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Traveling Alone is Good for the Soul
Why I hiked 800km in 34 days
I hiked 800 kilometers in 34 days. I walked the Camino de Santiago.
A road that has existed for thousands of years and has been crossed by millions of people, the trek takes you from the very south-west of France to the (almost) western coast of northern Spain, to Santiago de Compostela.
The trek has historically been a religious one, but many people walk it for other reasons — myself included.
May 16, 2018, my 19-year-old self and my overpacked and oversized backpack (I borrowed my brother’s) headed to Gare de Montparnasse, Paris, where my mom and sister dropped me off.
Holy shit I was really doing this. There was no going back now.
I arrived in St. Jean pied-de-port that afternoon and went to bed early that night, planning to wake up at 7am the next morning and start my trek.
By 5:30am I was wide awake. My two roommates were up and moving by 6am, gone 30 minutes later. My roomies weren’t first-timers, and soon I learned that Camino life is wake up early, walk, eat (and drink, a lot), sleep, repeat.
