Transcript

Prelude to the Writer’s Festival

It is nearly here. What is at this time, I should actually be out in the forest walking about and showing your lives from the forest. But you know that tomorrow something is happening and if you look at the screen there, there it is. Escape with us.

To other words, it’s the Logan Writers Festival, and it is tomorrow. I am, in fact, slightly terrified. What do you think? But a lot of people have been giving me advice. For example, I asked, should I do my makeup and hair for the writers festival?

Because I’m a speaker. And even though I write adventure books and normally I’m just walking about hot and sweaty, I think that if I’m a speaker, I should do my hair and makeup. So I have on my story. I have 97% people who have said I should do my hair and makeup. So I guess I will do my hair and make up tomorrow.

So there are these important things you have to think about for the Writers Festival? Not really. I’m not doing the organising. Thank goodness. Logan Writers the arts Chamber is doing all the arrangements for the Logan Writers Festival and all the details are on the site of Logan Writers Festival.

If you haven’t decided to come yet, there still tickets. You can still come along It’s near Logan Central. Easy to get to. You can come to it. And you can see not only me but heaps of other authors who knew that they were over there a couple of dozen authors who live right here in Logan, in our locality. And Logan is like the next city to Brisbane.

So I used to be in Brisbane, but now I’m in Logan, in the Logan Writers Festival.

The First Chapter

Now the first chapter of it’s really the story behind the story of how authors write their books. And we are going to open the box and reveal to you all the secrets of what happens before. But you might be noticing behind me.

Yeah, there are some bookshelves and on that are my books ready for you to buy at the festival, if you like. But there are some gaps there. And I think that one set of books is really invisible to you.  You have all three books of mine over there. Now you might be thinking, but, Susan, that’s not really enough for a writers festival and just chill. I have you all covered because I have this.

Postcard or Book?

Okay. You want a book? I’m going to give you a card instead. How will that work? Will it work or not?

Maybe not, but these are some instead of doing business cards, what’s the use of a business card, really, for a writer to solemnly going to be going handing out my business cards when people meet writers or when they go to Writers festival, they expect books, right? Not business cards. So instead of a business card, I’ve got a postcard. And even this was crowd designed, not crowdfunded because I paid for it myself. But it was crowd designed. You will see that how this changed completely changed from my original design because I’m not a design person. I’m an author. So over here you have all my books and thank you. And here you have at the back. It’s really like a postcard.

Yeah. So you can just scan that. If you want to work with me to write your own book, you can scan that. And if you want to grab some of the books or tell someone about the books, you can scan, you can scan that because that is what will get you to my sight. So basically people who come to my stall, I’m thinking that they can grab one of these.

It’s quite a nice picture. What is interesting about it is it’s a skip with the book and all my all my adventures are is where they’re not in Logan, right. We don’t have seven day or a 20 day hikes in Logan. I suppose you could hike from one end to the other.

So here. But in the background of this, in the background of this is the forest way. I train almost twice or thrice a week, and sometimes every day that is Daisy Hill Forest. And if you look closely, that is a Lake. And you know, a lot of people don’t even know that that Lake is there because it hasn’t been marked very clearly.

I think only local kids know about it. They go and jump in the and swim and you need to know where it is now. Once I was at actually the very spot where I took this photograph from it’s on high on a cliff. And while we were there, we walked down from there and at the crossroads at the bottom, the cross parts. We met a guy who had been biking, cycling, mountain biking in Daziel Forest for five years, and he had never found the Lake.

And so he said, okay, come along. And we showed him the Lake. And I think that was the time when I took this picture because I had taken it so much for granted that everybody knows where the Lake is. So I didn’t bother to take pictures of it. But as you can see, thank you for the likes and the love and do if you’re watching this to share with your pages and with your feet to try and get it out a bit more, because we do not want to be starving artists.

The reason for books

We want to be able to we create art, which are books, I only have a few books with me. Normally I keep them just to if someone wants an autograph copy, I post them out to them. For example, yesterday I had this gorgeous picture of a reader in Melbourne, Karen, who took a picture of herself and the book and she had a couple of days earlier called me.

She had messaged me on Facebook and asked for the book and we worked out how to get it to her.

She is in lock down in Melbourne and that is one of the reasons why we have books. You escape with us to other worlds, right? Even if you are in locked down, a book is going is the safest way for you to escape. So we are very lucky here in Queensland. We can actually physically go and have a writers festival because I guess we’ve just been lucky, whereas they’re still in lock down in Sydney and Melbourne where cases are ballooning and really my heart goes out to those people who are stuck.

But the best thing to do is for them to read. Ok. So I try to get that out to them as much as possible. Thank you. Thank you for sharing.

These are the kinds of things which you will learn if you come to the Logan Writers Fest. Well, what’s really happening in the background of an author’s mind. But today what’s happening in the foreground? I do not fear. I have got more books and they are right. As you can see, I have shipped them in from they’ve been shipped in from Amazon. There they are, right. Like reverse parking. You have to know where to put the books. So they have been shipped in from Amazon. And I thought I would do an unboxing here with you. Here we go.

Unboxing the books

Do you know, as an author, Amazon now has a local facility for printing your print books in Australia before these books would have to be shipped from the US and they would take after 20 days and they would cost way more because shipping from the US is not cheap. So they would cost way more. And I would then have to charge so much more for print books. And I rather than, you know, being not a very good business women, I would tell people don’t buy the print book go by the book, which is a really silly thing to do, because even in this lock down and in this pandemic, print books have been overselling.

Ebooks sales increased so much that they are increased the sold more print books and certainly my Camino book itself – heaps of ebooks.

But in the last year since covid started in about March last year, I have sold more print books of Camino Ingles in this one year than I did in the four years before that. It is quite amazing because I think people they want the comfort of a book which they can hold in their hands and read. And particularly if it’s a guide book like in they want to know that it’s something they can hold on to. So what has happened is I continuously edit and update my books so that they are up to date.

