Join us on this inspiring episode of Camino Talks as we chat with author Ruth O’Leary about her transformative journey on the Camino de Santiago and how it shaped her writing.
Ruth shares the stories behind her latest novel, A Week to Remember, which follows three strangers on their Camino adventure, and reflects on the unique connections, challenges, and lessons she encountered along the way.
Whether you’re a seasoned pilgrim or considering your first step, Ruth’s insights will inspire you to embrace the Camino’s power in both travel and storytelling.
What does it take to compete at the highest level in race walking? In this episode, we sit down with Spanish Olympic athletes Paul McGrath and Laura García-Caro to explore their journey in this demanding sport. They share how they got started, the mental and physical discipline required, and their experiences at the Paris 2024 Olympics. We also discuss the power of walking—not just as a sport but as a transformative experience, from elite competition to long-distance journeys like the Camino de Santiago. Whether you're an athlete or simply love the rhythm of walking, this conversation will inspire you to take the next step.
In this interview, we spoke to Wendy Dutwin, a pilgrim who embarked on the Camino from Portugal to carry her friend to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela – only to be faced by forest fires and extreme rainfall which threatened her journey. We found out how Follow the Camino helped Wendy avert danger and complete her special journey to the final resting place of St James in honour of her friend.
In this interview, we talked to long-standing Follow the Camino client Christine Patterson about her experiences on the Camino de Santiago, if there are social barriers to women travelling on long-distance walks, and why more women than men walk The Way.
In this interview, we talked to one of Follow the Camino's most well-know and beloved guides, Silvia, about her experiences leading walking tours of the Camino de Santiago. A former mountain guide in the Himalayas for many years, Silvia is full of facts and figures about the Camino, as well as a whole lot of fun!
In this interview we speak with John Rutkowski III, a life-long walking enthusiast who used his passion as motivation to help him recover from a series of cancer surgeries and treatments. He's walked the Camino, many long-distance routes in the US, and even the length of Hadrian's Wall!
In this interview we speak to Shirley-Ann Poulton, an pilgrim from Perth, Australia who has walked the Camino multiple times with the help of Follow the Camino. We speak about the beauty of history and pilgrimage to someone from the New World, and reflect on how faith unites people on the Camino.
In this interview we speak to Raquel Freiría, a leading member of the Camino's animal protection association, APACA. She discusses the canine 'pilgrim' credentials APACA supply for pets along the Camino and what how the pilgrim spirit applies to animals as well as humans.
NOTE: This episode is in the Spanish language.
In this interview we speak to Aleksandar and Nenad Popovic, two brothers who walked the Camino individually - but with a lot of shared experiences! We discuss new beginnings, building a community, and picking between beer and wine when unwinding after a long day on the Camino!
In this interview Alberto Ferreiro, Professor Emeritus of History at Seattle Pacific University, joins Umberto di Venosa, Follow the Camino CEO & Founder, to discuss the the Camino de Santiago from the Middle Ages to modern times. He pulls back the curtain on the myth behind the worship of St James in Galicia and discusses what pilgrimages mean nowadays.
In this interview, Follow the Camino CEO and Founder Umberto di Venosa discusses B-Corp certification, the future of eco-travel, and how Follow the Camino is trying to lead the way on making travel more environmentally responsible.
Blanca Valencia is a cook and expert in Spanish gastronomy. In this episode of Camino Talks she walks us through the Camino Frances and the regions it passes through, discussing the unique and notable foods that you will find along the Way of Saint James. We discuss Navarra, La Rioja, Castile and Leon, and Galicia, with their diverse and delicious foods!
You can see the full French Way on the Camino here: https://followthecamino.com/en/camino-tours/camino-frances/.
Born in Spain, Blanca Valencia grew up between Central America and Spain. She is a cook, teacher and speaker that specializes in Spanish food. Blanca has a Grand Diplome from London’s Le Cordon Bleu and has run the test kitchen at Books For Cooks (London). She has also run a stage at elBullihotel (Seville, Spain), and the cooking school at Alambique (Madrid). She collaborates regularly with the Spanish Commercial Offices and gives talks and workshops about Spanish gastronomy at the Cervantes Institutes in the U.S. and Ireland.
Blanca is the co-host of Spicebags podcast, a podcast about international food and communities in an Irish context. In Dublin, Blanca has done classes in Triggerfish cookshop, Cook’s academy, Catex, and the All-Ireland Tapas competition. Her favourite town on the Camino Francés is Sahagún, where her grandmother is from.
You can learn more on her website: www.blancavalencia.com
And listen to the Spice Bags podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5b44J6OhuLI3ySVnIkvYWz
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You can learn more about Follow the Camino and our active holiday packages on our website - www.followthecamino.com
There is a Camino out there for everyone, from family holidays to solo travellers, and all of our holidays are custom-made for you. We can even make your walking days shorter and add in extra rest days to suit your level of fitness.
