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After days and days of sleepy Meseta towns, where the biggest decision of the day was usually which café had tortilla and whether the albergue had laundry, arriving in León felt a little like stepping back into the real world. And many of us were very excited for AC! León marked my second — and

The Spain You Only See at 3 Miles Per Hour Before walking the Camino, my experience in Spain was bustling plazas, late-night tapas and vibrant cities, and beach towns.  But walking across northern Spain has introduced me to an entirely different version of the country—one made up of sleepy villages, endless farmland, and communities that

What Exactly Is the Meseta? If you ask Camino pilgrims about the Meseta, you’ll usually get one of two reactions: “I loved it” or “I couldn’t wait for it to end.” Somewhere in northern Spain, the Camino changes dramatically. The forests and vineyards begin to fade, hills soften, and suddenly the landscape opens into wide

Tiny Towns, Big Crowds One of the strangest and most charming parts of hiking the Camino is watching dozens and dozens of hikers slowly converge on villages so tiny you might miss them if you weren’t careful. And when I say tiny, I mean really tiny. Some villages along the route have populations of less

After nearly 180 miles behind me, Burgos came at the perfect time. Not because I was anywhere close to finished—far from it. At roughly 35% of the Camino Francés complete, there are still hundreds of miles standing between me and Santiago. But Burgos somehow felt like one of those meaningful checkpoints where you finally stop

Rioja in May: Poppies, Vineyards & €3 Wine One of the best parts of spending 30 days hiking across an entire country is getting to watch the landscape slowly reinvent itself. On the Camino, Spain never stays the same for long. One day you’re climbing mountain passes, the next you’re wandering through rolling farmland, medieval villages,

One question I kept coming back to when I was preparing for the Camino was this: what kind of person voluntarily signs up to walk hundreds of miles, sleep in bunk beds with strangers, and risk daily blister? As it turns out: all kinds of people. Before starting, I imagined the Camino crowd would skew

There are a lot of things you expect to rely on while walking the Camino de Santiago: good shoes, coffee, baguettes, and tape to tackle blisters.  What I didn’t expect was to become emotionally attached to a painted yellow arrow and a seashell. At first, Camino trail markers feel purely practical—a quick reassurance that you

After Day 1 over the Pyrenees left us equal parts accomplished and completely exhausted, somehow waking up to hike another 13.9 miles didn’t feel nearly as intimidating as it should have. Maybe the Camino had already started recalibrating our expectations, because after surviving the climbs of Day 1, Day 2 almost felt… manageable. We spent

…and we are off! Day one of the Camino doesn’t ease you in—it throws you straight into the sky. We left the storybook streets of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port just as the morning light started to spill over the hills, packs freshly adjusted and nerves buzzing with equal parts excitement and uncertainty. Within minutes, the charming Basque village

Before starting the Camino de Santiago, I decided the smartest thing I could do was take a few relaxing rest days in San Sebastián. At least, that was the plan. Somehow those “rest days” turned into walking miles and miles every single day while wandering beaches, climbing hills, getting lost in the old town, and

Every day on the Camino, you follow yellow arrows, gravel paths, and roads through the Spanish countryside. But under your feet is something much older—a path shaped by over a thousand years of stories, faith, and history. Long before our backpacks and muddy hiking shoes, this was a journey people walked for reasons far deeper

Preparing for the Camino: From a Decade-Old Dream to the First Step More than ten years ago, I first heard about the Camino de Santiago. I don’t remember exactly where—but I remember the feeling it left behind. A curiosity about a long walk across Spain where people weren’t just traveling… they were finding something they