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In Canada a new trail inspired by the Camino

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Prince Edward Island’s new Island Walk, inspired by the Camino de Santiago, lets visitors travel the province entirely on foot. Read more here in The Globe and Mail
Interesting you mention that article. One of my sons is in Canada now and spent some time on PEI, although traveled much of it by car; hiking sections of it "here and there". The photos he sends have been lovely.
 
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Prince Edward Island’s new Island Walk, inspired by the Camino de Santiago, lets visitors travel the province entirely on foot. Read more here in The Globe and Mail
I quite like the idea of this walk. I am almost certain that it is probably cheaper to fly to Europe from my home on the other side of the country (Vancouver) though.
 
Thanks so much for posting this article @mspath I would love to do this walk. I've travelled most of the country but not much in the Maritimes and P.E.I is on my future travels list. Accommodation costs could be prohibitive for me. I scanned through the list of accommodation partners on their website and on average one night is between 130 and 150 dollars. Food costs would be very expensive as well. But.. with planning, perhaps a week or two could be managed. I've ordered the guide to take a closer look.
 
It would be lovely to walk around the island when it's off season but I know it can get quite cold in winter.
A few things that come to my mind are if they let you wild camp. If not, I wonder how much the accommodation is going to cost. I know things are not quite cheap there. Also I agree with someone from Vancouver that flying to Europe is cheaper than flying to PEI. Or I could drive for a few days if I have time and energy.. But regardless of all this, PEI is a beauty and so is Newfoundland.
If you like Anne of Green Gables, PEI should serve you well.
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
From the article: “It’s about walking and thinking and the people you run into and chatting with them...And part of what’s so special about PEI is the people you meet here.”

Seem familiar?
 
I just spent a week and a half walking part of this trail! There is a LOT of road walking (sometimes a busy road, too) in the bits that aren't inland (the lovely dirt Confederation Trail doesn't run along the coast), but PEI is beautiful, the people are welcoming, and the food - THE FOOD - is spectacular. Definitely more expensive than a Camino trip, even including airfare (I flew from YUL and, as usual, domestic Canadian flights are often more expensive than a flight to Paris), but worth a go, especially if you're planning to go to the island someday anyway.

Also, I hate to be a critic (everyone's a critic) but I don't recommend the guide. It's really more of a gathering of blog posts of someone's good times on the trail. A fun read if you like that sort of thing, but not helpful to navigate or plan distances, especially if you want to stop in places they didn't. My two cents.
 
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Thanks so much for posting this article @mspath I would love to do this walk. I've travelled most of the country but not much in the Maritimes and P.E.I is on my future travels list. Accommodation costs could be prohibitive for me. I scanned through the list of accommodation partners on their website and on average one night is between 130 and 150 dollars. Food costs would be very expensive as well. But.. with planning, perhaps a week or two could be managed. I've ordered the guide to take a closer look.
Accommodations are definitely more expensive, but I found lots of B&Bs and smaller motels for much lower prices than their accommodation partners by using booking and expedia (and word of mouth from other motel owners). I had a few nights in beach motels at around $80 CAN. Also, a lot of the hotels don't know about the Island Walk yet (almost none that I spoke to), so I imagine there will be more partners as time goes by! Also, the quaint little motels on PEI are clean and sweet - not like a gross Motel 6 on the side of a U.S. Interstate in the middle of nowhere (in case you're equating motel with bedbugs or fire hazards).
 
Thanks so much for posting this article @mspath I would love to do this walk. I've travelled most of the country but not much in the Maritimes and P.E.I is on my future travels list. Accommodation costs could be prohibitive for me. I scanned through the list of accommodation partners on their website and on average one night is between 130 and 150 dollars. Food costs would be very expensive as well. But.. with planning, perhaps a week or two could be managed. I've ordered the guide to take a closer look.
Exactly. Our London Camino Group (Ontario, Canada) had a Zoom presentation by Bryson Guptill. It is a lovely idea but cost prohibitive. He had many people open their homes to him when he walked it.
 
€2,-/day will present your project to thousands of visitors each day. All interested in the Camino de Santiago.
It has been possible to walk (or bike) through Prince Edward Island since the Confederation Trail was created on the decommissioned railway line, sometime in the 1980s.

