How to Plan, Prepare For, and Embark on a Pilgrimage of the Heart (A Beginner’s Guide)

Introduction

On my first Camino de Santiago I met a young man from Korea, in his early twenties, who had the worst blisters I had ever seen. He was putting cream on feet that looked like they belonged to someone twice his age, and he was cramping so badly that he could barely walk. I asked him about his Camino, and he told me he was covering close to forty kilometers a day.

So I asked him why he had come. He told me it was on his bucket list.

I did not say much. I felt a quiet sadness, because he had flown from the other side of the world to a road people have walked for more than a thousand years, and he was treating it like a marathon. He was not talking with the people around him, and he was not looking at the landscape he was moving through. I was hardly an expert myself on that first walk, but I teach connection, presence, and living from the heart, and I found myself wondering what else the road might offer him if he gave himself room to experience it.

Perhaps you have heard of pilgrimage and felt a pull, and you do not want the typical version. You may be someone who has practiced heart coherence, listened to Joe Dispenza or read Gregg Braden, and sensed that a long walk to a sacred place could be part of your path. Then you probably have the same questions I hear all the time. What is a pilgrimage, really? Where do I go? How long should it be? Should I go alone? What do I do while I walk? What do I wear? Is there any science behind it?

This guide is my answer to all of them. It is a beginner’s guide to pilgrimage, written primarily for people who are already learning about the heart through HeartMath, Joe Dispenza, Gregg Braden, and work like theirs. It covers the history of pilgrimage, how it has changed, what makes a pilgrimage a pilgrimage of the heart, what research and experience suggest walking can offer, and the seven decisions that shape a journey of your own, whether it lasts an hour or a month.

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Scope, Safety, and What This Guide Is Not

This guide is educational and spiritual. It is not medical advice, psychotherapy, or a substitute for professional care.

Walking for days at a time is physical work. If you have a heart condition, joint problems, a chronic illness, or you are recovering from surgery, speak with your doctor before you plan a long walk, and choose a length and a pace that fit your body. Some of the practices below bring up strong feelings. If you are in a crisis, or you are carrying trauma that surfaces more than you can hold, please contact a qualified professional or your local emergency services, and do not try to walk through it alone.

The research I describe is summarized in plain language. Where I share my own experience or belief, I say that it is mine.

Part One: What a Pilgrimage Is

The Stranger Who Walks Beyond the Field

The word pilgrim comes from the Latin peregrinus, which meant a foreigner, a stranger, someone living away from home. The Latin is built from per, meaning beyond, and ager, meaning field or land. A pilgrim, in the oldest sense, is someone who has gone beyond their own fields.

By around the year 1200, the English word pilgrim had come to mean a person traveling to a holy place, and also, more simply, a wayfarer. Pilgrimage followed in the late thirteenth century, defined as the act of journeying through a strange country to a holy place. By the middle of the fourteenth century the word was already being used for the journey of life itself.

I find that history moving, because it tells us what a pilgrim is before it tells us where a pilgrim is going. A pilgrim is someone willing to be a stranger. You leave the fields where you know every fence and every face, and you walk into land where nobody knows what you do for a living or what you are carrying. Something in you relaxes when nobody expects you to be who you were yesterday.

Two Roads, One Journey

Every pilgrimage has an outer road and an inner road. The outer road crosses hills, coastlines, villages, and cathedrals. The inner road passes through your body, your mind, your feelings, and finally something quieter beneath them. Most people plan the outer road with great care, with maps, shoes, and bookings, and leave the inner road to chance. If you have ever planned a journey down to the last detail and still come home feeling that you never quite arrived, the missing piece was probably not more planning.

A pilgrimage of the heart gives the inner road the same attention. You still need good shoes and a place to sleep. You also need to know what you are asking of the journey, how you want to meet the people you meet, and how you will listen to what rises in you along the way.

What a Pilgrimage Is Not

A pilgrimage can include beautiful places, rest, and physical challenge. What gives it meaning is the intention and attention you bring to the journey. You do not need to belong to a particular religion or be an athlete, and there is no single pace that makes someone a pilgrim. The invitation is to make room for the journey to touch you, wherever and however you travel.

