Hint: A Long Walk
One thing that Will and I do a lot is walk. We walk our dog, we hike, and we like exploring cities on foot. A lot of people have asked us what our favorite parts of being in the van have been and I think a lot of what we liked was the easy access to walk on trails we might have never visited. For example, we would have never had Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument on our radar. But as we drove through it to get to our campsite for the night, we knew we would want to hike some in it. We ended up on a 7-mile round trip hike that took us to an amazing waterfall. The colors and views all around us were stunning.
Walking has been a part of my life in so many ways. Early in my life, my mother didn’t have a car most of the time. So we walked. We walked to the grocery store, we walked to dentist appointments, and we walked to school. Sometimes walking out of necessity, walking feels like a chore. But even from those early days, I enjoyed walking most of the time. Walking allowed time for me to think, to daydream. Walking to and from school gave me time to daydream a future to focus on. When I walk, problems seem manageable.
Walking together was something we took up as our kids grew up. After focusing all of your energy on the business of raising kids, when they don’t need you around as much, couples may find themselves wondering what to do with their time. We tried a bunch of activities we could do together. Tennis lessons. Riding bikes. But hiking around the trails of Southern California ended up being what stuck. We made goals together to go a little bit farther each time and soon we were hiking 5 or 6 miles in the San Gabriel Mountains.
With that in mind, it shouldn’t be a surprise what we’re planning for 2022. It was actually our plan back in 2019. We started thinking of when we would go, but the pandemic hit and we didn’t know when we could go again. Now we are hoping with vaccines and boosters, 2022 is a go. Where are we going? The Camino de Santiago.
Camino de Santiago: What is it?
Maybe you’ve seen The Way with Martin Sheen or maybe during the pandemic you got really into hiking YouTube like we did. But the Camino is a walk, a pilgrimage that’s about 1200 years old. There are multiple routes because pilgrims would travel from various directions, all ending up in Santiago. The most popular route is a 500-mile walk from St. Jean Pied de Port, France all across Spain. It’s called the Camino Frances, or the French Way. It takes 30 to 40 days to complete. We have a bit of planning in front of us to go on this long walk and we will be sure to update you here.
I recently started a google sheet to plan the trip and bought a guidebook. We have flights to plan, supplies to get, a dog to have watched, etc. This is one of the biggest travel adventures we have planned so fingers crossed we accomplish it all.
What do you think? Would you go on this long walk?