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I started walking the American Discovery Trail back in 2019. My plan was to walk the southern option between Cincinnati, Ohio and Denver, Colorado that fall, and then to fly to Delaware in February 2020 and make the full coast-to-coast walk, including the northern option between Ohio and Denver...
Hi all,
I'm looking for some new pilgrimage books to read. What are your favorite memoirs or other pilgrimage books that are not set on the Camino Francés?
Thanks,
Dave
Last week, there was an announcement related to the formation of the Acogida Tradicional Jacobea, with traditional pilgrim accommodations on the Caminos del Norte and Primitivo joining together in solidarity to promote this unique form of hospitality. This was driven in part by ongoing concerns...
After working on accommodation updates over the past month, I figured it was time to update my previous posting of donativos on the Norte/Primitivo from a few years back. Plenty of changes!
Camino del Norte Donativos
Irún - Albergue de Peregrinos Jakobi (bed and breakfast)
Pasajes de San Juan...
This has been in the works for a bit, but I received the formal announcement this morning:
Dear Sir/Madam:
We are writing to inform you of the recent creation of the ATJ (Spanish acronym standing for Acogida Tradicional Jacobea), our NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TRADITIONAL JACOBEAN WELCOME SPACES...
A few years back, a series of changes were made to the Camino Inglés, for better and worse. While some faded waymarks still survive, navigation of the older routes is increasingly reliant upon gps tracks and advanced notice of the alternatives. But which are worth taking? Here’s a quick...
One of my big priorities this past summer was to walk the Camino Aragonés. I’d done this once before, but it was a rushed trip, crammed into a very small window, and it coincided with a very rainy few days in northern Spain. Any pilgrimage is better than no pilgrimage, but those conditions were...
The Camino del Norte leaves the coast in Deba and doesn’t return until Playa de la Arena, some 104km later. This includes a lengthy urban jaunt through Bilbao, and some other significant stretches of pavement. To be clear, there’s some great walking in that stretch! It would be a shame, in...
Every time I return to the Camino del Norte, I’m caught trying to maintain a balancing act. On one hand, the top priority is to re-walk the official route and established alternatives, in service to updating the guidebook. On the other, there are so many other possible variants to explore! Time...
...I’ve seen pilgrims with distance certificates that include the Camino del Mar, so that speaks to the acknowledgement. However, the Xunta has not *yet* recognized the Mar, though it will rule on this soon. That formal recognition would bring funding, which would be very helpful! But I have no...
He made the bells toll.
The image remains vivid: cramped into a wooden belltower, students and other visitors wedged around me, and the bells clanging rambunctiously overhead. Never mind the sound; the noise churned the bones, surged upward into the teeth, and then poured into the hairs on your...
It's awesome to be back on the Camino do Mar, and to really see the route taking shape. When I came here the first time, it was like a treasure hunt, cobbling together an almost useless map with comments from a handful of forum members, and then searching assiduously at every trail intersection...
...day, even Sunday!
I'll need to calculate this out when I get home and have access to a proper computer and all of my notes, but it sure felt like a *lot* more of the walk through the woods to Markina has been paved. (Also, I'll once again plug the old approach into Markina. When you arrive at...
I’m sitting at the Sahagún train station, waiting on my lift to Valladolid, having just completed the Camino de Madrid. (OK, flight delays cost me Madrid-Tres Cantos, so technically the walk was Tres Cantos to Sahagún. Someday I’ll fill in that gap.)
I only had the spring break week to make the...
Hi everyone,
I have a new book out today on paperback and kindle (including kindle unlimited), titled Pilgrimage: A Medieval Cure for Modern Ills. It's the first non-guidebook that I've written. Here's the story:
On May 1, 2002, I staggered into Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France under the cover...
I've been lucky enough to walk the Célé Valley route a few times now, and I always struggle with the last chunk of it, between Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and Cahors. If you follow the "official" GR36 along the way, faithfully and completely, it'll run something like 35 to 39km, depending upon whether...
Hi everyone,
I'm excited to share that next month I have a new guidebook coming out on the Via Podiensis through Cicerone. You can see the overview page here and a pretty significant preview on Google Books. Alison Raju was responsible for the guide for this route for years, and she first drew...
I spent the last week walking from Cluny to Le Puy. Over the first couple of days, I successfully managed to complete a write-up in the evening. Then I got tired. Everything after that came together on the train ride back to Lyon...
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I'm usually a planner, thinking and overthinking every...
Dave submitted a new resource:
Camino del Norte Accommodations - A regularly updated list of accommodations on the Camino del Norte
Read more about this resource...
Hi all,
I'm pleased to share a new resource I've been working on, with support from @BlackRocker57. It’s a near-comprehensive spreadsheet, laying out all pilgrim-focused or pilgrim-adjacent accommodations on the Via Podiensis, including the Célé Valley and Rocamadour variants, as well as the...
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