I want to say this without judgment. The young man I met on the Camino was doing something sincere. He had a goal and he was giving it everything. My sadness came from seeing how much he could have received if someone had told him that the road had more to offer than the finish line.

Part Two: A Short History of Pilgrimage

People have traveled toward places they hold sacred for thousands of years. Hindu pilgrims visit places such as Varanasi; Buddhists travel to places connected with the Buddha’s life; and Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Sikh traditions each carry their own sacred journeys. Their purposes and practices differ, but each makes space for the journey to matter.

The route I know best is the Camino de Santiago, the Way of Saint James. According to Christian tradition, the apostle James is buried in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. People have traveled there since the Middle Ages, and today the Camino is a network of routes walked for religious, spiritual, personal, and many other reasons.

One book that speaks to the inner journey is The Way of a Pilgrim, an anonymous nineteenth-century Russian account of a wanderer learning to pray without ceasing. As he walks, he repeats the Jesus Prayer, allowing it to move from his lips and mind into his heart. It is a reminder that the outer journey and the inner one can travel together.

Walking for Peace

Walking can also carry an intention beyond a sacred destination. The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh taught walking meditation as a way to return to the present moment. Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun, suggests pausing on a walk to listen and take a few conscious breaths.

The American woman known as Peace Pilgrim walked across North America from 1953 to 1981, sharing a message of inner and outer peace. Mahatma Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March to Dandi was a nonviolent protest against British salt laws and part of India’s movement for independence. Their journeys were different, but each shows how a walk can serve something larger than the person taking it.

On the Camino, the old greeting is Ultreia, et suseia: onward and upward. I love the encouragement in it. A stranger sees you on the road, and for a moment you know you are not walking alone.

Part Three: What Makes a Pilgrimage a Pilgrimage of the Heart

Traditional Pilgrimage and the Pilgrimage of the Heart

Pilgrimage takes many forms, and the traditions that have carried it for centuries already hold deep practices of prayer, intention, transformation, and community. A pilgrimage of the heart does not replace those traditions or claim to improve on them. It is the way I bring the practices of the heart into the journey, whether I am walking a traditional route or visiting a place that is personally sacred.

I think of this as walking wholeheartedly. Mindfulness helps us notice what is happening; walking wholeheartedly also invites us to bring our feeling heart into the journey, to meet ourselves, other people, and the world around us with care, and to let the heart guide how we respond. It is a way of walking with presence and devotion, one step and one choice at a time.

Here are the qualities I give particular attention to when I walk or guide others.

Intention. Alongside any purpose given by a tradition, you bring your own heart’s question. You name what you are carrying and what you hope to listen for along the way. For example, you might begin with the intention to make room for grief, or to listen for guidance during a change in your life.

Presence. You make room to notice your body, your breath, the landscape, and the feelings that rise. The journey itself becomes a place to listen, not only a way of reaching the destination. For example, you might put your phone away for a while and notice the sound of your steps, the light, and how your body feels as you walk.

Honesty and connection. You practice being real with yourself and, when it feels right, with the people you meet. You bring attention to your relationship with others, with the land, and with what you hold sacred. For example, you might tell a companion that you need some quiet instead of pretending you have energy for conversation.

Heart-directed choices. You listen for your heart’s guidance as decisions arise, while also taking care of your body and attending to practical realities. Heart coherence can support this: you pause, breathe gently with your attention on your heart, and bring in a feeling of care before asking for guidance. For example, when you are unsure whether to keep walking with the group, you might pause, ask, “My heart, what do you want me to know?” and then take your body’s need for rest and your practical safety into account.

Devotion. Devotion is a way of offering the whole journey, not only the moments of prayer or meditation, in service to the greater whole. It lives in how you show up and how you treat the people, places, and living beings you encounter, including yourself. For example, you might thank the person who offers you a meal, care for the path by picking up litter, and tend to your tired feet with the same kindness you would offer another pilgrim.

