The Camino Podcast

Let's re-walk the Via Podiensis together! Whereas many of the pilgrim interviews on the podcast take a thematic approach, focusing on a few big picture issues, this series of episodes will dig more into the specifics of walking. In this fourth episode in the series, we arrive at the major decision that pilgrims face on the Via Podiensis: which route to follow from Figeac to Cahors? Bronwen Perry t...

Imagine that it is your dream to run an albergue, and then that opportunity comes knocking in the middle of COVID. Do you make the leap? And then imagine that you dive in headfirst, alive with all of the dreams and possibilities of what will be. Even as the pandemic ebbs, though, your reopening is first delayed by family obligations, and then thwarted entirely by necessary repair work. Two years i...

Let's walk the Via Podiensis together! Whereas many of the pilgrim interviews on the podcast take a thematic approach, focusing on a few big picture issues, this series of episodes will dig more into the specifics of walking. In the third part of this series, we journey today from the Lot River to the Célé River, and from the village of Estaing to the town of Figeac. Bennett Voyles, the author of...

Let's walk the Via Podiensis together! Whereas many of the pilgrim interviews on the podcast take a thematic approach, focusing on a few big picture issues, this series of episodes will dig more into the specifics of walking. In this second episode in the series, Melinda Lusmore of I Love Walking in France (www.ilovewalkinginfrance.com) joins to discuss 80 fabulous kilometers of the chemin, linkin...

The Camino that we see and experience today didn't just happen. It reemerged in the second half of the 20th century gradually and then suddenly, through the concerted efforts of devoted visionaries and caretakers like O Cebreiro's Elías Valiña Sampedro. We pilgrims from the English-speaking world are only privy to glimpses of that history, but Laurie Dennett's new book, Waybread: Memories of the C...

Let's walk the Via Podiensis together! Whereas many of the pilgrim interviews on the podcast take a thematic approach, focusing on a few big picture issues, this series of episodes will dig more into the specifics of walking. In this first episode in a new series, Chloe Rose Stuart-Ulin of www.solocamino.com joins to discuss getting started on the pilgrimage from Le Puy-en-Velay, walking through t...

Have you ever walked around a cathedral, slack-jawed and amazed, trying to take it all in but realizing you were only scratching the surface? Maybe that happened in Santiago de Compostela. The good news is that Anne Born can tell you what you're missing. Her book, If You Stand Here: A Pilgrim's Tour of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, is packed full of stories that reveal the secrets of th...

The Camino de Santiago has often been characterized as a sort of palimpsest--a foundation upon which layers of stories have been created and shared over the years. As new dominant narratives take hold, older ones fade to the margins, less obvious but still visible to those who can learn to see the signs. In The Way of the Wild Goose: Three Pilgrimages Following Geese, Stars, and Hunches on the Cam...

In 2007, Sedat Çakır set out to walk the Camino de Santiago. Before he departed, he decided to seek out a pilgrim blessing from the local bishop in Amsterdam. There's nothing particularly unusual about that story... aside from the fact that Sedat is a Sufi and the Camino, of course, has a very complicated history with Islam! While Sedat set out originally just to make a satisfying long-distance wa...

So you think the Camino is crowded? You should check out pilgrimage in India. It holds the record for the largest single-day attendance at a pilgrimage event--an estimated 50 million people at the Kumbh Mela in 2019. This episode explores pilgrimage in India through a closer examination of two sacred cities: Banaras and Pandharpur. Dr. Diana Eck, author of Banaras: City of Light and India: A Sacre...

Beverly Chalman of Tennessee set out to walk the Camino Francés with her daughter in June 2019. Traveling from Tennessee to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port was an exhausting process, with overnight stops in New York City and London, and that first day of walking was similarly taxing. It was on the second day, though, when her pilgrimage veered in a life-changing direction. This is her story.

163 years ago, the Virgin Mary is said to have made a series of appearances before a young Bernadette Soubirous in a grotto in the French Pyrenean town of Lourdes. Some 200 million pilgrims and 70 "official" miracles later, Lourdes stands as one of the world's major Catholic pilgrimage sites, known in particular for that association with miraculous healing. This episode features stories from two d...