I put information in there or what you have to do to stay safe in a pandemic. What the latest regulations are because they keep changing continuously. For the Camino, Spain got the highest one of the highest vaccinated populations in the world. They reckon the Camino is back. By August100,000 pilgrims actually turned up for their certificate, which is a huge amount. So that is really good. The Camino has come alive again.

The Vaccinated are walking

People are walking again. People are vaccinated, they have vaccination passports and they can travel again. But things happen. It keeps changing and you have to keep an eye on what is happening in Spain. And for that I continuously update my book at the back.

And the front of all my books are links which take you to take you to the bonus side. So even if you bought the book a month ago or two months ago or a year ago, if you go to the bonus sites, you will get the downloads for the latest latest details which you need to know about working. Because as an author and particularly as an adventure and hiking author, I take my duty very seriously to give value to readers. The whole purpose of an author is that you have an experience and then you share it with others, a new hope that they will experience the same joy.

They will push themselves out of their comfort zone, and perhaps they will escape with you a little bit.

So that connection that really between an author and the reader is I think it’s verging on the sacred and you should never break that. And as a guidebook, hiking and adventure author, I take it very seriously that my details in the book are always always up to date, up to the stage of going back. Right after four years I went back to the Camino and I walked the Camino English again because things have changed on the ground and now my book was out of date. I was getting some lovely readers emailing me and saying, Susan, this stage is changed, you need to update.

How about some horrible people who put nasty reviews on Amazon? But, hey, if the book is, I see that that is part of the ethic that if someone is walking with the book and they take the book and they start walking with it and they get lost. It’s not right. So I went back and I rewrote the book and that’s the book, which I told you even last year, when people could not walk, they were buying the book and reading it. And I was quite amazed.

So thank you to every reader who bought my books and appreciate that. I really, really love you. Okay. So now let’s see what we can do about these empty shells and open this up. Right.

Brown Paper and books

Something about opening books. Isn’t there lots of Brown paper? This will get folded and used for baking in my house or wrapping other things. But for now, I just throw them on a tiny. And here we are, the new set of Camino Ingles. Right. Okay. These are new prints. These are all the latest edition. These are the 2020 edition and right, that’s great. And you can get them. And with the Camino English being opened and Militaria being the it’s one of the best States or provinces for cod in Spain, they’ve got things under control over there and all up to the stage of the Albert as being almost 50% available, that means 15 of the beds can be filled, not 100% like they were before. So here we are. The Camino England. Right.

Look, look at the back of that cover. Right. This is really an old picture of mine because I didn’t change the reference of the cover, but that’s not my professional picture anymore. And we have the value of Flowers, which is my latest book. I love this book.

And on this you have my latest picture. So you can get this book as well if you love flowers like I do. And I’m really actually, this year I managed to Bloom a few of these cold things which never grow in Queensland. But I have these flowers because I’ve had crocuses freezer and I tried for Daffodils, but I don’t know if they haven’t yet bloomed. So here we are.

Transcript Continued

Dreams

And the one book which I love and the trek I love is Chasing Himalayan Dreams . You can use it as a guide book, but it also it’s more of a memoir. It’s more. I dive deep into what my motivations were for this dream and how this was an old dream.

Okay. I had this dream when I was 16 and I could not walk this particular track. And actually I thought it was a good idea to walk it when I was 60. Not not sure you should wait that long. Don’t wait for your dreams.

You have to Hunt them down and go into.  And a lot of people like it very much. They say that this is one of the best. This is the best of my books.

And but it’s a memoir. It’s very much linked into my childhood, my teenage years, why I loved why I love walking and also my memories of growing up in North India, the position and also the trips to the mountains which we took as as a military brat. So it’s very much a dream fulfilment book. So we have even more books here. Yes, the same value of Slots.

So Valley  of Flowers really? Is it’s a book about a hike in the Valley  of Flowers This is a relatively recent hike. That means it’s about less than 100 years old. Ready, it was discovered.

And actually the story about why I wrote this book, this Valley  of Flowers was discovered by a British mountaineer, Frank Smith in 37, I think, 90, 719 34. He was actually climbing some peaks nearby. They were in a snowstorm and they staggered out of the snowstorm and they found refuge in this amazing Valley. In the night. They just staggered in and took refuge under some overhanging rocks.

And in the morning, when they got up, they found this amazing Valley blanketed with the most glorious Alpine or Himalyan flowers. And so this experience, there was one book that I was slightly annoyed that the only book about the Valley  of Flowers was by a man, a white man who had lived in India 100 years ago. Don’t get me wrong. I love Frank Smith books, and I think he’s a mountain and an Explorer who has been forgotten. And that’s not good.

But he’s not forgotten in the Value of cars, people in the mountains. We never forget those who love them and those who love the mountains. And so you can find if you go to the Valley  of Flowers , you find an eco centre where you can buy his books. They also run regular sessions on showing you his life and what he did to find this book. 

The important thing about the Valley  of Flowers is that I did this walk with a group of friends. Right. Four friends. We have been friends for 30 plus years. We had worked together for over 30 years.

We were at the start of our careers. Then we are all now at the end of our careers on the stage we were thinking of we’ve had these stellar careers, but now we’re ready to do things which we want to do. And so some of them already. Some of us already up. 

I no longer work in corporate, and I spend most of my time writing or helping people write their books. So there were four of us who went and we discovered that going in a group of friends is the most amazing thing. So this value of flaws is not only about the track, it’s also generally a pain to two friendship, which lasts and how you can hike together. Sometimes I think when I’m on a hike, when I’m escaping, I don’t really really want to make new friends. And if you were to go on a hike with people who don’t like that’s ruined.

So here we were really happy. We even with close friends, the four of us girls, all of us artist, I’m a grandmother. Rest of them have had on children, and all of us were behaving like giggly girls, which is what you can do for the hike. So that was a dream, a new dream. And this was an old dream, right?