Dedication. When the road brings difficulty, you may choose to dedicate the experience to someone or something greater than yourself. For example, you might offer the challenge of walking in the rain as a prayer for someone you love. This is a way of meeting discomfort with meaning, never a reason to ignore illness or injury.

Integration. You make space to bring what you have learned on the road back into your everyday life. Arrival matters, and so does what you carry home. For example, if walking in silence helped you hear yourself more clearly, you might set aside time for a quiet walk each week after you return.

The Five Ways of Being, Walked

These qualities are supported by the Five Ways of Being developed by my teacher Tej Steiner: Clear, Present, Real, Connected, and Heart-Directed. They are five living questions you can bring to any day of your life, and they are the agreements I use when facilitating a heart circle and bring to the road. If they are new to you, my article The Five Ways of Being introduces each one, and How to Embody the Five Ways of Being shows how to practice them in everyday life.

Being Clear is knowing why you are walking: your purpose and your intention, and whether what you do each day supports them. Being Present is coming back to your body and to this moment, watching your thoughts instead of being carried by them, and slowing down enough to feel your heart. Being Real is being honest about what you feel and need, with yourself and with the people around you, so that what you show on the outside matches what is true on the inside.

Being Connected is letting go of the sense of being separate, and meeting yourself, your fellow pilgrims, the land, and whatever you hold sacred with love and without judgment. Being Heart-Directed is following your inner guidance and your deepest longings rather than your conditioning, and letting the heart guide how you respond to whatever the road brings. If you would like to see how these agreements work in a group, Holding Space vs. Holding a Heart Space is a deeper guide to the way I use them with the pilgrims I walk with.

Dedicating a Hard Moment

On my second Camino I became ill and had little energy. During that time I dedicated my discomfort to the healing of a client living with chronic fatigue syndrome. The pain did not vanish, but giving the difficulty a purpose changed how I related to it. You can make an offering of a hard moment too, while stopping and seeking care if you feel unwell or have pain that concerns you.

A pilgrimage of the heart treats everything that happens as material for learning, growing, and exchanging with the people and the places around you. The delay, the missed turn, the stranger who talks too long, the night you cannot sleep: all of it belongs to the journey.

Part Four: What Walking Offers

Walking has a way of creating space. Problems that feel tangled at my desk often loosen when I move, and a long day on the road gives me time to hear what I may have missed while rushing. Research gives us some useful glimpses without explaining every pilgrim’s experience.

Experiments by Oppezzo and Schwartz found that walking supported performance on some creative-thinking tasks. In the Ultreya study, many Camino pilgrims reported improved well-being after walking, though the study was not randomized and cannot prove that the pilgrimage caused the changes.

I also practice heart-focused breathing on the road. Place a hand over your heart if it feels comfortable, breathe gently and evenly, and bring to mind a feeling of care or gratitude. You can let your steps accompany your breath, without forcing a rhythm. In my experience this helps me settle and listen; it is a practice, not a promise of a particular physical or emotional result.

Part Five: Designing Your Pilgrimage

Now we get practical. Seven decisions shape a pilgrimage:

1. Intention. What am I asking of this journey?
2. Place. Where is my heart calling me to go?
3. Length. How much time can I give it, and what does my body need?
4. Way of travel. Will I walk, ride, cycle, drive, or sail?
5. Company. Will I go alone, with one person, or with a group?
6. Practices. What will I do on the road to support my intention?
7. Practicalities. What do I wear, where do I sleep, and do I need a guide?

You can make these decisions in any order, but I suggest starting with the first, because it guides the rest. Let’s explore each one a little deeper.

1. Begin With Your Intention

Everything starts with clarity. Take a few quiet minutes, place a hand on your heart, and ask: What do I want from this pilgrimage? You might want to heal a loss, make a decision, forgive someone, find direction, or give thanks. You might simply want to listen.

Write one sentence. Then read it aloud and notice how your body responds. If it is true, you will feel a small settling. If it is not, you will feel a tightness or a vagueness, and you can keep adjusting until it rings true. This sentence will be your compass. When the road gets hard, it reminds you why you came. When choices arise about where to go next, it helps you decide.

