About Our Caminos

Welcome, fellow pilgrim!

This site recounts our pilgrimages on the Way of Saint James – the Camino de Santiago – as well as the planning and training leading up to our pilgrimages. For our first pilgrimage, in April and May of 2013 we walked the route known as the Camino Francés.

Thom’s trek was some 780km from Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees, across the north of Spain. Along the Way, he rendezvoused with his wife Francine in the great city of León.

Together, we walked the final two weeks to the tomb of Saint James in the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela.

Then, in the spring of 2016, we did it again, both starting from the French mountain village of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, a distance of about 800km (500 miles).

In October of 2018 we were at it again, this time opting for a short pilgrimage of perhaps two weeks through the forests and hills of Galicia, beginning in O Cebreiro. This is much shorter than the previous two Caminos, perhaps 160km (100 miles).

A planned 2020 “long Camino” was derailed by a worldwide plague, but in the spring of 2022, we walked the Camino Primitivo with our friend Callie. This route covers a distance of about 300km (200 miles) from the city of Oviedo over some of the roughest terrain we’d ever walked.

In the summer and fall of 2023, Thom again walked, this time beginning in the French city of Le Puy-en-Velay and walking all the way to Santiago de Compostela. This route, known as the Via Podiensis, covers something like 740km before arriving in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, where it becomes the Camino Francés. This adventure was about 65 days of walking, plus a couple of rest days.

Francine, meanwhile, served as an hospitalera in Logroño and then walked the Camino Portugués with our friend Becky.

What new adventures await? Stay tuned!