And really the Camino. I had never heard of it until relatively recently, where I started actually thinking about through hikes and long hikes. And I’ll tell you all about it, of how I wrote this book, why a book launched my best selling career and what I did to prepare for it. So come tomorrow, I’ll be talking at 11:00 in Marquee, too, at the Logan Writers Festival and do come and I’ll be looking for your beautiful face in the crowd. Come and hear me.

You can see the books there. You can see if you want to work with me to write your own book, or you can pick up a book and send it to someone in Melbourne or Sydney who is locked down and is planning an escape. This is a safe escape for them. They can go. There’s no vaccination passport required to read a book.

Isn’t that awesome? I will now get back to panicking about the talk tomorrow because let me tell you as this is behind the scenes and Inner Writers Festival is the first time I’m speaking at a writers festival, and I’m equally panicked over will anyone come to listen to me? And oh, my God, a lot of people will come and they will hate me because I don’t know what I will talk to them about, but I know what I’ll talk to them about. I have my slides ready and just a few slides, not too many on both them with that.That’s the magic of books.

And we will have some fun over there.

And definitely I am so excited to perhaps wander around and I hope I get a chance to attend some other talks by other authors because the are some amazing authors. There these children’s authors, there’s nonfiction authors, this fantasy authors, this science fiction, romance authors, every type of book which you would love to read. Is there’s an author there who is writing it for you right here in your backyard. So that’s the magic of a book. It takes you from your backyard, my backyard, where I grow these little flowers.

The Magic of Books

It takes me from my back yard, up into the Himalayas and into the Valley of flowers. And who knows where else. So we know the sky is not the limit any more. And as readers, we always knew the magic. The sky was never the limit.

The Earth was only a place to stand dreaming from some come next week.

Come tomorrow and meet me at the Logan Writers Festival and meet me and a whole lot of other writers. It’s Susan agent now best selling author. A signing off and going back to continue to prepare for my tape. Heaps of preparation and boring admin things to do what we have to do them.

I will see you tomorrow at the Logan Writers Festival  and go read a book. Make an author happy. Make yourself even happier. That’s the magic of books.

I’ve had complaints that my book, The Camino Ingles: 6 Days to Santiago has very little historical context, so in the latest version, I have added some cultural context. It has also been completely updated for 2021 with information on the route and the new requirements for walking post-pandemic.

13th August 997 was a deadly day for Santiago de Compostela. On that day, the bells of Santiago were ripped out of the burnt and destroyed Cathedral and carted on over 800 kms on the backs of Christian prisoners to the Cordoba mosque by Al mansur, who yearly attacked Christian towns and villages, razed the cathedrals, destroyed the towns and enslaving the population. The bells and the doors of the cathedral were installed in the mosque in Cordoba, while the doors were lost the bells were not. They were hung from the mosque ceiling and used as lamps.
But these bells are now here – sometimes you just walk into history.

These bells are back, because in 1236, Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain in the Reconquista brought these bells back from Cordoba and put them into Santiago, and they were dragged back by Muslim prisoners.
However, the Cathedral was being rebuilt and these bells never got put back to use.

A side note: as they were considered the spoils of war they could not be used again but you can see them in Santiago.

So I’m literally stepping into history.

The bells are in the cloister above the cathedral, you need to buy a ticket to visit the museum – there is a wealth of artifacts, but in my opinion, the bells and the actual copy of the Codex Calixtinus are the best.

In this photograph, the bells look small and insignificant, but in the video, you can see the true scale of the bells.

After all they were the timekeepers of the city, as well as calling the people to prayer.

The Ancient Bells of Santiago

I’ve had complaints that my book, The Camino Ingles: 6 Days to Santiago has very little historical context, so in the latest version, I have added some cultural context. It has also been completely updated for 2020. Click the button below to get the book and escape!

Transcript

Leigh:Hi, everyone, welcome to the Camino Cafe. We are so excited that you are here listening to our show on our new podcast or maybe you’re watching on our YouTube channel. So welcome. We’re glad you’re here. And we are thrilled to have Susan Jagannath here with us today. She is a pilgrim, an hiker, a best selling author, and so much more. She’s actually now helping other people write bestsellers. So we’re going to talk about each of those different things for us.

Remaining a Pilgrim

Susan:Thank you for inviting me. It’s really exciting to be here. And yes, as you said, I’m a pilgrim and I think we all are pilgrims. So in that spirit, let’s keep that spirit alive, even in difficult times.

Leigh: Yes. So important. Right. And I first met Susan online during this lockdown and  I joined a couple of her groups, and I’ve been very inspired by everything she’s doing. And actually, I just took one of her workshops, One Hundred Days to your best seller. And so I am an aspiring writer and I will hopefully be working with her and doing that.

I knew after talking to her and seeing the quality of posts that that she was a perfect guest for us to have here today. So I’m delighted. And I wanted to see if we could just kind of start with, you know, how you went from. I think you’ve called yourself a military brat to having this super successful career as a technical writer.

And then you pivot and you become a hiker taking these great adventures and you turn that into being able to write best selling books. So I think that’s all really super interesting. So if you could just give us a quick two or three minutes, a recap of how all of this happened.

A Military Brat Childhood

Susan: Well, sometimes I don’t know how it happens, it’s just I think maybe like, you know, God has plans for us and it works out that way. But looking back, as I told you earlier, I’m actually doing what I planned to do when I was a child. So as a child, as a military brat, we have very an exciting life interspersed with long periods of boredom, like when you sat on a train for five days with nothing to do. So the travelling was kind of in my blood right from the beginning. So in these long periods of boredom in between, I read books, I read adventure books, kids books, I read. I also read reference books, Reader’s Digest and the geography books.

I read anything I could lay my hands on because as a military brat, you move every two years and before you before you make new friends, you’re alone.

But I was never alone because I had ‘the Famous Five’ with me. All these books which children read. Right. So that made me want to write books. And more importantly, it made me want to have adventures. 
That’s what that’s what you did as a military kid we went on these “family” picnics. And we had a great time. And that sort of turned me out into an adventure loving, sort of articulate person. I could also talk a lot because that’s what we did. We played games, we read books and we talked non-stop!