The main trail is 273 kms from west to east from Tignish to Elmira, with a number of branch lines for a total of 410 kms. To walk from tip to tip, walk from North Cape then along a not too busy road to the small and pretty town of Tignish (about a 15 km distance), then start on the Confed Trail; on the other side, walk from the railway museum in the community of Elmira to East Point after the Trail ends (about a 10-15 km distance). (Or you can always walk east to west...watch the sunsets, not the sunrises!) Traveling from tip to tip of the Island will garner a certificate for doing so. The trail is mostly flat but has gradual grades and meanders through beautiful landscapes and alongside farmers fields. It's easy to see wild animals and birds, though some, like coyotes, are shy and stay away from people.

Food is not expensive on the Island if a person knows where to look. Lobster is at this time, for here, a bit pricier than usual, but far cheaper than other places. We also have world class oysters, mussels, quahogs, clams and other shellfish, as well as other seafood, delicious produce and more. With a welcome influx of people from across the planet we have restaurants and cafes providing international cuisine. And with the top cooking school in the country located in Charlottetown--our capital city--we have such exquisite food here that we are now known as The Food Island.

No one wild camps here; there are enough campgrounds. In many places wild camping (camping in general) is prohibited: the national park and the provincial parks, for example. Campgrounds close in September, generally soon after Labour Day, so accommodation should be sought at still open motels, hotels, inns, B&Bs in the autumn. In many cases the only places open after the summer tourist season are in the larger centres, such as Charlottetown, Summerside and Montague. "Larger" is a relative term here...

The trails on PEI are set up for day users who travel to them, walk/snowshoe/XC ski them then go home. The Confederation Trail is used exclusively by a snowmobile association in the winter and walkers are not able or allowed on it.

Winter is not the time for long distance and multi-day walking. Our temperatures can drop well below freezing (usually between -3/-11°C) and with the windchill, can make it feel like -25°C or colder--it can be dangerous to be outside for any length of time. Plus with the average 290-300 cm of snow we can get, trails are not groomed and in some cases when we get a decent snow storm, even roads can remain unplowed for days. https://peisnowstorms.blogspot.com/2015/02/

Our summers and autumns are spectacular.

Flying to Europe from PEI is cheaper than flying pretty well anywhere in Canada, sadly. It's faster to fly to London and Paris than to Calgary, Edmonton or Vancouver. Flight costs are based on population/number of people who fly; we have a population of 150,000 and not all of those people travel. And in the winter we have far fewer people flying in than we do flying out.

We are far more than just Anne of Green Gables. We are also chocolate covered potato chips, red clay, lobster, music, theatre, the location of the creation of the country of Canada, many cultures of peoples, including our First Nations, the Mi'Kmaq, beautiful beaches, and much much more.

If you want any information about walking on PEI, contact Island Trails: https://www.islandtrails.ca/.
If you want any information about PEI, accommodations, etc, have a look at tourism PEI's official (government) website: https://www.tourismpei.com/

:)
 
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Join the Camino Cleanup in May from Ponferrada to Sarria. Registration closes Mar 22.
A little late to the party, but if you really want a longer trail experience while walking in Canada, there is always the new Trans Canada Trail which contains 24,134 km (14,996 mi) of total path length (which includes the PEI Island Trail as part of the network). Not your typical 4-5 week Camino. I've heard of a few folks who are in the midst of doing the full trail (albeit with stops for numerous months due to weather) with overall expected completion time of between 3-4 calendar years. I would think a rather large passport for stamps might be required!
 

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PEI is absolutely lovely! The Anne of Green Gables area has been a bit Disney-fied, but the rest is lovely.

At Souris, you can catch a ferry to Les Îles-de-la-Madeleines and add another island to your experience.
 
PEI is absolutely lovely! The Anne of Green Gables area has been a bit Disney-fied, but the rest is lovely.

At Souris, you can catch a ferry to Les Îles-de-la-Madeleines and add another island to your experience.

