How Walking the Camino de Santiago Changed the Direction of My Life (And How It Could Change Yours)

When I walked into my first hostel on the Camino de Santiago, the man behind the desk asked me for my credential. I had no idea what he meant, and I told him so.

He explained that every pilgrim carries a small passport that gets stamped along the way, and that without one I could not have the pilgrim’s discount. I could pick it up the next day, he said. He gave me the discount anyway. I looked like a pilgrim, even if I was completely clueless.

I had not read about the route, and I had not booked a single bed. All I knew was that I had to go. Perhaps you know that feeling: a life that no longer fits, a decision you cannot yet name, and no credential, no map, and no certainty that you are ready for what comes next.

If you are standing at a crossroads right now, this story is for you. By the end of this story about walking the Camino, you will know the four stages a pilgrim moves through, how to tell which one you are in, and a ten-minute practice for taking your next step before you feel ready.

A Friend’s Photographs and a Place I Had Never Heard Of

In 2016, someone I was coaching in South Africa decided to walk the Camino de Santiago. When my friend came back, I sat down to look at the photographs: long dirt paths through open country, stone villages, a great cathedral waiting at the end. I was born and raised Catholic in Venezuela, so the rituals, the prayers, and the traditions of the faith were familiar to me. The Camino was not.

Curious, I asked why anyone would do this. My friend told me that many people walk the Camino when they are at a crossroads in their lives, or when they are getting ready to make a big change and want to strengthen themselves from the inside out. My friend also mentioned that a pilgrim moves through four stages along the way. I did not yet know what that meant.

It called out to me. I had sat in ayahuasca ceremonies, so going into the unknown through something difficult, emotionally and even physically, was not foreign to me. What the Camino would be like, I could not say. Wanting to find out, though, I could.

Why I Needed to Go

Ever since I was a child, I had known that one day I would live in Spain. I never knew when. My whole life had fallen apart in 2008, and I had rebuilt it in South Africa. As that chapter began to close, the old knowing woke up again.

Practically, it made sense. If I wanted to bring the deep work I had developed, the methodology and the framework, out into the world, I needed to be in the heart of Europe, with easy access to the rest of Europe, the United States, South America, and beyond. But beneath the sense was something older, a deeper knowing.

The Questions I Carried

Leaving the life I had made in South Africa still felt frightening, and I knew I would be facing a great deal of uncertainty. So I made a decision: I would move to Spain, though I had no idea where in Spain I would live. I would walk the Camino and give myself that time to ask for guidance. Where was I meant to live? What would my life look like? How did I need to change? And, most important of all, what inside me still needed to be healed?

Perhaps you carry a knowing like that too, something you have known about your life since you were young, even if you never knew when. Beneath the practical questions of timing and money, that is often what a crossroads is really asking about. What have you always known, and what in you still needs to heal before you can follow it?

Leaving Everything Behind but a Backpack

From Madrid, a bus took me to Burgos, where I would begin walking the Camino. My bags went into storage, and I set out with only my backpack. The moment I left my possessions behind and kept just the basics, I felt free and liberated in a way I can still remember. There were no reservations and no plan, only the decision to walk, sleep wherever I could find a hostel, and surrender to the process.

A crossroads often asks us to put something down before we know what we will pick up. If your life shrank to what fits in a backpack, what would you carry, and what would you be relieved to leave behind?

The Four Stages of Walking the Camino

Somewhere while walking the Camino for the first time, I understood what my friend had meant. The four stages overlap, and you can be in several at once, but knowing them helps you see what is happening inside you.

The body comes first. It hurts and aches as it wears out, and after a few days it adjusts. By the fifth day I had blisters that made every step difficult, and one day I walked the entire day in the rain.

The mind takes over once the body adjusts. It becomes very active, thinking about the past and the future until it finally exhausts itself. I was walking, but my mind was busy with logistics: where I would stay, who I would meet, whether to talk to this person or not, and everything I needed to do when I got back.

The emotions surface when the mind runs out of steam: old feelings and old grief that have been waiting beneath all that thinking. With everything I needed on my back, especially uphill, I thought about the extra weight I had been carrying in my life.

Grief rose that I had never fully expressed over my mother’s death, and over someone I had hoped to walk with who changed their mind at the end. I felt very alone, and it connected me with how alone I had felt for much of my life. Some days I cried and could not have told you why.

The spirit opens as those feelings are surrendered. At moments something bigger took over, as if something greater were moving my legs. I prayed the same prayers again and again, and then the mind grew quiet. I moved almost effortlessly, feeling the earth, the sun, and the elements, until the walking became a meditation, a way of walking with presence.

Looking back, I see that each stage was a surrender. The body gave in to the discomfort, the mind let go of its planning, the emotions were released, and from there I began to rise into something new. You may have walked through these stages in your own life without a name for them: a season that wore your body down, a mind that would not stop planning, old grief that rose once you finally got still. Notice that the mind, where most of us try to solve our crossroads, is only the second stage. Which of the four feels closest to where you are today? We will come back to it.

Painful and Lonely, Until It Wasn’t

The first half of walking the Camino that first time was lonely, even among other pilgrims. Then, somewhere around the midpoint, something shifted and I began to meet people. I met someone with whom I walked most of the remaining way, and over those days we built a deep, strong connection.

