How time flies… It’s hard to believe that it’s been 7 years since I picked up my Gregory 36L pack (fully loaded for the first time) and walked those first wobbly steps out of the cathedral in Le Puy. Down the steep cobblestone street, turn left, and put one foot in front of the other…for a thousand miles. Six months after that, and 3 months after I came home from that first pilgrimage, I left my crowded and busy Seattle apartment and drove to the coast of Washington, where I holed up in an oceanfront hotel, taking advantage of very off-season rates, to work on two related projects: The first ..read more

For an introvert, it turns out I’m really bad at a full pandemic lockdown. I know people who haven’t left their houses or seen anyone outside their immediate family for almost half a year. Me? It only took about a month before I couldn’t do it anymore. Washington state shut down in mid-March. By mid-April, the walls of my small (and feeling smaller) apartment were closing in. Eric was still going to work every day (albeit to an empty building), but my days and nights all started to blend together. The daily walks helped, but I needed some kind of structure or purpose. So when I found out that ..read more

This morning I spent a delightful hour talking with two authors I admire, Richard Frazer (Travels With a Stick)  and Ian Smith (Stepping Out). They’ve both thought deeply about the meditative and spiritual aspects of pilgrimage, and were gracious enough to allow me to join them next week in a free, public Zoom discussion about Pilgrimage in Pandemic, hosted by the Heart Edge program of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. (You’re all invited. Click here for details.) I’m not sure where next week’s conversation will go, but today I found myself talking about the challenges I’d had when the ..read more

Today’s #CaminoTuesday theme* over on Twitter is “Camino After Dark.” That struck me as a trick question at first, because Camino pilgrims rarely stay awake long enough to do much after dark. (Travel tip: Pilgrimage is not the way to experience European nightlife.) But then I remembered a night in Conques, just 10 days into my first Camino on the Via Podiensis…which means it was April in the mountains of France, and so the sun set early. The Abbey Church of Sainte Foy, Conques, France Conques has been a popular stopping point for pilgrims for centuries, ever since the monastery “acquired” the ..read more

There’s an article in The Guardian today about how the small towns of Spain were affected by COVID-19. Specifically, the writer explores Santo Domingo de la Calzada, a name familiar to most pilgrims of the Camino de Santiago. It’s worth a read. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/04/spain-la-rioja-small-town-one-of-europes-worst-covid-19-hotspots   This is the home of “the chicken church” — the cathedral known for the two live chickens that live inside — and a memorable stop along the Camino Francés. I’ve been there twice, once in 2015 and then again in 2017. Santo Domingo’s cathed ..read more

Practice acceptance, my husband would remind me when the Camino got the best of me. When the gites were full, the markets were closed, and the rain just would. not. stop. You know, all of the times when traveling through new places didn’t line up with my plans.   Practice acceptance, I remind myself now, when this new world gets the best of me. When the people wear masks, the markets are closed, and the news just will. not. stop. You know, all of the times when this new future doesn’t line up with my plans.   Dawn in Le Puy Hello, my friends. It’s been too long. In five years of blog ..read more

Before we left to walk the Camino de Santiago the first time in 2015, I read everything I could, including plenty of Camino memoirs. I was desperate for practical information and advice. How would I know where to sleep? Where would I find food? What if I needed a bathroom in the middle of the day? But I noticed that every story focused mostly on the people the authors met along the way. My Camino family on the Chemin du Puy: We saw each other every day for weeks. The people here come from 5 countries and our ages range from early 20s to mid 70s. No one in this picture knew each other before th ..read more

Last week, on New Years Eve, the Twitter world had a #CaminoTuesday theme of “The Old and The New.” I didn’t have time to write up a whole blog post, but I did share this: Here are the photos bigger, in case you’re curious: Pont Valentré, Cahors, France Pedestrian elevator (complete with Camino yellow arrows) in Deba, Spain   And that got me thinking about bridges, and how important they are to the Camino experience. “We build too many walls and not enough bridges,” said Isaac Newton. Saint Dominic de la Calzada would have agreed. The 11th century hermit-turned-priest, born in Burgos, fo ..read more