A longtime writer and editor for National Geographic, Don Belt is an award-winning journalist, an acclaimed teacher and public speaker, and an experienced communications strategist working on behalf of worthwhile causes and organizations. He brings a global and humanistic perspective to every project he takes on, ranging from editing the first-ever National Geographic retrospective on Islam (above) to exploring the frontiers of journalism in the digital age. Favorite speaking topics include Lawrence of Arabia and the making of the modern Middle East, the geopolitics of Water, the Out of Eden Walk project, and his three decades on the road for National Geographic.
One of Don’s most popular speaking topics, SYRIA today is in the throes of a brutal civil war that was years in the making. For an in-depth look at the modern history of Syria, including an interview with President Bashar al-Assad, see Don’s story in the November 2009 issue of National Geographic.
And for further insights on Syria and foreign affairs in general, Follow Don on Twitter: @dbelt50.
On October 30, Don conducted his Walk on Campus workshop in Chicago, sharing his Out of Eden Walk “slow journalism” curriculum with more than a dozen university professors from the midwest at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. The workshop was presented in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
On October 23 Don delivered the Marshall Center Lecture on T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) to the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond.
Also, on October 7 he appeared as featured speaker at the quarterly meeting of Beer+Design, an organization of Virginia Architects, at Studio 23 in Scott’s Addition. Richmond VA
Don appeared in the Global Environment Speaker Series at the University of Richmond, delivering a lecture sponsored by the Environmental Studies, International Studies, and Journalism departments. Richmond, VA
Don delivered an evening lecture on the Out of Eden Walk project at Harvard Law School, to a leadership summit of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity. Special guests included Liz Dawes Duraisingh of Project Zero (Harvard Graduate School of Education), and Jeff Blossom of Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis. Cambridge, MA.
Don conducted a day-long Pulitzer Center Workshop for university journalism educators, sharing his curriculum based on Paul Salopek’s Out of Eden Walk and its potential as a teaching tool for professors of journalism, geography, anthropology, environmental science, and international studies. Ann Peters of the Pulitzer Center wrote an article about the Workshop here. Washington, D.C.
As part of the Richmond Writers Series, Don delivered a lecture on foreign affairs at the Richmond Public Library, at 7:00 pm on Friday, April 10. Title: “From Lawrence of Arabia to the Arab Spring: 100 Years of Middle East History in 30 Minutes.” Richmond VA
Don delivered a lecture on the leadership style of T.E. Lawrence to the Board of Directors of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity at Deloitte University. Dallas Texas
Don lectured on a variety of topics to 80 travelers on National Geographic Expeditions “Around the World by Private Jet” trip, with stops in Peru, Easter Island, Samoa, Australia, Cambodia, China, Tibet, India, Tanzania, Jordan, and Morocco. For more on the trip, including a photo gallery, click here. Planet Earth
Don delivered the Berglund Lecture on international affairs at the Honors College of Virginia Commonwealth University. Richmond, Virginia
Don addressed the graduating class at the International School of Indiana, one of the nation’s most progressive secondary schools for foreign languages, global citizenship, and preparing students for the International Baccaulaureate degree. Indianapolis, Indiana
Don delivered a lecture at the University of San Diego on “Crossing Invisible Borders”: lessons learned from 25 years of guerrilla diplomacy on the road for National Geographic, including advice on working in foreign settings and building rapport with ordinary people across cultural divides. The evening lecture was hosted by the Masters in Global Leadership program and the Masters in International Relations. To learn more about Don as a public speaker, click here. San Diego, California
Don delivered the Commencement address to graduating seniors at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Mass Communications. Richmond, Virginia
Don delivered an address on Water Issues at the Cape May Forum. Cape May, NJ
Don was inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. Richmond, VA
March 6 and 7: Lecturing and teaching at Hood College Frederick, Maryland
March 8-19: Lecturing on a National Geographic Expedition to the Holy Land Israel and the West Bank
Don lectured on the Trans Siberian Railroad from Beijing to Moscow for National Geographic Expeditions. Along the way, the group stopped off in Mongolia, subject of Don’s October 2011 Geographic story on Ulaanbaatar, and at Russia’s Lake Baikal, which he wrote about in the magazine’s June 1992 cover story, “The World’s Great Lake.” Beijing to Moscow
In July, Don delivered an address on the geopolitics of water at the Chautauqua Institution during “Water Matters,” a week-long National Geographic lecture series on our most precious natural resource. He also taught a workshop on environmental writing based on articles about the Jordan River (April 2010) and Bangladesh (May 2011). And on July 24, during “Pakistan Week” at Chautauqua, Don taught a master class in writing based on his reportage for the magazine’s September 2007 cover story on Pakistan. To download free ebooks for both classes, click here. Chautauqua, NY
Please watch this space for updates.