After we parted, I made my way to Finisterre, on the Atlantic coast, which pilgrims have long called the end of the world. There I made another friend, and I am still in close contact with both of them today.

If you are in a lonely stretch of your own crossing, I want you to hear this from someone who has been there. The loneliness did not mean I was doing it wrong. It was part of the walking.

The Road That Did Not End in Santiago

I thought the pilgrimage would begin in Burgos and end in Santiago. As it turned out, Santiago was only the beginning.

When I reached Santiago, I saw words scrawled on a wall that said something like, “The real Camino begins now.” I smiled at it, not yet knowing how true it was. The walking had taken weeks. What came after, letting everything I had felt on the road find a home in my daily life, was only starting.

Along the way, I received a deep calling to travel to Madeira, the island of my grandparents, and to reconnect with my lineage. There I visited the town where my grandfather was born and connected with my ancestors, some of the first settlers of the island. From Madeira I went to São Miguel in the Azores, where I bathed in the hot thermal waters. It felt like a cleansing.

Then I was guided to Fátima for the very first time, and arriving there felt like being welcomed by the Divine Mother.

All along the Camino, I had been meeting people who told me the same thing: you must go to Granada. At least five of them said it. By then I understood that I was being guided there, and within two days of arriving, I knew it was home.

Every Mistake Was a Teacher

I made all the mistakes I needed to make on that first Camino, and the lessons stayed with me. On later walks I wore lighter shoes and the right socks, and I carried the special bandages that protect against blisters.

The same four stages still show up whenever I am walking the Camino, in different ways, but now I recognize how they unfold. In so many ways, the road prepares you for life. Your first crossing will teach you things no amount of preparation can.

Learning to Heal Along the Way

On my second Camino, a week after I began walking, I became extremely sick. Vomiting and diarrhea left me so weak that I ended up spending three nights in the same place.

All my life I had been taught that when you are sick, you stay in bed and do not exert yourself. By the third day I was still in pain and still weak, but I realized my body was strong enough to begin walking again. So I told myself, “I am just going to have to heal along the journey.” I took it easy, and I did not wait to feel fully well before taking the next step.

That idea has stayed with me. These days I rest when I need to, and I also tell myself I will get better along the way, instead of waiting to be completely healed before I move.

Most of us carry our own version of that old rule. We wait until we are rested, healed, confident, or financially secure, and the crossroads stays exactly where it is. Is there something you are waiting to be fully ready for? What would your first step look like if you took it while still tender?

What Surrender Taught Me

When I set out, I never imagined I would end up in Madeira, in Fátima, or in Granada. None of those places were on my plan, because I had no plan. What carried me from one to the next was a willingness to trust, to surrender, and to let myself be guided.

I also used my time walking the Camino the way a pilgrim does: to pray, to meditate, and to meet people. Keeping my heart connected through all of it had a profound effect on me, and I believe that is why the road could reach me.

You may know something about this. Most of us try to find our next step by thinking harder, and thinking has its place. But some guidance does not arrive in the mind. It arrives as a string of small invitations, such as a stranger’s words, a quiet pull, or a feeling that will not leave you alone, and it asks only whether you are willing to follow the next one.

Looking at your own life, what small invitations have you already received?

From Walking Alone to Walking Together

I walked the French Way by myself, and then the Portuguese Camino. After that, I created a space to walk it again, this time with others. In all, I have walked the Camino five times, twice on my own and three times guiding groups, and I have watched people’s lives change completely as a result.

Walking the Camino alone has its own gifts, and I would not trade my first Camino for anything. Still, companionship came halfway through, and only by chance. A small group offers it from the first step, along with a guide who holds the path so you can attend to your heart, and a circle at the end of the day where what surfaced on the road can be spoken and held.

Walk With Me in 2027

Next year I will lead two small-group pilgrimages with James Portelli of XirCammini, an experienced guide who has walked all the Caminos. In May we walk the Way of Saint Francis from La Verna to Assisi, May 1 to 13. In September we begin with a weekend in Fátima, then walk the Portuguese coastal way and the spiritual variant to Santiago de Compostela, September 3 to 14.

If walking the Camino is calling you, you do not need to be an athlete; many who walk with us are in their fifties, sixties and beyond. The routes, costs, and what is included are all on the 2027 Pilgrimages page, along with the replay of our recent Info & Q&A call. And if you would like a taste of what the road teaches, you can read ten lessons I took from the Camino.

Final Thoughts

I still think about the man at the front desk of that first hostel, and the question I could not answer. The credential was missing, and so was a plan. What I did have was a feeling heart willing to follow, and that was enough to begin.

Looking back, the Camino never asked me to be ready. It asked me to start walking, and it took care of the rest. Madeira, Fátima and Granada were never on any map I carried. They appeared one step at a time, and only because I kept walking. I suspect your crossroads is asking the same of you: to move before you can see where the road ends. To start before you even feel ready to begin.

Not long ago I heard a line in a song that says it better than I can: “You don’t have to know the way to walk the way. The way knows the way.” Whatever you are standing at the edge of, whether it is a move, a calling, a healing, or a love, you do not need to see the whole road. The way knows it, and so does your heart. All you have to do is take the first step.

From my heart to yours,