A major part of the power and magic of pilgrimage is how it immerses us in the natural world. While the physical shrines are human built, they're often situated in places of natural splendor. In that way, pilgrimage and the environment are inextricably connected. This episode is a deep dive into that relationship from a few different perspectives. Up first, you'll hear from Yeb Saño, a leading env...

Right now, as we all long to be able to travel to Santiago de Compostela once more, many of us are thinking about our absence from that sacred place. What about those who remain present in Santiago, though--those who have organized their lives to a considerable degree around attending to pilgrims as they arrive in the city. What have their lives been like during the pandemic and what are they seei...

Let's walk the Camino Inglés together! As in the series on the Camino Francés, this episode features conversations among three experienced pilgrims as they sling stories from the road, share personal highlights, and gnash teeth about route changes. Dave is joined this time by Johnnie Walker, author of the Confraternity of Saint James's guide to the Camino Inglés and many others, and Sean Hampton,...

After learning about pilgrimage's potential as a peace-building initiative in Episode 49, we now turn to its capacity to promote reconciliatory efforts within a colonial context. Academic and religious leaders are doing this work right now, and this episode focuses on initiatives coordinated by Dr. Matthew Anderson in Canada (www.somethinggrand.ca), and by Jenny Boyack and John Hornblow in New Zea...

Pilgrimage has the power to change the world and we're only just beginning to understand its potential. One aspect of this is pilgrimage as a peace-building initiative: an act that can help span cultural and religious divides and promote reconciliation. Dr. Ian McIntosh is part of a growing body of researchers studying this phenomenon, and he documents his experiences and insights in his book, Pil...

Let's re-walk the Camino together! Whereas many of the pilgrim interviews on the podcast take a thematic approach, focusing on a few big picture issues, this series of episodes will dig more into the specifics of walking. After having completed our full re-walk of the Camino Francés, we'll follow our many pilgrim peers onward to the coast, walking towards Finisterre and Muxía. I'm joined in this j...

In his upcoming pilgrim memoir, Into the Thin: A Pilgrimage Walk Across Northern Spain, author Stephen Drew (www.authorstephendrew.com) narrates how he was called to the Camino Francés in the wake of a year that he characterizes as an "emotional crucifixion." In this extended discussion of his journey, Stephen speaks to companionship on the Camino, his processing of guilt, shame, and more personal...

From a guidebook perspective, it's a great time to be a pilgrim. On the Camino Francés, in particular, there is a growing assortment of outstanding and complementary guidebooks, along with a wealth of other support materials to help inform one's pilgrimage. Over the last year, two new contenders have joined the array of English-language offerings: the Moon Camino de Santiago guide, written by Beeb...

In 17th-century Spain, Santiago faced his greatest threat to date. While the Reconquista was well in the past, his new rival was a Carmelite nun, born Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, but known to history as Teresa of Avila. Soon after Teresa died, and well before she was canonized, a movement grew to elevate her to serve as co-patron saint of Spain, alongside James. Santiago's advocates, howev...

If you've been called to the Camino, odds are that you've also been called to write about your pilgrimage. Whether your goal is to write for yourself, cementing lessons learned; to write for your friends and family, laying bare a difficult-to-explain experience; or to pursue publication, the underlying impulse is likely the same--to endeavor to translate the profound into words. But it can be diff...

Ann Sieben, aka the Winter Pilgrim, is a mendicant pilgrim and a founder of the Society of Servant Pilgrims. Over the last 13 years she has walked 43,000 miles through 55 different countries. In this episode, we discuss her pilgrimage origins, the development of her identity as a 'mendicant' pilgrim, and her crossing of the Darién Gap. Special attention is paid to her notable expertise in North Am...

Seemingly every aspect of life has been upended by the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic and that includes pilgrimage. This episode examines the interrupted journeys of four pilgrims, along with a look at the impact of the Camino Forum on the decision-making process of those pilgrims and many others. While that might sound like a bleak episode on the surface, the pilgrims involved meet their setbacks...

In 2013, Guy Stagg departed his London home on New Year's Day and then began a pilgrimage from Canterbury, not only to Rome, but then onward to Jerusalem. In his account of that pilgrimage, The Crossway, Guy weaves a fascinating, dramatic, and profound narrative, marked by evenings spent in monasteries and convents, reflections on faith and healing, and jarring encounters with political instabilit...