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#SpanishFood #CaminoFrances #FollowTheCamino #CaminoDeSantiago #CaminoTalks
Business coach Shannon Wallis joins us on this episode of Camino Talks to discuss her new book – WE the Change: Launching Big Ideas and Creating New Realities. This book is a combination of Camino memoir, life story, and a guide to making positive changes in your life.
Shannon Wallis’ ability to launch big ideas and create new realities comes from more than thirty years of professional study as well as a lifetime of personal vision, tenacity, and practice.
Her clients include leaders, teams, and organizations on six continents from Fortune 50 companies and non-profits. She has worked with over twenty thousand leaders on six continents to launch big ideas and create new realities for their leadership, teams, and organizations.
Prior to founding Cascade Leadership, Shannon was the global director of high-potential leadership development at Microsoft.
As an executive coach and leadership and organization effectiveness consultant, Shannon’s personal journey of transformation is living proof of the power of working collectively to WE the Change. Shannon continues the journey with her family, Joe, Savannah, Fiona, and darling dog Zoey, in Bellevue, WA.
In this Camino Talks interview, Shannon discusses her journey to the Camino. From her challenging childhood through a series of devastating events in her life, and on to the path of healing. WE the Change is a roadmap for anyone wanting to transform their life, organization, or community.
We love how this book weaves together the physical journey on the Camino with emotional and mental journeys in life. The lessons and messages of the book are so clear and applicable to life, while still being creatively and engagingly written.
You can buy your copy of WE The Change here
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👉 Read more in our Blog 📖
👉 Watch the Webinar 👀
👉 Listen to the Podcast 🎧
You can learn more about Follow the Camino and our active holiday packages on our website - www.followthecamino.com
There is a Camino out there for everyone, from family holidays to solo travelers, and all of our holidays are custom-made for you. We can even make your walking days shorter and add in extra rest days to suit your level of fitness.
Follow us on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followthecamino
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/followthecamino
Twitter: https://twitter.com/followthecamino
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ie/followthecamino
Don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter and be the first to hear about new products, events and exclusive offers: www.followthecamino.com/sign-up-for-newsletter/
#WEtheChange #FollowTheCamino #CaminoDeSantiago #CaminoTalks #ShannonWallis
There is something wonderful about taking on a pilgrimage!
Keith Foskett's love of long-distance hiking, also known as thru-hiking, all started with the Camino de Santiago.
He walked Le Puy Camino and Camino Frances combined - a distance of around 1000 miles (over 1500 kilometres) - and fell in love with long-distance hiking. Since then, he has taken on some of the world's best-known routes.
He has written four books about his adventures on the Camino, the Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail, and the Cape Wrath Trail and the West Highland Way in Scotland.
Keith joined us for a Camino Talks interview to discuss hiking, the different trails, and mental health.
If this Camino Talks episode has sparked your curiosity you can learn more about Keith and his books on his website - https://www.keithfoskett.com/
Ask us about doing Le Puy Camino and the Camino Frances on our website: https://followthecamino.com
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👉 Read more in our Blog 📖
👉 Watch the Webinar 👀
👉 Listen to the Podcast 🎧
Start planning your Camino route at Follow the Camino for a walking holiday you will never forget!
Buen Camino!
Five hikers started Camino for Good to both share their experiences along the Camino de Santiago and to raise money for Camino hostels struggling due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Kelly is one of those pilgrims and founders of Camino for Good - a virtual Camino platform that donates money to albergues (pilgrim hostels) along the Camino de Santiago.
COVID-19 has caused an almost total stop in travelers walking the Camino, which has had a massive impact on the livelihoods of those along the ways. Without their normal income from walkers, many Camino albergues have been forced to shut their doors.
To help support these unique small businesses along the trails that offer shelter to pilgrims, 75% of Camino for Good's net income is donated to them.
It is also a brilliant experience for the virtual pilgrims! With maps to track your progress, photos, and stories from along the way, and an online community of fellow walkers this experience aims to get people moving and keep the Camino spirit alive until we can travel again.
You can learn all about Camino for Good and sign up to join their virtual Camino on their website: https://caminoforgood.com/
Albergues that want to join the cause can sign up to get support on the website too.
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👉 Read more in our Blog 📖
👉 Watch the Webinar 👀
👉 Listen to the Podcast 🎧
Start planning your Camino route at Follow the Camino for a walking holiday you will never forget!
Buen Camino!
You never know who you might end up walking with on the Camino de Santiago. Kenneth Strange is one of the many fascinating pilgrims that we have encountered on the Way. A former FBI agent with a history of investigating terrorism, Kenneth is now a Private Investigator. His specialty is missing person cases. Kenneth lived in Madrid for a year during University and first learned about the Camino.