Leigh: Really training for all of this from a very young age

A 20 year career in IT and technical writing

Susan: Oh, yeah, a little more than that. So I went into tech writing because  nobody knew what technical writing was. it was new. It was exciting. That was a huge adventure

Leigh: So then did that lead into? So you did that for several years and then?

Susan: In technical writing is you’re basically telling people how to solve problems using the software, which they thought would solve the problem, which you didn’t solve the problem because they didn’t know how to use it.

How the Camino came into my life

Leigh: Lets talk about the Camino

Susan: OK. So at some stage I said I started getting fat. Let’s get let’s cut to the close. As you get older you start getting fat. I was also getting lazy in a desk job. The only thing I like to do was to walk. OK, started walking. Yeah. And I also am very, I get bored very easily. I need to walk in new places all the time and that’s why, that’s how I heard of the Camino.

Leigh: How did you first hear about it?

Susan: You know Leigh, tt’s a bit of a mystery, I don’t know how I heard of it. I think. We were chatting here in Australia about the Kokoda Trail.

And I went and looked at, oh God, no, I can’t do that. And so they said, oh, the Camino might be better for you. And I’ve never heard of it. So I went and started reading it about it and looking up the Internet. What happened is I saw that movie on the plane out to India once called The Way the Martin Sheen movie, and I thought, seriously, I saw that movie when I was going to India to meet up with friends and we were going for walks in the southern mountains.

And you were going we were going to hike over there and walk about and catch up and have a wonderful time. But walking was going to be part of it. So that’s when I saw the movie. And then I started getting a bit a bit more focussed on I want to do this because by now I was hiking and walking every day.

So when I say walking, we walk about two to three hours a day every day unless I’m doing a talk with you and. that’s how I heard about that, but at this time, I was still working full time and when I we did the plan for the year. And I saw that in October, which was the time I wanted to go and would have six weeks of leave. There was a huge new release coming out and there was no way I was going to be able to drop it because you’re writing a manual. That’s the time when developers are changing their mind all the time. And you can’t you can’t write the book and then go, you have to be there and get your hands fingers full of blood and do it.

So this was now for you, as I had tried for four years to go on the Camino. And I just couldn’t because of work, because we in Australia, it’s very far Leigh, it takes a long time to get anywhere. So we had given that up and I said, no, I’m not giving this up.

How I picked the Ingles

I said, I’m going. And then 2014, I couldn’t go. 2015, I couldn’t go. I said, this is 2016. I don’t care. I’m going. And I just was looking at things. And I think I came across this Camino Ingles on the just by chance as a five day Camino. And I started to and I thought, wow, that that is doable. And that set me off on this doable Camino trip because. for us in Australia. I could all I needed was 10 days, so I needed 10 days and we get a good 10 day break across the end of April to mid-May because we have Anzac Day.

Which is always a holiday. So you have a long weekend there and then you have May Day, which is comes immediately. So you have these two long weekends. And if you take five days of leave, you get seven days a week, you get nearly two weeks off. That was perfect. Literally perfect for me.

Leigh: Let me ask you let me jump in and ask you a couple of things. So you pick the Camino Ingles, because it makes sense. You know, not everybody can take six weeks, seven weeks to get by. So brilliant. You find a route that’s going to work with your schedule. And at that moment, did you take journalling material with you? Did you know at the point that you were going to take this Camino, that you were going to end up coming home and writing a best selling book?

Susan: No, I didn’t have any idea of writing a book. I was just doing the work as a challenge to prove to myself that I could walk a hundred miles or 100 kilometres.

Leigh: Yeah. So did you journal each night or what was how did you end up having enough material to come back home and write a book?

Susan: Well, I had of course, I was posting on Facebook, Facebook there and I had something called Periscope.

Leigh: What periscope? Okay.

Susan: Yeah. On Twitter I told you about my fifteen thousand followers. So at that time, Periscope was the only live thing. So I had been just talking about hiking and walking and about places in Australia before that on Periscope. You know, there was no idea of any business or any book writing. I was just talking right?

So I was talking on. So I had these every day I would do one or two periscopes and I did buy a book and I looked at it. And it was a book of all the short Camino’s and it was pretty old. So literally we would go out there and it at that time it was well enough marked. But when you’re in the cities or in the towns, this the markings disappear and you think, OK, I don’t know where to go. And there was no GPS or anything. So I was getting lost literally the book every time I saw when it came back and I would get and say, oh, look at this beautiful place. But guess what? We found this by accident because actually we got lost.

The Inspiration for the Book

Leigh:So there was the light bulb go off then that here’s?

Susan: I would say in every place, in almost every livestream, I would say I got lost and I’m lost in a cow paddock full of poop. I really should write a book about this. So I just really came back and I was processing through the videos because I wanted to see like I had videos of me holding it and actually walking into Santiago and all those things. So I was processing it and I kept hearing this, oh, I should write a book about it.
And I thought. I think I’m telling myself something, and so I said, OK, I’ll do it. So we walked in April, end of April or May, and by August I had the book out, had published the book, and in 15 days it was a bestseller.

The Challenge in the Walk

Leigh: Wow.  I want to come back to your Camino. So you want the Camino Inglis and you know all of us pretty much when we go on pilgrimage, find some type of inner or physical. You know, there’s an inner an external struggle that we sometimes are faced with. And I just wondered if you could just share with our listeners and our viewers what became your big challenge during your walk.

Susan: I think the reality of your frailty and vulnerability, even though you think you’re fit and that’s a theme throughout all my books, I train and train and train and train.And then you go there and actually hit the ground. You think I didn’t train enough? Why am I so tired or why are my feet aching? Even though I had broken my boots and I had been to the podiatrist, I had done everything but walking for five to six to seven hours a day in a strange country, not knowing the language it does. It’s your mental strength. You have to be mentally strong to do it because although walking the Camino Ingles is not a huge physical thing.

