Former “WSJ” Editor, Who Wrote Book About Walking 330 Miles from D.C. to N.Y.C., Dies at 65

In March 2021, Neil King Jr. set off on an incredible 330-mile journey, which he chronicled in his 2023 book, "American Ramble"

A journalist who inspired many with his 330-mile walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City, has died. He was 65.

Neil King Jr., a former global economics editor for the Wall Street Journal, died on Tuesday, Sept. 17, from complications related to esophageal cancer, his wife, Shailagh Murray, told The Washington Post.

King, who got a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Columbia University before graduating from Northwestern's Medill Graduate School of Journalism, moved to Prague in 1992 as a freelance correspondent, according to his WSJ bio.

While abroad, King also began working for the newspaper, where he had a number of roles over the years — and as the Post noted, he contributed to WSJ's Pulitzer-Prize winning coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He left the paper in 2016.

In March 2021, he set off on an incredible 330-mile journey, which he chronicled in his 2023 book, American Ramble.

According to his website, the trip "began as a whim and soon became an obsession" — and "by the spring of 2021, events had intervened that gave his desire greater urgency."

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"Determined to rediscover what matters in life and to see our national story with new eyes, Neil turned north with a small satchel on his back and one mission in mind: To pay close attention to the land he crossed and the people he met," read a description of the book — and over the course of the 26-day journey, that's exactly what he did.

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“There just really is a different America out any of our doors if we go about it at the pace of a walker, do it over a stretch of time, and really truly pay attention,” he told The Washingtonian last year.

“The earth under our feet and [being] out in the world itself is a tangible thing," he added. "The longer I went, the more I was in sync with things."

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In July to commemorate his 65th birthday, King reflected on his life and cancer journey in an emotional Facebook post.

“I remember feeling embarrassed when I turned forty, and again, still more, when I turned 50,” he wrote.

“Then a diagnosis at 58 put the whole of my sixties in doubt and upended my sense of time. Instead of mourning its passage, I learned to celebrate the having of it," he added. "Today, I am proud to be 65. I am blaring it from the rooftops."

In addition to his wife, King is survived by their two daughters, Lillian and Frances.

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