Walking the Camino: Lessons in Life, Pain, and Joy

This post below delves into the lessons the Camino de Santiago provided and what I took with me long after the journey ended.

Before my dad invited me to join him, I knew little about the Camino de Santiago. My mom had to cancel her trip unexpectedly, and I became her stand-in. My dad had already arranged everything with an art historian tour guide, so all I had to do was say yes. That effortless "yes" became the gateway to a journey rich with timely lessons. Looking back, I see how perfectly this experience aligned with what I needed at that moment in life.

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The Initiation

From the very beginning of the walk, the Camino de Santiago became a metaphor for how one wants to live life. The trail asks a direct and sincere question: How do you want to walk your Camino? The moment I stepped on the trail, all my expectations of the walk dissolved as the trees and eucalyptus enveloped me, immediately pulling me into presence. Each passing step on the trail I learned more about how I wanted to walk the trail as if the Camino were quietly whispering the age-old lesson: we learn along the way.

Before we began the walk in Sarria, my dad and I spent a quiet morning at a coffee shop in Madrid. Over steaming cups of coffee, we talked about our intentions for the journey. That moment felt like a marker—a pause between the life we had known and the adventure ahead. For me, it was about stepping into my thirties with clarity and intention, having turned thirty the July before. For my dad, it was a continuation of the promise he made to himself after confronting mortality three years earlier when doctors discovered a cancerous tumor.

Though his surgery was successful, the experience reshaped him. He committed to living with greater intention, prioritizing his health, and exploring the world. As he spoke about this journey—both physical and emotional—I felt an unexpected wave of gratitude. Without his illness and recovery, I wasn’t sure we’d be sitting there in that quiet café, sharing this profound moment of reflection. I glanced at the ruby ring on my hand, a gift I’d given myself to mark a new decade, and felt its weight as a reminder of change and possibility. In that moment, time stood still, and yet, butterflies in my stomach signaled the pull of the unknown.

When we arrived to Sarria, Maite, our Camino guide, welcomed us and gave a heartfelt speech reminding us that the Camino “changes lives.” In total, there were twenty-five of us. We all set off on the walk with the sun beating down on our backs. Among our fellow walkers were Mercedes, a spirited 34-year-old mom traveling solo; Pablo, a 20-year-old student walking with his 70-year-old grandmother; and Giovanni, an exuberant Italian man. Buoyed by excitement and youth, our smaller group surged ahead, moving quickly while the older members lingered behind. Each step felt like an initiation—not just into the Camino but into a way of being: a life lived with intention, presence, and an openness to whatever lay ahead.

On Slowing Down

As we walked that first day, we started to attune to the trail – the tall grass, the dirt roads between the forest and the occasional sight of cows, chickens and sheep. We were immediately greeted by uphills, drawing me out of breath and the oxygen from the trail filled my lungs with vigor, energy and vitality. Along the trail, we started noticing the well-known Camino shells that marked the number of kilometers away from Santiago de Compostela. Each time we would spot a new shell on the trail ahead, we knew that we were on the right path.

My dad and I didn’t leave each other’s side all day and we both felt strong and accomplished when we were amongst the first group to arrive to Portomarin, high-fiving at the entrance of the small Spanish village. After we arrived, we sat down outside of the first local bar we saw for a well-deserved beer. There was inevitably a sense of accomplishment and pride for being the first ones to arrive. The rest of the walkers arrived 30 minutes, 40 minutes, one hour, two hours, and up to three hours after we’d arrived and they told us what they saw along the way.

Some of our new friends conversed with locals, enjoying fleeting moments of connection. Others stopped for a coffee or cold beer to enjoy the green-laden landscape. One woman sat down on a large rock and peacefully meditated among the ancient trail and trees. Each person had a wildly different experience along the same exact path. Hearing the stories from my walker friends begged the question: what’s the rush? We all arrive at the same milestones eventually. No one was late or early. Each person arrived in their own time.

In that moment, I felt the Camino urging me to slow down to experience more. The next day, I vowed to take my time and not feel like I was running behind as I saw other walkers rush past me. I even sat down by myself to enjoy a cup of tea in the silence of my own company even though my dad was eager to keep moving. I wanted to honor the slowness that the Camino was asking me to embrace and I also knew that adventure would find me if I was patient.