(It’s actually quite easy,) but it’s the mental thing. It’s the unknowingness and it’s facing your own fears and facing your own realisation that actually you don’t know anything. You’re not this wonderful person who knows everything about about a software and writing the technical book about it. When you’re in a new place, you have to be open. And sometimes opening yourself out is not easy.

Leigh: Yes?

Susan: it’s hard. It’s an accepting of your fragility. It’s more accepting of your ignorance when you’re in Spain, you’ve actually come and you can’t speak Spanish despite your phrasebook. You come down to being a child again. You come down to the level of being maybe a five year old, all your adult cleverness vanishes. And I think that’s when you’re open and that’s when that happens, if you let it happen to yourself, you have the most marvellous experience because all your assumptions, your suppositions, your arrogance, your pride, it falls away.

The Gifts of the Camino

And that’s when you realise. I am a pilgrim. You know, I may be in 2016 walking with all the modern cons, but. My mind still testing your legs are still the same as those pilgrims who walked for a thousand years, and I was always aware that as a woman. You know, a certain woman of a certain age, and in our third stage of life, we have really been given a gift of we would have one hundred years ago or maybe two hundred years ago, probably at the stage, you know, we would be dead long ago right.

We’d be dead of childbirth. And in fact, I did have my last kids when I was nearly 40 and twins. And if I had, I was thinking then that, that time, if I hadn’t had modern medicine, I definitely would have died, because it was you know, there were complications at the end. So we forget that as you know, as women, we have always had a very dangerous spot to tread there’s childbirth, every childbirth can kill you right?

So this being here and being able to walk and being able to even be a pilgrim on the Camino when you’re 60, 60 plus, that itself is an enormous gift. And my book was to encourage people who thought they couldn’t do it to actually do it. And if you go through my feeds, my reviews, you see there are people there who are saying, oh, my God, Susan, you’re my guardian angel.

I thought that I could never do this. I had a book and I was able to do it, though. And a lot of people actually, they don’t just review it. They also write, they wrote emails to me and I was thinking, oh, my gosh, this is so good. As a technical writer, you normally get really angry people writing to you saying this doesn’t work!

Leigh: Why don’t I? Susan, you said so many just so many gems in this answer, I want to go back and touch on a couple of things. I really like how you mention that. You know, when we get on the Camino and we’re going on this pilgrimage, we really see how fragile our lives are and what a gift this pilgrimage is. And just reminded me of something in mindfulness that we call beginner’s mind that if you can’t approach the pilgrimage with a beginner’s mind and be open to what’s happening and accept.

That you can do as much training as you want, you can you can prepare, you know, as much as you want, but you’re really a beginner when you step on there, because there’s going to be some kind of challenge that you haven’t prepared for or you didn’t anticipate was going to happen. And I think the stuff about, you know, you’re in a new place, everything’s new, everything’s different.

There’s just so much going on so I really love how you brought that up and especially want to touch back on. You know, what would you say to a woman who is in her 50s or 60s who has heard about the Camino wants to go? But maybe he has some fear around just what we’re talking about, you know, going maybe to a foreign country for the first time, the thought of walking solo, the thought of now doing something that’s just for you. You know, that’s not about raising your kids. It’s not about the career. It’s just something for you.

Words of Encouragement 

What would you say to that woman if she’s watching or listening to us right now, that would encourage her to say yes and book her ticket when we’re able to go?

Susan: I would say to that woman, you are a woman, you are full, you are born to be full of courage, like no woman can survive without that courage, we have that courage and that fierceness at childbirth. Or you have that fearlessness to protect your child that’s given to us for a reason. And we have to take all those qualities which you have, believe in yourself and definitely don’t just go out without preparing, prepare. But don’t over prepare and don’t overthink it. Definitely don’t overthink it. And do not ever put yourself down and think that I can’t do it.
Let me assure you, if you’re a woman of 50 or 60, you definitely, definitely can do it. And the thing of the Camino in Spain is that. You may be walking on the path, but like one kilometre out is a main road where you can get a taxi, and if you’re if you’re frantic, if you hurt yourself, you’ve got to fall. You’ve got this. You know what? There’s better coverage in Galicia in a cow paddock than there is in much of Australia.

Leigh: Right.

Susan: So you are always if you want to, you can do that. You are always in contact. It’s not like you’re walking out in the wilds of the Amazon in the 16th century and you’re going to be eaten by tigers or something. You’re not. It’s this beautiful sensation of being able to do something. But it’s your mental state you have to work on.

And look, you’re a woman and you’re 50 or 60. You’ve had a career. You might have had a family. You might have had, you know, might have had kids or you might have had parents who you had to look after and parents. And this was one of the things that I was the sandwich generation for many years. I had my young kids, I had teenagers, and I had I had my mother, both our mothers were were ageing and we had to look after them.

So we had all this kind of going on and in a way. Now that you talk about Leigh and we talking, I did this after both the mother, my mother in law lived with us in her last few years. So after she died and after my mom had died earlier and my mom would she would spend time with us. She would amongst the three children. So we always had to be available for her. So it’s only after they actually passed on that suddenly the sandwich was removed. And I felt that I’ve done enough for everyone, I want to do this for me and for women who feel that maybe that’s a bit selfish.

You know what? By doing something for yourself, by being mindful, by being caring, you are going to be a better mother, a better daughter, a better sister, a better grandmother for your children and your family. So looking after yourself and keeping yourself healthy and keeping your mind sharp, you’re really doing the next generation a favour because they to have to look after you that much.

Leigh: Well said Susan and that is such a good point, you know, because I think as women, sometimes we feel selfish to take this time to go on. But really, it’s like putting a mask on your face first, right? It’s taking care of yourself. And the communal provides an opportunity to, I think, kind of reinvigorate yourself for the next chapter, doesn’t it?