For my first Camino, my intention was healing and reconnecting with myself. That decided much of what I did on it. On my second Camino my intention was different, and so were my practices, as you will see below.

2. Choose Your Place

A pilgrimage goes toward somewhere sacred. The question is which place speaks to you. It might be a place tied to a tradition you love, one linked to a teacher or saint who has touched your life, or a place of natural power. It might be a site that holds relics, a temple, a shrine, or a church. It might be a landscape where people have felt the presence of the sacred for a very long time, like Stonehenge. It might be the burial place of a person who changed your life.

The Camino de Santiago is a network of routes, including the French Way and the Portuguese routes. In Italy, the Via Francigena leads toward Rome, and the Way of Saint Francis leads to Assisi. Fátima in Portugal draws pilgrims on foot from across the country. In Japan there are the Kumano Kodō trails and the 88 temples of Shikoku. Some pilgrimages, like the Hajj, are restricted to the members of a faith. Others welcome everyone.

You can also choose a place close to home. Most spiritual traditions encourage people to visit sites near where they live, and some of the most important pilgrimages of a person’s life happen within an hour of home: a hilltop where a parent used to take you, a chapel, a river, a tree.

3. Decide How Long

Length is a practical question, not a spiritual one. A pilgrimage is not defined by how many days it lasts. It can be a one-day walk to a place that matters to you and back. It can be a weekend. It can be a week, or three, or two months.

A longer walk has real advantages. How a pilgrimage unfolds inside you takes time, and a long walk gives it room. I describe the stages in the story of my first Camino. A short walk has its own gifts: you can do it this month, it fits into a full life, and it teaches you the practice of pilgrimage so that a longer one becomes less frightening.

Here is something I learned on my first Camino that I had never considered. I met people who walked only one week of the Camino every year, because that was all the vacation they had. They would walk a stage, or three stages, and then go home, and the next year they would pick up where they left off. Over two or three years they walked the entire route. I found that beautiful. It showed me that a pilgrimage does not have to happen all at once, and that returning to the same road year after year can be its own practice, a long conversation with a place.

4. Choose Your Way of Travel

Walking is the classic way to make a pilgrimage, and for good reason. Walking is slow enough for the body to catch up with the heart. But it is not the only way.

Pilgrims have traveled to Santiago on horseback, and many people now cycle the Camino. A pilgrimage can be made by car, by boat, by train. If your body cannot manage long walks, you can still make a pilgrimage; the route and the pace simply look different. The important thing is that the way you travel supports your presence. A drive to a sacred place, taken in silence, with a prayer at the beginning and the end, can be a pilgrimage. Different bodies, routes, and circumstances call for different paces; what matters is making room for the intention you carry.

There is also a way to make a pilgrimage when your body cannot travel. A woman who wanted to walk the Camino with me lives with a chronic illness that limits her strength and mobility. She found an app that lets you walk the Camino de Santiago virtually. She walks for an hour a day in her own neighborhood or on her local trails, and the app places her progress along the route, so it feels as if she is walking the Camino.

Obviously it is not the same as being on the road. For someone with those limitations, though, it can be very useful, and it shows that a meaningful journey can be shaped around the intention you bring and the possibilities of your own body, not the postcode.

5. Decide Who Walks With You

You can make a pilgrimage alone, with a partner, with a friend, with your child, with a dog, with a small group, or with a larger one. Each has its own gifts and its own challenges.

Alone. When you walk alone, you have complete freedom of pace and silence, and nowhere to hide from yourself. Meetings on the road happen naturally. The challenge is that loneliness can be strong, especially in the first days, when there is no one to share the hard moments or the beauty.

With a partner or friend. The gifts are shared memories, someone to lean on, and the chance to see each other more deeply. The challenges are different paces and different needs, and old patterns come with you. It is also easy to spend the whole journey talking and miss the silence.

With a child. The gift is time and attention together, which are rare gifts. The challenge is that pace, energy, and patience need constant adjusting, and you will be carrying more than your own pack.

