A Pilgrim In The Path Of History. Solo Walking The Camino De Santiago Portuguese Coastal Route With J.F. Penn

In September 2022, I walked the Camino de Santiago along the Portuguese Coastal route. It was around 300 kilometers from Porto in Portugal north along the coast and then inland to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, which took 14 days of back-to-back walking.

I walked alone and carried my pack with everything in it, and I organized my accommodation through Macs Adventure so I knew where I was sleeping every night. I’ve posted a day by day breakdown of the route and my gear list separately, and in this episode, I go through some of my lessons and thoughts from the Way. 

Show notes

• How walking in the path of history puts life in perspective
• If you’ve lost direction in life, pilgrimage can help
• Pilgrimage proves you can do hard things, and that knowledge helps back in your daily life
• A fusion of sacred and secular
• The Camino is an industry — and it always has been
• Your Camino, your way. Practical considerations and tips.
• Why I needed these last years of walking alone across a seasonal change in my life

You’ll find additional reflections and tips in Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways, out now at jfpenn.com/pilgrimage.

(1) Walking in the path of history puts life in perspective

The cathedral at Santiago de Compostela is almost a thousand years old, and pilgrims have been walking there since medieval times from all over Europe. I started in Porto, Portugal, with its historic center and cathedral on the banks of the river Douro. 

The route heads north along the coastline past Roman fish-salting vats, and at Matasinhos, there is a sculpture of women wailing as they look out to wrecked boats on the horizon where their fishermen husbands lie beneath the waves. Life retains a familiar rhythm through the ages and some aspects of being human never change.

Walking every day shrinks life down to its basic elements. Eat, sleep, walk.

You appreciate the simple things — shelter from the rain and wind, a hot shower after a long day, painkillers and blister plasters, coffee in the first few hours of the day, or a cold beer when the sun is high, local bread and olive oil when you’re hungry, an encouraging smile from another pilgrim.

Once you step away and see how other people live, and experience being uncomfortable, or in pain, somewhere you can’t control your environment, it’s easier to be grateful for what you have and what you will return to. It’s easy to take these comforts for granted until we lose them, even temporarily.

I travel partly because it helps me see how insignificant I am on the face of the world, and walking intensifies this feeling as it is so slow. When I look at a map at the end of the day, I see I have only crossed a tiny part of a tiny area in a little corner of the world. I can only move at my pace, which for me is what English walkers call ‘bimbling,’ a relaxed gait, stopping regularly for photos, notes, or coffee when available. 

When at home, the daily grind of life makes everything feel important and urgent. It’s easy to get stressed about a deadline or the emails that pile up, or the jobs that always need doing. Perspective narrows, even as we worry about the bigger things we can’t control — the economy, war, disease.

When on pilgrimage, I am just another human walking on the face of the world, a tiny speck in the grand scheme of things, a flash of light, gone so quickly.

The waves of the Atlantic will continue to crash on the shores after my footsteps are washed away. The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela will welcome more pilgrims after I have gone, the same words of the Mass will be spoken by the next generation. I am comforted by my insignificance, and I can return with a perspective on what is truly important. 

While walking an ancient route like the Camino helps you reflect on mortality, it is almost impossible to comprehend a thousand years of pilgrims walking ahead and many more coming behind. But while I walked, I had a more vivid reminder of memento mori — remember, you will die — as Queen Elizabeth II died. Each day of my Camino was punctuated by snippets of her life on TV in coffee bars and glimpses of newspapers, and I couldn’t help but read the UK papers online when resting at the end of the day. 

It was strange to walk outside of my country during such a historically significant week. I remember seeing newly carved statues of the Queen and Prince Philip mounted outside the cathedral in Canterbury on my first pilgrimage in October 2020. The stone was paler than the other sculptures of historic monarchs. The features weren’t weathered — and of course, both were still alive. There was a sense of standing next to living history, as another generation passed, and now they are both gone. 

I am not an ardent royalist by any means, but the Queen was a constant across my life as she was for many Brits. As I walked, the news was full of pictures of her as a young woman, then middle-aged going through the trials of life, then an old woman at her husband’s funeral, and in her final days, standing bent over and smiling as she welcomed the new Prime Minister, Liz Truss. The span of an extraordinary life against the backdrop of history, much of which I remember over the last 35 years at least. Her life passed by, as will mine and yours. Even a Queen cannot hold back the end.

I walked into Santiago de Compostela on the day of the funeral and I watched her coffin lowered into the vault at Windsor Castle as I rested in my hotel that afternoon. It was a fitting end to my pilgrimage and underscored the sense that something must die for change to happen, and new life can emerge from the ashes of the old.

(2) If you’ve lost direction in life, pilgrimage can help

A pilgrimage is a clear task with a clear direction. You have a starting point and a destination and if you follow the way-markers and the guide book, you have a route to get there. You might get lost for a short time, but if you keep going, you will reach the end.

Once you are on the trail, whatever that might be, the pilgrim’s day is much the same.
Wake up, wash and get dressed.
Check feet, tape and plaster blisters as best you can before putting on socks and walking shoes/boots. Take painkillers if you need to.
Pack your bag.
Eat breakfast, or pick up some food to take for the day.
Walk, maybe alone, maybe with others.
Stop for coffee/food/beer depending on the time of day and facilities en route.
Walk. Rest. Walk.
Arrive at accommodation.
Shower while washing sweaty, smelly clothes.
Hang clothes to dry.
Check feet and dress blisters. Take painkillers if you need to.
Eat dinner, maybe alone, maybe with others.
Rest and sleep.

This daily repetition is a blessing of pilgrimage, as it simplifies life to its basics. You have no purpose but to get up and walk, and if you make it to your destination for the night, you have achieved your goal. The daily difficulties of normal life fade as you deal with the immediate issues of pain and hunger and exhaustion. You sleep satisfied, and tomorrow you get up and do it again.

Pilgrimage creates clear boundaries, and that can be a great comfort in difficult times.

(3) Pilgrimage proves you can do hard things, and that knowledge helps back in your daily life

You need ‘starting energy’ to plan and organize your trip, to turn it from a dream or a goal into reality.

Many people fall at this first hurdle and you need to overcome obstacles and fears to get even as far as the starting point. You need to book time away from normal life and since most of the Camino routes are a physical challenge, you also need to train in preparation. 

I’ve been wanting to walk a Camino for more than twenty years, and I only found my ‘starting energy’ since the pandemic put the brevity of life into perspective. I know how it feels to say ‘some day,’ but that day will never come unless you make a decision, book a route or a flight, and commit.

Once you begin, you need ‘pushing through’ energy, especially on the days when you’re tired and in pain and emotionally broken and you just want to give up. 

I woke up on the eighth day of my Camino in the village of Oia, Spain. A hurricane had blown in the night before, cutting the power to the village as I lay in bed listening to the violence of the wind and rain. When I woke, it was still dark and rain pounded down outside. 

As I taped my feet and plastered my blisters, I wondered what the hell I was doing. I did not want to walk out into the storm, especially when every step was painful. I still had seven more days of walking to get to Santiago de Compostela, and given the state of my feet, it would only get harder.

But pilgrimage is not a holiday. It is meant to be a challenge — and part of the challenge is not giving up. 

A long-distance walk is a test of stamina. Each day might be a manageable distance in itself, and nothing too challenging for a single day’s walking, but day after day — especially on the stones of the Portuguese route — the fatigue and pain compound.

It