Susan: Yes you hit you hit the nail on the head because the kid walking the Camino gave me the next chapter of my life as a best selling authors to write the books, which I wanted to write. And even and I’ve been writing hiking books and adventure books. And then I’ve got three books. I’ve retired, actually got made redundant from my job. And if I’m not looking back, I would have adventures and write. And we know what happened to that if I didn’t have that opportunity. But then I said, OK, let me help others to write their books.And-.

Leigh: Yeah, that’s just what I was going to want to get into. So, you know, you had to make a couple of pivots .And so I think this is really an endearing part about your personality, your skill set that I feel like you really have all these stories where you have made major pivots in your life. You know we come to this past year with the lockdown and you’ve had you’ve decided that you’re going to make adventure, hiking your life and you’re going to write books about it. And then guess what? We can’t travel.

And now Susan makes another pivot and that pivot becomes, well, if you can’t go out and do these adventures, then you can start a new adventure of your own, and that would be to help aspiring writers.

So let’s talk a little bit about how you did that. What made you come up with the idea? And and then we’ll talk a little bit more about how you’re working with people. So let’s just start with at what point did that light bulb go off? Or you’re like, OK, I got to do something new and what am I going to do? What am I going to do for the next year or so?

Susan: Well, that came up with, again, a lot of it came up from a lot of people telling me things like saying to me when I published notes, oh my goodness, Susan, all you could do this. And I thought, hang on. What do you mean only you can do this? Of course you can do this. It’s not hard. Believe me, it’s not hard.

Traditional publishing has made it look as if, you know, it’s really difficult. But it’s actually if you have a system, it’s not hard to write your book and publish it. You know, if you want maybe 19 years old and you had no life experience, I might say, OK, maybe it’s difficult for you. But all these women with these life experiences, some of them which are more than mine, I mean, how can you say that? You can’t do it? Of course you can do it.

And it comes to the second question, but nobody will want to read my book. Well, I thought nobody would want to read my Camino Ingles book because it was not the Camino Francis, which is like the gold standard. This is like that thing. And I said, I don’t care if they are if there is one person whose life I can change, if there’s one woman who can, I can encourage to walk. I’m going to write the book and that’s what I did. So it is possible.

And then those people are quite a few people who came to me and asked me, how do I do this? And that’s when I started. And this was in the days when we had we could talk and we could have meet ups and we could have events and I would be invited to events and I would talk about the Camino and the book. And then people would say, but tell us how you wrote the book or all tell us about how you got to publish.

And I would say I do look for a publisher. I’m my own publisher because guess what, in addition to being a bit lazy, in addition to being, wanting you, not having enough time, in addition to all this, I also have a bit greedy because I want to keep all the money for myself. I don’t want to share it with a publisher. So there you have the truth, right? You have the truth. If you are, you need to do the self publishing.

And in today’s world, you do not need a publisher, right? Also, you do not you do not need to be J.K. Rowling. And you don’t need to be J.R.R Tolkien, go for it if you want to. But, you know, do you know that even J.K. Rowling has her own Publishing house, she publishes all her books, she’s got Pottermore, that’s yes, she controls the IP of all her books and she had the same experience in the beginning of no one wanted to publish her books, her first book. Right. So right now, you think if you think about it, she’s a self published author originally.

Leigh: Right? No, I never thought.

Susan: Yeah she is, really. Because she got up. She got she got a publisher, but she retained the rights. And when she wanted to go out into America, into the US, she founded her own publishing house. And it’s going, it goes to her own publishing house. Pottermore.

Leigh: So interesting. Well, let’s talk for a second about your own personal writing process. And I’m guessing that’s maybe what you will recommend to everyone. But do you tend to write in the morning? Do you write in the afternoon or you write your first book pretty quickly? Did you go away to write it? What was your secret sauce to being able to write that first best seller?

Susan: Well, two things, a schedule and accountability. So I had an accountability partner, friend of mine at that time. She wasn’t a friend. She was, it was more like she was also an author, self published author starting out. And she was local. Right. So because even though I had got lots of friends in the US and the UK were also writing books, it’s important to have someone in your own time zone. So what I did is I said, I’m going to write one thousand words a day.

And every week we would talk and she would we would talk on the phone and say, Have you met your target or not? And what’s your problem? Or so you had someone. So it was you know, it was the secret sauce. Nobody else knew I was writing a book.

Leigh: Oh, okay?

Susan: For my first book right. Nobody else knew I was writing a book except my friend Wendy. She’s not a good friend of mine. So we would talk every once a week. We would talk and also any time in the middle of a week, if we got stuck, we would talk. And say I really this my mind map is driving me mad or this chapter is driving me mad.

So to someone to talk to. And it was accountability. Right? I’m it’s kind of just sets it in your brain like, no, it’s not as if she was going to do anything if I didn’t try. But it’s just your self. I have to say that I’ve done this. I have to have this call every week. So I was writing. So that was the most important. I would say that is the most important thing to have someone who is going to hold you accountable to yourself. Because it’s very easy for me to say, oh, I keep accountable to myself. It’s very easy to give up.You’ll make excuses.

The other thing I did was I was already before this. We had already been breaking up early to go for walks. So now what I did, I was still working. I still had you know, I still had kids in the home. So I would get up at 4am. And right for two hours. And the house was quiet and from four to six, I would write and after that go out for a walk, I did do I still do the two hour walk. I will go out for a walk, come back, get ready, put on my makeup, put on my put on my official office clothes and off to work we’d be in the office by 9:00.

So this 4:00 to 6:00 was enough time for me when I only actually did writing and then after I would sometimes in the evening because I had friends in the US and UK. Sometimes in the evening I would talk to them about the book when I said book friends so I would talk to them about the book and what was going on. And that’s where I also met people who had also done this Camino.

So I was able to discuss things with them. And what I didn’t do was I didn’t put a lot of culture into it because really I knew nothing about Spain. And I did get a few bad comments saying, oh, there’s nothing about the history of Spain in this book. And I thought, well, I didn’t intend to write anything about the culture and the and the architecture because I don’t know anything about it. What I do know about is I walk, I walk, and I’m just going to write about that.