With a dog. The gifts are a steady companion, a reason to slow down, and an easy way to start conversations on the road. The challenges are practical: not every hotel or hostel accepts dogs, so you will need to check where you can stay before you go, and each day’s pace and distance have to suit the dog as well as you.

With a small group of friends. The gifts are companionship, laughter, and support, and each person’s strength helps carry the others. The challenges include group dynamics and wanting to please, and social energy can crowd out solitude.

With a larger or guided group. The logistics are held, so your attention is free. A shared container and shared intention can deepen the experience, and fellow travelers become a temporary family. The challenges include less spontaneity. You also depend on the group’s quality, so the people who hold the space matter a great deal.

Walking alone has a power of its own, and so does walking in company. If you are drawn to walk alone, trust that. If you would like company, trust that too.

6. Choose Practices That Support Your Intention

What you do while you walk matters. A long day of walking leaves many hours open. You can leave them empty, which is itself a practice, or you can fill them with something that serves your intention. Think about the question I asked about intention, and then ask which activities support it.

Prayer. You might say the rosary, repeat the Jesus Prayer in rhythm with your steps, offer gratitude, or simply ask for guidance. Choose words that feel true to you.

Listening. On my second Camino, my intention was releasing and letting go, so I listened to Dr. David Hawkins’s talks on that subject. Music, a chant, or a teacher can accompany you, as long as it serves your intention.

Writing and speaking. A notebook can help you capture questions, memories, and insights. I also use voice notes on long walks to talk through what is on my mind and in my heart. Some of my best ideas have come out of those conversations with myself.

Silence and heart coherence. Leave the headphones at home for part of the journey. Return to your breath, bring attention to your heart, and invite a feeling of care or gratitude. Give the inner road room to speak.

There is no right or wrong way to walk a pilgrimage. There is your pilgrimage and your way of walking it, based on your own intention. Choose practices that support that intention, and leave the rest.

7. Take Care of the Practicalities

The outer road needs attention too. Look at the terrain, weather, daily distances, accommodation, and how you will reach the start and return home. If you hope to receive a Compostela, check the Pilgrim’s Office requirements, including the recognized route, distance, spiritual purpose, and credential stamps.

Your feet and equipment. Choose footwear suited to the terrain and season, and wear your shoes and socks on training walks before you leave. Learn how to care for blisters. Carry what you need, but remember that everything you bring, you carry. If you plan to use a backpack, begin training with it light and build gradually.

Preparing your body. Start from where you are. If you are not walking regularly, begin with a comfortable duration and pace, then gradually build toward the distances and terrain of your own route. If your journey involves consecutive walking days, practice them only when you are ready and allow time for rest. If you have less time than you need, adjust the route or daily distances rather than rushing your preparation. A health professional or qualified trainer can help if you have a condition or are unsure what is safe.

Sleep, support, and technology. Booking accommodation in advance can ease worry, while leaving some flexibility can make room for the unexpected. On my first Camino I booked nothing; on my second I began reserving a bed each morning. Choose what suits the season, the route, and your needs. A guide can hold the logistics and offer context, while maps and apps can help if you walk independently. Keep access to navigation and help when needed, and put the phone away when it is safe to do so.

Rest, drink water, and stop when something hurts in a way that concerns you. A pilgrimage does not ask you to hurt yourself.

Beginning the Journey and Bringing It Home

Before you leave, check your route, travel arrangements, accommodation, budget, and the supplies and support you will need. Share your plans and a way to contact you with someone you trust, and allow enough flexibility to rest or change course if circumstances require it.

At the start of the journey, pause and return to the intention you named. Along the way, you might begin each day with a few quiet breaths and end it by noting what you noticed, felt, or learned. You do not need to turn every moment into a lesson; leave room for the road to surprise you.

When you return, give yourself a little time to look back. Choose one insight or practice you want to bring into your ordinary life, perhaps a weekly quiet walk or a kinder way of responding to yourself. That is how the inner journey continues after you arrive home.

