Practical Pilgrimage

Through anecdotes and photos, veteran Camino pilgrim Thom Ryng lays out his twelve rules for a successful Camino.

From the Introduction: These rules are hard-won through experience. The emphasis here is mostly on the practical-these will not necessarily ensure a more spiritual or fruitful pilgrimage, but perhaps a less needlessly difficult one. ... These are my rules for a successful Camino. You may very well decide that these rules aren't for you. Fair enough. Everybody is different, and everybody-as they say-walks their own Camino.

I'm just trying to give you the benefit of the mistakes I've made so that when you make mistakes, they are new and different mistakes.

Having said that, Rule 4 applies to everybody. Obey Rule 4.

Thom Ryng didn't take up hiking until he was in his forties, and he certainly never thought he'd walk a 500-mile pilgrimage trail in northern Spain. In the years since he has walked into Santiago de Compostela on five occasions over slightly over a decade. Those pilgrimages have rangedin length from 160 kilometers to more than 1,600 kilometers.