So the book was definitely scheduled as a day by day. I wrote it day by day. What I did on day one, what I did on day two. Yeah, I did that. Then I came back and wrote the introduction and after that I went back and did the conclusion. So I did the actual day by day first and in the day by day it was when you write a Camino a book ut’s quite easy that way. If you are doing the journal fashion. you say day one, what is the distance? Where did you sleep? What did you eat? And I had the fourth one. What did you feel?

Were there any feelings which came up in you? And that was the time I would go to my videos, go through my pictures and look at it. And I didn’t actually keep a journal for this book. I had just my phone with the videos in it. And I had people to talk to as well. And yeah, but I got this book written the entire book was written in a weekend. I have to admit that I wrote the entire book from Saturday morning to Sunday evening and then the rest of the two hours every day, which I was doing.

I was going back and cleaning up and rewriting and adding. So I had the shell of the book in one one weekend, literally Saturday to Sunday. That’s when I just got everything down. And then every day I worked on them, I checked back and looked back, I researched and I wrote every single day.

So the book was done and book was done in thirty days. Really, the whole book went up the first draught, which I was happy within 30 days. And then of course I sent it out for editing all the formatting. I had to learn all those processes. Really. You can do the book in ninety days. I just told you a hundred days to make you feel happy.

Leigh: That’s a lot of work done when have a best seller, so that’s fantastic. So what would you say? I think when I was walking the Camino and this is going to be back, I think a lot of people that want the Camino feel like they have a book inside of themselves about it. So two questions for you on this first question. But I’ve also heard people say there are too many books about the Camino now.

So do you think there are too many books or not? And then what would you say to encourage someone that feels like they have that book in them, but they’re scared to start or they don’t know where to start? What would you say to encourage them?

Susan: Well, I would, the word Courage, have the courage and have the belief in yourself, you know what? If you are able to walk a hundred kilometres or you’ve done the Francis and you walk eight hundred kilometres, do you seriously think that your fingers can’t type out a hundred pages about that? Come on, get real girl.

You’ve walked, you’ve done it. All you have to do is now talk about it, tell people and if you feel that you can’t write. Do what I did and I did this purely by mistake. I was doing periscope. I was doing lives. So if you don’t want to write, pick up your phone, get a recorder on it and just talk. Talk as if you are talking to a friend. That’s it. And get it transcribed and give it to an editor. That’s it. And just go to the publishing process. So all this it’s not the only thing that you need to do is to harness technology and get out of your own way. That’s what I would do

The parallels between writing a book and completing a Camino pilgrimage

Leigh: How do you think that compares to actually walking a pilgrimage? Where are the parallels between writing a book and actually completing a Camino pilgrimage?

Susan: That’s a great point. I didn’t think of it that way, but now that you say it. In a way, it is I think if you know, you go step by step when you’re doing a pilgrimage, you have a reason, you have an intention. When you have a story, you have an intention. Get your intention for your book. Correct? Right. Is it a journal? Is it a life? Is it a memoir or is it more about encouraging people? Is it about the wonderful people you met? What is it? So get that right.

So that is like the intention when you make a pilgrimage, as you want to reach, you want to reach a place. And when you’re walking a pilgrimage, you’re really looking for your spiritual growth and your physical your physical being is really being stretched to risk. Because you’re being stretched to receive both maybe the mindfulness and the spirit, but it’s also being stretched to receive the spiritual gifts because it’s what we talked.

It’s when you break down your arrogance and pride and it’s really the light can’t come out to you unless you’re broken. And so the book is the same way you stop the book with your arrogance and pride, maybe. And maybe to walk the Camino, you’re no longer quite so arrogant. So we have all Camino authors have this inbuilt advantage. Shush don’t tell anyone. So start the book in that way that you are going and doing something. And especially today when people Leigh when youcan’t walk. If you have had the privilege of walking, I think it is your duty. I think you have been giving a God given blessing in that you were able to walk and you can now spread this blessing by writing about it and encouraging. People one to be ready when we can walk to to virtually walk it if you if you can’t walk it.

So I think it’s a pilgrimage that you start with the words on the page, the words on the page have a magic. They go inside people’s brains and they change them. You could change someone who is feeling miserable, to happy. You can change someone who is feeling that they are unable to do something, make them feel that they can do it. And some of the best experiences of my life have been being shouted at in the middle of Galicia by someone shouting my name and saying that they had read my book and went on the Camino. That’s amazing. Again, you get you know, where do you get experiences like that except on the Camino? And if you write a book about it and guess what? They are not enough books on the Camino. I’m still looking for books to read ins’t that right Leigh

Leigh: Absolutely.

Susan: Yes. So everything comes down to the one person you’re talking to. If there’s a book which you can write for one person, for that one person. There is someone who is miserable and we’ve read so many of these books of people who were depressed, they were considering suicide and then they read this book or they did this thing and they life change. Yes, writing a book is life changing for you and for the person who was reading it, because guess what?

We’re both human. We’re both human. We’re reaching out across, you know, how many of us have read books for which I really like Jane Austen. I read Jane Austen’s book. And I think that this woman live in India today. And of course, she didn’t. But reaching out with touching each other. And as a pilgrim, it’s not a book as a pilgrim. It’s not about you really. You’re not just a hiker. You know, you’re not just stomping on the earth.

If you’re a pilgrim, you’re walking humbly and you’re taking people with you today. We can’t take people physically. Take them in your book, share your experience. There’s going to be one person whose life you change. And if you change one person’s life, change the words like, really? Wow.

Leigh: Wow I kind of just want to end the interview right now with all that

Susan: Yes words of wisdom. I don’t know where they came from

Leigh: I’m going to go back and talk about. I love how you said that on the pilgrimage you learn to stretch your stretch, you’re stretching physically, your stretches spiritually, or you’re just stretching in all different ways. And I really, really find what you said about you as a pilgrim first thought it was a gift to walk.And now really we could look at it that if you are an aspiring author.