Walking Together

When I guide a group, I hold the pilgrimage as a heart circle. At the beginning, we make the Five Ways of Being our agreements and each person has the opportunity to name an intention. The journey includes guided group processes at the beginning, along the way, and at the end, with room to consider how what we learn can find a home in daily life.

Some people pray the rosary, while others choose a different prayer or practice. A pilgrimage of the heart makes room for both. Whether you travel alone or with others, you can begin with a small journey close to home.

A Road Walked in Good Company

If you have read this far, you have probably felt the pull. Perhaps you will begin with the one-hour pilgrimage. Perhaps you will plan a weekend, or a week on a route that speaks to you, with a friend or on your own. All of those are real pilgrimages, and I hope you take the first step.

Some people tell me they want to go further, and they would rather not do it alone. They are drawn to a long walk but unsure about the logistics, the physical demands, or the emotional depths that might surface. They want a circle that holds them and a guide who can handle the path. That is the reason I lead small-group pilgrimages.

In 2027 I am leading small-group pilgrimages, with James Portelli joining as cultural and historical guide. The routes, what is included, and how to register are all on the 2027 Pilgrimages page. If you feel called to walk a pilgrimage of the heart in good company, that is the place to start.

Final Thoughts

I still think about that young man from Korea. I do not know where he is today or whether the road gave him anything beyond his blisters, and I hope it did. What stays with me is the question he raised without meaning to: what would it have been like if someone had told him, at the beginning, that he was allowed to slow down?

A pilgrimage is a gift you give your feeling heart. It asks you to leave your fields, to walk beyond what you know, and to be willing to arrive as a stranger. It will not always be comfortable, but it can be one of the most healing things you ever do, whether it takes an hour or a month, whether you go to Santiago or to a hill at the edge of your town.

Ultreia, et suseia. Onward, and upward. This is the pilgrim’s way. Where will your heart take you next?

From my heart to yours,

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Further Reading and Resources

If you would like to go deeper, these are a few places to continue exploring the outer road and the inner journey. Choose the ones that speak to where you are now.

Pilgrimage and the Inner Journey

• The Way of a Pilgrim, translated by R. M. French. The Russian pilgrim’s account of walking with the Jesus Prayer, and a companion for anyone drawn to the practice of prayer on the road.
• Walking Meditation, Plum Village. Thich Nhat Hanh’s community shares its practice of walking with attention to the breath, the body, and each step.
• Waking Up to Your World, Pema Chödrön. A teaching on pausing, listening, and returning to the present, including while walking.
• Peace Pilgrim. Her life and message, preserved by Friends of Peace Pilgrim.
• The Salt March, Encyclopaedia Britannica. Background on Gandhi’s 1930 nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.
• How Walking the Camino de Santiago Changed the Direction of My Life. The story of my first Camino and the stages of the journey as I experienced them.
• 10 Spiritual Lessons from the Camino de Santiago. More of the lessons I brought home from the road, including the practice of dedicating difficult moments.

The Heart and Its Practices

• Holding Space: A Guide to the Five Ways of Being. A deeper introduction to the agreements I apply when walking with a group.
• Being Heart-Minded. An exploration of shared intention, connection, and the heart in a group setting.
• Heart-Focused Breathing, HeartMath Institute. An introduction to the breathing practice discussed in this guide.

Research on Walking and Pilgrimage

These studies offer different windows into walking and well-being. They do not establish that every pilgrim will have the same experience, or prove the spiritual interpretations in this guide.

• The Ultreya Study, Feliu-Soler and colleagues (2024). A study of psychological distress and well-being among Camino pilgrims and vacationers. Its design was not randomized.
• Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking, Oppezzo and Schwartz (2014). Experiments on walking and creative thinking.
• Exercise Training Increases Size of Hippocampus and Improves Memory, Erickson and colleagues (2011). A year-long exercise study with older adults.
• Nature Experience Reduces Rumination and Subgenual Prefrontal Cortex Activation, Bratman and colleagues (2015). A study comparing a walk in nature with a walk in an urban setting.