In 2018, he and his wife Aurora walked the full Camino Frances from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port all the way to Santiago de Compostela. They both found the experience so impactful that Kenneth wrote a book about the experience - It's Your Camino. We caught up with Kenneth again to chat about his background, walking the Camino, 2020, Martin Sheen and The Way, writing a book about the Camino de Santiago, and becoming an author. We also asked about his new book - Feds - and his work on missing person cases. Kenneth is currently working on the cold case of Annie McCarrick, a young US American who went missing in Dublin in 1993. Kenneth regaled us with many stories about his memories of the Camino, advice for new pilgrims, and tips for older or less fit walkers.
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Start planning your Camino route at Follow the Camino for a walking holiday you will never forget!
Buen Camino!
On this Camino Talks episode, we are joined by the wonderful hosts of Pilgrim Lost, Kari Gale, and Tony Kriz!
Individually they are both wonderful people with a passion for the Camino, journeys, pilgrimage, and storytelling. Together, they host the Pilgrim Lost podcast which they describe as "an exploration of life in hopeful motion". The topics of the podcast are wonderfully wide-ranging, from creativity and art to faith and spirituality, and interviews with pilgrims.
The CEO of Follow the Camino Umberto di Venosa has also made an appearance in a recent episode!
You can explore their wide range of blogs and podcasts on their website - pilgrimlost.com - and follow them on social media to see new insights and stories as they come out. Instagram | Facebook
Tune in to Pilgrim Lost on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Overcast.
Kari’s Camino book, The Art of Walking: An Illustrated Journey on the Camino de Santiago, which is mentioned in this interview is available at karigale.com.
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Start planning your Camino route at Follow the Camino for a walking holiday you will never forget!
Buen Camino!
When Susi Swain first read a book about the Camino she couldn't imagine herself walking the pilgrimage herself. A few years later her life led her to bite the bullet and walk the Camino Frances and everything changed from there. Susi fell in love with the Camino de Santiago and Spain so deeply that she decided to make it her home.
After plenty of searching, she found the Albergue of her dreams and restored it. Susi has been running the hostel Casa Susi since then and has absolutely loved it. She is such a people person and she absolutely loved the experience of welcoming pilgrims in while they are on their journey. 2020 has been a very challenging year for Susi and the other Albergue owners along the Camino. Susi tells us about the challenges she has had and her hopes for the future too.
We are all hopeful for 2021 and can't wait to get back on the trails. In the meantime, if you'd like to support Susi and Casa Susi so that it will be there for future pilgrims, you can contribute to her GoFundMe page.
You can also follow their journey on social media: Facebook / Instagram
You can also watch the Youtube video of the interview!
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Start planning your Camino route at Follow the Camino for a walking holiday you will never forget!
Buen Camino!
Discover the secrets of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in our latest #CaminoTalks webinar with Dr. Jenny Alexander from the University of Warwick's History of Art department. We interviewed Jenny about her work uncovering the secrets of the cathedral walls.
While studying the stones that make up the magnificent cathedral in Santiago, Dr. Alexander and the team of archaeologists, historians, and other researchers learned a huge amount about the masons who carved them. One of their most noteworthy finds was a small face at the top of one of the columns - a "selfie" carved into the stone by one of these stonemasons on the past. Learn about this ancient selfie, how masons marks were used to construct the cathedral, and the lives of masons during the time.
“You may have heard the saying “if these walls could talk”, which is used for saying that many interesting things have happened in a room or building. Well, thanks to the amazing work of dedicated historians and scholars, the walls of Santiago’s impressive cathedral are starting to share their story.”
Check out our blog post on this webinar!
or
You can watch the Youtube video of the interview!
Please subscribe if you like our content.
Start planning your Camino route at Follow the Camino for a walking holiday you will never forget!
Buen Camino!
In this Camino Talk, we chat to Tom Cartwright, the founder of Camino Gin - a company that makes gin in the UK that is flavoured with a special combination of botanicals found along the Camino Frances.
Tom's journey to the Camino began when he realised that the courses he was doing at university weren't for him. He was struggling to figure out what to do next when a friend recommended that he walk the Camino de Santiago. After watching The Way and doing a bit of reading, Tom started planning his pilgrimage on the Camino Frances.
Tom met plenty of people along his Camino. One of those people, an Italian man, introduced him to the idea of foraging for edible plants and mushrooms as he walked. This planted the seed for Tom's Camino Gin! He partnered with a local gin distiller and carefully selected botanicals from along the Camino Frances to infuse. After plenty of sampling and testing, they found a full and interesting combination, and Camino Gin was born!
Check out our blog post on this webinar!
or
You can watch the Youtube video of the interview!
Please subscribe if you like our content.
Start planning your Camino route at Follow the Camino for a walking holiday you will never forget!
Buen Camino!
