I knew pilgrims would be starting on the trail before daylight. The Camino Frances presents a particularly difficult challenge.

Today I write. Tonight I will play guitar. That is, unless a flash flood crosses my path before then!

“Unmet goals are often considered failures. There is no failure with intention; only discovery.”

Before there was tourism, there was pilgrimage.

Nothing like a mountain to expose our limits and reveal our capacities.

If you are looking for a plan from me, I have to be honest—I don’t have one. But I do have an intention.

Such a journey takes great intentionality—not in the sense of planning, but in the sense of listening, moment by moment, for the next right step.

Americans are increasingly looking for opportunities for personal transformation and going by foot, by bike and by canoe or kayak on adventures of self-discovery.

Seriously, listen to that statement: In America, taking a walk across the land is a luxury reserved for only the very well off. Somebody forgot to tell Forest Gump that!

“Pilgrimage may be thought of as extroverted mysticism, just as mysticism is introverted pilgrimage.”

We are tourists on vacations. We are de-tourists on pilgrimages. First major detour just around the corner on this Pilgrim Hostel pilgrimage project.

Pilgrimages don’t actually start the day you take Step One on some specific route. Pilgrimages start the day that you DECIDE when you are going to take Step One.