On the road again
Coming up next: the trip I swore I'd never take
Welcome to NE Where, a weekly travel-focussed journal for curious people. This piece is free for everyone today, but it will likely be archived in the coming weeks. For less than $1 a week NE Where On The Road members also have unlimited access to NE Where’s growing archive, which is packed with inspiration and ideas for an unforgettable trip to Bali, stories about exceptional women, and other tales about interesting people and places. Thank you for joining me on this journey!
On the road again
Listen to this note, instead of reading it:
Dear NE-One
Sometimes, the way life unfolds is nothing short of extraordinary.
When I wrote to you at the end of July Mark and I were freshly back from our ‘freedom walk’ through Spain. We’d been floating on the euphoria of the experience – our first real break in more than a decade – but as we tried to claw our way back into reality, we found ourselves drowning in post-Camino blues. ‘Mid-summer mourning’, I’d titled the letter I sent out here on NE Where. And in mourning, really, we were.
We were home, but lost. Listless. Replying to emails was an effort; sending out pitches a slog; and when it came to writing neither of us, we eventually admitted, had ever felt so unmotivated. But now…
Now, as I write to you, my backpack is resting against one of the bookshelves upstairs. It’s plump with waterproof gear, thermal layers and carefully considered accessories I know the exact weights of. That head torch? 45g. Bar of soap (for body, hair and clothes) – 60g. Pack of cards? 90g (frivolous, I know). Deodorant and towel? So light that together they don’t even register on my luggage scale. If my last weigh-in is correct (and trust me, there have been many), my entire pack – minus water, and including office electronics – weighs 7.7kg.
Yes, NE-One, Mark and I are about to hit the trail.
Join Me - On The Road
In the next few months I’ll be heading through Spain, Indonesia, Morocco and South Africa. If you’re keen to come along, why not upgrade your membership and join NE Where On The Road? You’ll get access to my private WhatsApp group, where I share images of beautiful landscapes and impromptu travel moments (I’m no longer posting to Instagram). You’ll also have unlimited access to the NE Where archive, and I’ll be available to chat through travel plans if you’re heading to an area I know well.
About a month ago we decided that the only way to shake our uncharacteristic blues was to commit to doing another long-distance walk. Early May 2025 would be good timing, we agreed, clinking our sunset G&Ts to seal the deal – but, where should we go? We could hike through Costa Rica, perhaps. Or what about Mexico?
Portugal? I offered, sensibly taking airfares into account. ‘I just can’t shake the allure of Spain,’ Mark admitted – so we pulled up our map of the Camino routes and searched for something beautiful. The Ebro? Maybe El Norte? If we linked various Camino routes together, we dreamed, we could walk for months...
We didn’t settle on a route right then, but we did agree vehemently on the one we wouldn’t do: the Camino Frances. Waaay too busy, we’d rolled our eyes and shuddered.
Our planning session worked. While we didn’t know yet where we’d go, the simple act of committing to a date somehow focussed our minds and quelled our blues. Words flowed and work, once again, got rolling.
Then something bizarre happened.
In early September, exactly a week after we’d clinked our glasses on The May Plan, Mark received an email from an editor he worked with last year. We’re putting together a book on walking trails, the editor said. We’d like you to write a good chunk of it – are you available to walk the Camino Frances in October?
And so this, NE-One, is why my bag is packed (and why every evening I’m smearing Vaseline on my feet with wild abandon). Mark flies to Madrid tomorrow and I – frustratingly – will be trailing by who-knows-how-many days because my Schengen visa still hasn’t come through. Mark’s the one with work to do so he needs to get moving; I’m just going along for the ride, so I’ll catch up with him somewhere along the way.
This trek is going to be completely different from the quiet Camino del Invierno we walked in July. Only around 2,000 people walk the Invierno each year, while the French route is trodden by way more than 400,000 annually; we’ll be walking twice as far (close on 700km, as opposed to 360km); our packs will be heavier; and the weather’s likely to be cold and wet (and getting colder and wetter) – but perhaps the biggest difference is that we’ll both be working. That beautiful freedom with which we walked the Invierno won’t exist. There will be no languid hours spent reading in a hammock; and precious few, if any, afternoon-long card games will be played lazily in bars. Mark’s on a tight deadline and every day he will need to make plans and take notes and ask questions, check in on places and write, write, write; I’ll be working on a novel that’s been on the back-burner for far too long, and researching for the other projects I have on the horizon.
In a way, I’m grateful for these differences. There is no expectation to relive the magic of our rose-tinted walk in July, and the reality check these next few weeks will bring will likely quell my desire to become a professional pilgrim. The blisters are inevitable, as is walking through rain. But this is what I signed up for when, 12 years ago, I left a very sensible and stable life to live one less ordinary – and I’m here for it. Every. Single. Step.
Until next time
My Dad walked 850km’s from St Jean in 5 weeks, finishing his journey this week 9 years ago. His daily WhatsApp’s to us kids were saved on my Notes, and when he joined us at Christmas that year, I uploaded all his photos onto my computer, and over the next few months I built up a book of those memoirs. It really was a 100 page hard covered photo book that we had printed for him at enormous expense but I remember feeling every single memory for him. Crowds aside (he had made mention that from a certain point closer to the end, every night was like a party for the travellers, something I imagine he felt distasteful), I know my Dad made use of his guidebooks to seek slightly more alternate routes, sometimes to ensure he could get a bed for the night, sometimes because he needed the quiet. I thoroughly enjoyed his musings at the days end, describing the characters who he encountered on the day, his views on the Spanish agriculture and given his spiritual (Christian) beliefs, his thoughts on how each town seemed to have gilded churches despite widespread poverty.
Hope your trip is successful. Good luck with the visa.
Xx
It’ll still be wonderful and hopefully by October much less people than other months. Buen Camino!