Almost penniless, but receiving a little money in tax credits each week, they decide to walk the 630-mile (1,010 km) South West Coast Path.

They take cheap sleeping bags, a light tent from eBay, thin waterproofs, a lot of instant noodles, and hardly any money.

Gradually they learn how to cope with the vagaries of a long-distance walk, hills, heat, cold, rain, navigation, and the curious people, landscapes, and wildlife they encounter as they go.

One night they stay in a campsite run by a ragged bearded man who takes pity on their aches and pains, and gives them something to smoke that fills them with relaxed bliss.

Moth and Winn walked westwards from Minehead, Somerset via Exmoor and the north coasts of the counties of Devon and Cornwall to Land's End.

[3] Kirkus Reviews notes "Many people's uncharitable reactions to their homeless state—one would think they were lepers"; but that there were equally often "unexpected gestures of generosity".

[4] It comments that Winn's prose is at the outset "mercurial", taking time to "settle down and achieve simplicity and clarity of observation".

[4] The review expresses doubt about the credibility of some of the "vignettes" describing coastal nature and "the enchantment of moments in the wild", but suggests that these will be forgotten as the reader comes to "admire the couple's fortitude and resiliency.

"[5] The neurologist Rhys Davies, in Advances in Clinical Neuroscience and Rehabilitation, commented that they didn't often review best sellers, "still less travel books", but added that The Salt Path had "a neurological twist", given Moth's diagnosis.

[6] He finds the Winns a powerful case for "the benefits of positive action and of physical therapy, even for the ghastliest of neurodegenerative conditions.

The Costa judges described it as "An absolutely brilliant story that needs to be told about the human capacity to endure and keep putting one foot in front of another.

[13] In 2024, BBC News ran an item about the couple's intention to walk the 185-mile Thames Path to publicise Moth's neurological condition, corticobasal degeneration.

Dr [Adam] Burley talks about a system that is 'phobic' about developing dependency, actively striving to make people independent and in so doing continues their isolation and inability to function.