@esdurazo @evelyn_zelmer as humanists and geographers, you may enjoy this lovely piece, just published, by @amitangshu from our 2018 @NatGeo #slowjournalism workshop in Delhi @outofedenwalk @PaulSalopek @AratiKumarRao @prempanicker #EdenwalkDelhi twitter.com/amitangshu/sta…
In partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, I’m pleased to offer a half-day Walk on Campus Workshop based on the multimedia reporting of Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Salopek on his Out of Eden Walk project, a 7-year, 22,000-mile walk across the world in the pathways of early human migration, from the earliest Homo sapiens site in East Africa […]
January 13, 2015—At the Newseum in Washington, D.C., hundreds of journalists gathered to discuss the theory and practice of “slow” journalism, and to hear from one of its most skillful practitioners: Paul Salopek, a National Geographic Fellow who skyped into the event from his current location near Tbilisi, capital of the Republic of Georgia. Paul’s project, the Out of […]
Trekking north of the Arctic Circle through Europe’s largest wilderness, travelers are on their own.
An influx of nomads has turned Mongolia’s capital upside down.
The people of Bangladesh have much to teach us about how a crowded planet can best adapt to rising sea levels. For them, that future is now.
A source of conflict between Israel and its neighbors for decades, the Jordan River is now depleted by drought, pollution, and overuse. Could the fight to save it forge a path toward peace?
Geographic overview of a land still in turmoil.
Poised to play a pivotal new role in the Middle East, Syria struggles to escape its dark past.
Followers of Jesus for nearly 2,000 years, Arab Christians today are disappearing from the land where their faith was born.
A new superhighway linking its four major ciites is bringing old and new India into jarring proximity.
Sixty years after its founding as a homeland for India’s Muslims, Pakistan straddles the fault line between moderate and militant Islam. Its dilemma is a cautionary tale for the post-9/11 world.
Some people dream of exotic adventures with National Geographic. Thomas J. Abercrombie lived that dream.
For more of Don’s past articles for National Geographic, including two downloadable e-books and award-winning features on Lawrence of Arabia and Lake Baikal, visit his Journalism page.
Don authored “Life in the Time of Jesus,” the lead essay in this collection of articles about Jesus and the rise of Christianity. “Like billions of other human beings,” he writes, “Jesus of Nazareth, the man, passed through history like a campfire spark, a pinpoint of light here for an instant and then no more. Yet the short life and violent death of this obscure Jew soon took on a meaning that eclipsed the blank pages of his years on Earth. The religion that grew around him—Christianity—would alter the course of history and become the world’s dominant faith.”
Don authored “The Mad Tsar: Ivan the Terrible” in this special issue of the Exploring History series. 
Russia’s first tsar united the nation, built the splendid St. Basil’s cathedral that graces the capital—and tortured and killed untold thousands of innocents, including his own son. Looking for clues to the tsar’s cruel and bizarre behavior, historians trace at least part of his madness to a deeply traumatized childhood.
Don authored “Searching for Miracles,” the lead essay in this collection of articles about religious 
pilgrimages around the world. Every year, some 300 million pilgrims set out on some form of religious pilgrimage every year. Countless others embark on private journeys of the spirit, abandoning the comforts of home and the familiar in their quest for peace and enlightenment. Archaeologists have determined that this impulse, this movement in search of the divine, dates back to the earliest human cultures; anthropologists tell us that it is a defining characteristic of the human race. Pilgrimage, it seems, is written into our DNA.
For this Special Edition of National Geographic, subtitled Crossroads of Faith and Conflict, Don authored “A Land Still in 
Turmoil,” an essay about the Holy Land’s volatile recent history. In the wake of the 20th century’s two World Wars, the complex political ambitions of powerful European countries dramatically reshaped the geopolitical landscape, stoking Arab-Israeli hostility that continues to this day. Full text available.