The Magdalen Islands are a series of islands, not just one island...just to clarify...
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
A little late to the party, but if you really want a longer trail experience while walking in Canada, there is always the new Trans Canada Trail which contains 24,134 km (14,996 mi) of total path length (which includes the PEI Island Trail as part of the network). Not your typical 4-5 week Camino. I've heard of a few folks who are in the midst of doing the full trail (albeit with stops for numerous months due to weather) with overall expected completion time of between 3-4 calendar years. I would think a rather large passport for stamps might be required!
Since the conversation in this thread is of two trails here on PEI (there are far more than that, however) the Confederation Trail and it's branches are part of the Trans Canada Trail (apparently officially known as The Great Trail of Canada--I still call it the Trans Canada Trail), not the Island Walk.

A Canadian woman recently completed the Great Trail after walking, snowshoeing, cycling and canoeing it over the last six years. She completed 25,000 km of a solo trip from east coast Canada to the west coast; as an award winning writer and filmmaker, she recorded her journey. She had only a couple encounters with bears and only one life/death experience when she almost drowned in Cape Breton at the start of her journey.


If she is still traveling, there is another woman on the trail, making her way from west to east: Sarah Jackson.
 
A Canadian woman recently completed the Great Trail after walking, snowshoeing, cycling and canoeing it over the last six years. She completed 25,000 km of a solo trip from east coast Canada to the west coast; as an award winning writer and filmmaker, she recorded her journey. She had only a couple encounters with bears and only one life/death experience when she almost drowned in Cape Breton at the start of her journey.

Here is the story of a couple who are Camino veterans, who started (all on foot) in Newfoundland in 2019 and expect to complete it in 2022 . Just shows you what happens once you're Camino addicted and have to move up to something bigger.


You can follow them from their Facebook page which is quite fascinating

http://www.facebook.com/WalkWithUsAcrossCanada/
 
I hate to be a critic (everyone's a critic) but I don't recommend the guide. It's really more of a gathering of blog posts of someone's good times on the trail. A fun read if you like that sort of thing, but not helpful to navigate or plan distances, especially if you want to stop in places they didn't. My two cents.
^^^THIS^^^

I own a copy of the book, and fully endorse the above critique.

Heavily paraphrased, the book says things like “we spent the day walking east and intended to look for a B&B; but local residents Tammy and Thomas, who had read a newspaper account of our walk, came to meet us on the way and invited us to their lovely home where we enjoyed an excellent meal together.” Which is charming, but rather unhelpful to future would-be walkers who almost certainly won’t be written up in the local papers, and won’t benefit from such impromptu, free, support.

I would like to do The Island Walk, but it will definitely require a lot of planning to lay on the accommodations (camping doesn’t seem to be an viable option). And sadly, the book just isn’t very helpful.

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I'm going to PEI in August and I'd like to walk 3 or 4 days before meeting up with my cousins, but it's so complicated! If anyone has a 3-4 day itinerary they used, would you share it with me? So much of the information seems secretive, asking logistics questions online we only get pointed to an itinerary planning business, and I don't want to pay $350 to find out where to walk and sleep for 4 days! I don't want to bring camping gear for such a short trip. I would like to go on a continuous route with little highway walking. From my Facebook reading it sort of sounds like I might be best off sleeping in Charlottetown those days and taking the local bus to my starting place each morning and busing back to the city in the late afternoon. I realize this is not going to be a transformational experience like the Camino, but I'd like to walk a few sections while I'm on PEI. Thanks in advance!
 
I'm going to PEI in August and I'd like to walk 3 or 4 days before meeting up with my cousins, but it's so complicated! If anyone has a 3-4 day itinerary they used, would you share it with me? So much of the information seems secretive, asking logistics questions online we only get pointed to an itinerary planning business, and I don't want to pay $350 to find out where to walk and sleep for 4 days! I don't want to bring camping gear for such a short trip. I would like to go on a continuous route with little highway walking. From my Facebook reading it sort of sounds like I might be best off sleeping in Charlottetown those days and taking the local bus to my starting place each morning and busing back to the city in the late afternoon. I realize this is not going to be a transformational experience like the Camino, but I'd like to walk a few sections while I'm on PEI. Thanks in advance!
Hi I just asked permission from Bryson Guptill (he is the person who marked out the PEi Camino) to pass you his email. He lives in PEI. As soon as I get his ok I will send you a personal message here.
 

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