography.”
Kok Kiya Valley, Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan was definitely the most isolationist hiking I’ve done. I was part of a small group—walking on your own is not permitted by law, it’s too dangerous because of bears and so on —but we were the first westerners to hike this trail. It opened in September 2018, and we were the guinea pigs. We were walking with nomads, who showed us how they lived without a permeant home or electricity. As you can see, there is no infrastructure, no pylons: there is nothing. The nearest hospital is a 10-hour drive away. This certainly appeals to a certain type of follower, though increasingly, people do like to feel like pioneers. Everyone likes to be the first to discover a ‘hidden treasure’.
Cinque Terre, Italy
The Cinque Terre is a string of five old seaside villages perched on five rocky outcrops of the Italian coastline. I went there in December 2018, and I would encourage everyone to do these hikes in the winter, because it’s so much cheaper, and it’s not too hot—about 15C, which is perfect hiking weather for a Brit! There are so many lovely restaurants and cafes along the way, where you can sit and watch the world go by. Not all of them are open out of season, of course, but those that are will be full of locals, so you have a really good regional food rather than tourist fare, and you get to eat with them. This is a nice weekend walk, too; it’s not too technical, and it’s all on the coast.
Oxnadal, Iceland
Though the navigation app I use, Maps.me, is about 95 per cent accurate, I do still get lost occasionally. It’s worrying of course, but sometimes it’s a blessing in disguise. This was one of those times. While we were trying to find our way, I saw this beautiful shot with the white house, and I put it on Instagram with the caption “Please tell me where I am!” I got so many responses from all these Icelanders arguing as to where I was. Then this lady contacted me: she’d been brought up in the white house, she said, and could tell me exactly where I was standing.
Wadi Rum, Jordan
The big appeal of Wadi Rum is that you can get an EasyJet flight to Aqaba, nearby—so although it looks remote and exotic, it is actually very accessible. That said, it is the desert, so it’s one of the ones where you do really need a guide. I was there for four nights, in the Wadi Rum camp, and caught this beautiful sunset.
Laghi Di Fuisine, Italy
It was local knowledge that brought me here. I arrived in Italy early in the morning and didn’t need to catch my connecting flight until late afternoon, so I decided to go for a walk. A local told me, you’ve got to check out this lake, so I set off, and I’d only walked two kilometres from the bus stop when I found this extraordinary place. I loved the greenery, palatial lake, and the fact that it’s two countries in one: those mountains in the background are in Slovenia.
La Palma, Tenerife
On the opposite end of the spectrum to Kyrgyzstan is this, near La Palma in Tenerife. This hiking trail is just 30 minutes from the resort. It’s the tree that’s the star here: this is El Drago, the oldest and largest living specimen of the dragon tree. It is said to be a thousand years old. I really liked it: it’s like a fairy tale, but it is so easily reached.