That day as I walked alone in silence, the thudding of my feet as the only accompanying sound, I looked around and saw that I was completely alone. As I walked in the forest, I noticed two black horses in the distance walking towards me. I walked to the edge of the trail and one of the horses galloped over to me and grazed my hand. The horse was elegant, beautiful and powerful, showing me everything that I yearned to be. It only lasted a few seconds but my encounter with the felt almost like a dream. As the horse turned away I thought of how I could have missed this sacred encounter if I had I rushed through that day’s walk or if I had people around me that may have scared it away. It showed me that if we ignore our own rhythm and move at someone else’s pace, we may miss the moments of serendipity meant for us.

On Embracing Femininity and Learning to be Present

During the walk, my dad and I sometimes would walk with Maite, our Camino guide. Maite was not the typical guide I’d read about in books or seen in movies. In my mind, I envisioned a gaucho-esque guide straight out of a Borges short story but Maite was the complete opposite. She was a joy-filled art historian who has worked for National Geographic as well as other art institutions in New York. As soon as she hugged me hello in our first meeting, I was certain that I would learn a lot from her on the 117 km journey from Sarria to Santiago.

Along the trail, she passionately taught me and the twenty five other walkers about art, architecture, and unbeknownst to her, life itself. She often repeated this line in Spanish, remembering an old boyfriend that said to her “life is infinitely more fun when you know more.” Surprisingly, Maite was playful, loud, silly but simultaneously intelligent, observational, and sharp. It seemed to me that she was there to show me that you could be all of both qualities at once: intelligent and joyful. Somewhere along the way of growing up, I believed that being smart equated being serious and I have often struggled to enjoy moments when there were no progress, achievement or accolades tied to them.

Maite sometimes made me uncomfortable with her direct questions like “what’s your favorite way to flirt with men?” For someone that often tried to blend in the sea of navy, Patagonia-vest-wearing finance men with hiding her femininity, she made me feel awkward and boyish because she was awakening a new way to live. She, in contrast to some (certainly not all) women in finance in New York, asserted her femininity and her joie de vivre unapologetically.

Another important life lesson came from interacting with women like Mercedes. Mercedes was also had this magnetic joie de vivre. She spoke of her passions and hobbies, engrossing Pablo and me in a conversation about art during a part of the trail. Her independence and curiosity reminded me that motherhood, like femininity, can coexist with adventure and self-expression.

After picking up some of these learnings, I decided to lean into earthly joys with more gusto while simultaneously letting go of some of the anxieties around the achievement hamster wheel back home. Here in the Spanish countryside on a beautiful September day, I was able to appreciate the art (the Roman architecture outside of churches), the food (Spanish tortillas, fresh octopus) and the wine (Rioja table wine) with every cell of my being. In these moments, I would try to bottle up the small details and emotions I felt with each small yet, powerful experience. However, I also knew that all I could take with me was the simple joy of having lived through these moments and learn to bring them into my life more often.

On Embracing Discomfort and Pain

The Camino also taught me that the journey wasn’t always meant to be filled with moments of levity. Just like in life, pain, just like pleasure, was ever-present but also a strong reminder that I’m alive. The pain in my feet, the blisters, and the throbbing at night were constant reminders of life's inescapable discomforts. But just as in life, pain on the Camino was part of the process—an unavoidable companion to growth.

There was one day toward the end when the walk felt especially difficult. The road was full of sharp hills, a series of relentless ups and downs. At the bottom of one hill, I found myself at a tunnel that crossed us to the other side of the Camino. On the wall, in bold graffiti, were the words: El Camino te escoge – the Camino chooses you. I stopped in my tracks, letting the message sink in. In that moment, I understood that life unfolds in its own perfect timing, guided by things beyond our understanding, yet always supporting us and choosing us in our adventures. The pain, the hills and the moments of discomfort were all worth it. I stood there, silently thanking whatever unseen force had led me to that very place, that moment, and those words. I snapped a quick photo on my phone, a keepsake for my memory archive.

As I left the graffiti behind and rejoined my fellow walkers, a wave of gratitude washed over me—not just for the Camino itself, but for the road traveled and especially the road traveled in part with my dad and everyone I encountered. The Camino may have chosen me, but it was our walk together that shaped me, up until that moment, on how I will choose to walk through life with these learnings in hand.

Life Lessons

The Camino showed me that life, like the walk, is both fleeting and infinite, a delicate balance between moving forward and savoring the present. With every step, it asked me to trust in the timing of life, to let go of urgency, and to make room for unexpected encounters and unplanned joy. Now, as I return to the rhythms of daily life, I carry a quiet resolve to honor my own pace, to embrace the richness of each moment, and to live with the same openness and wonder that marked those days on the trail. The Camino may have ended, but its lessons continue to flow—reminding me that in the grand walk of life, the more we experience the more we learn.