You can really look at this as your duty to now go out and share your story, because there is so much possibility from the sharing of your story, you know, there’s further healing and stretching for yourself, but also. The possibility of whose life you’re going to touch and how that might play out, because you know what? You could write this book about the Camino. They read it. They decide to go and walk. Maybe they come back and write a book and now they’re inspiring someone.

I mean, it’s just this beautiful cycle of all of us receiving the gift of pilgrimage and then giving back and then letting that circle continue to grow and to go on and on. I just. I love your perspective on that, I think that it’s inspiring me, I know I want to write a book and I know people that are watching this are going to want to do the same thing. So I want to quickly, when we have a couple a couple more minutes, I wanted to just mention you have a lovely website, and I wanted to say, first off , you’re running a couple of different Facebook groups. So could you just say with those Facebook groups are so that people can find you and connect with you?

Susan: So it’s a best seller bytes. Is the latest one, which is it’s a private one, because Facebook has changed things so much, that was fine. Just anybody was coming in. And think what what. So about you know, the thing about a Facebook group is you want to keep it safe for yourself and you want to keep it safe for others. So it’s a private group and you have to ask to join. So it’s called Best Seller Bytes. That’s it And I have another public one called Badass Badass, best selling author

Leigh: bad best selling authors. Excellent.

Susan: Yeah. So all of them are full for you. If you’re not an author of you are an author and you just want to come out. Yeah. I don’t know where that name came from. I think I was trying to be cool.

Leigh: Yeah, it’s very cool

Susan: So I just those are the two Facebook groups. There’s also my Facebook page is too easy to publish is my Facebook business page, which nobody takes any notice of because Facebook never gives it any love and I don’t advertise. Those are the places on my facebook. My website is it’s always when you’re with me. It’s always a work in process. Everything is a work in process, even mine. Now I’m having the next workshop on at the twenty first of May, the one you attended and if you were to attend again with, you’re welcome to it.

Leigh: Thank you

Susan: You don’t have to pay me again. Just come. If you attend that you’ll find that it’s different because you don’t have the answers and I don’t even have all the questions and I got the most. Questions and the best questions from a group of kids who I was teaching how to write, and these kids came out with these amazing ideas and thoughts, and I just thought, I cannot believe that I’m talking to an eight year old and a 12 year old.

And they had this immense confidence and they had this immense wisdom. So, like, big ideas have also come into it. So, you know, excuse me, if you go to my website, to my Facebook and you find that it’s not perfect, that’s just me. I’m not perfect. And that’s what I want to tell authors you’re writing the perfect book. You’re writing the finished book, the published work, right?

Leigh: Absolutely.cNow, there’s one thing on your website. I just want to make sure that you could mention. So I think you have three ways that people can work with you if they are an aspiring writer. Could you just briefly mention the three ways that they can work with you to get that bestseller they’re dreaming about?

Susan: So the first thing is to possibly book a call. There is a calendly link there, you can just book a call and just chat, chat to me, chat with me for half an hour, one hour. And that’s basically if you want to go, you want to go on and be coached by me. So the coaching is a whole different thing. But sometimes I have people who just want to talk for one hour and they just get that and they just get an idea.

You know, there’s no commitment and there’s no commitment at all. But it’s like an ask me anything, right? Ask me anything. And so I’ve had people ask me, how do I self publish? How much do I have to pay for a cover? Can I ask my aunt to edit my book? The answer is no. So ask me anything about publishing, about publishing. Do not ask me for my chicken curry recipe you’re not getting it.

Leigh: So they can do that with you and it can go to workshops. They can be coached by you.
Susan: A one on one coaching with me. So it you can have those three ways. You can also someone I have a little VA now. Who comes in once in a while and she says “Really nobody needs to come to your workshops. You’re giving everything away in your groups. Remove the live streams.”

Leigh: They’re excellent. Susan , your live streams are so good. I really I haven’t said this to you yet, but I’m finding the information you’re providing. Those can apply to doing a podcast, can apply to doing the interviews that I’m doing. So I think, you know, for someone I don’t I just find it super helpful whether you’re writing a book, if you’re working on anything, I think a lot of your ideas can apply across the board to a lot of different things that we have interest in. But, of course, definitely help with writing a book.

Susan: Yeah, thank you. I didn’t even think of it that really. But you’re right, it’s quite content, which we are producing. The your podcast is your is your new book of The essay and your YouTube channel is your visual book, your video book. So in a way it’s the book is still seminal because it could be there. But if you’re producing content, I guess it works. No, but I’m not doing I’m not doing a podcast or do youtube I’m crazy if I tried to do those as it is. Or a tik tok Some people say, why don’t you have a tik tok? And I think, oh, my God.

Leigh: Well we barely have enough time to do all the things we’re doing right now. But wow, OK, we’re on hour mark. And I promised you that’s what we would do and.

Susan: Thanks Leigh

Leigh: Our viewers and listeners probably at that point where we need to stop. Maybe we can have you back because I think there’s so much you have said so many things today that have just been so interesting about your own pilgrimage, about writing books. It’s just been really, really fun to talk to you and get to know you even better.

Susan: Thanks Leigh

Leigh: And I know that you and I both share a lot of the same intentions that if somebody’s watching today or listening to this podcast, if they’ve received any kind of inspiration to take their pilgrimage, then we’ve hit our goal. If they decide that they are ready to put pen to paper or start typing or dictating that first book, we hope that they’ve been inspired to do that. And I certainly find you. I know you’re inspiring me to live out my Camino dreams and you’re helping me to keep my Camino essence alive.

So thank you for how you’re showing up for the Camino community. I think you are definitely, you talked about it is our duty to give back. And there’s so much possibility. And I think you’re actually living that every day through the work that you’re doing, whether you’re writing a book or doing your interviews or leading your workshops. So thank you for all that you’re doing for the Camino family.

Susan: Thanks Leigh: it’s my it’s not just a duty for me, it’s a it’s a privilege. When you do your duty, you find that you are actually getting a present.

Leigh: So true. So true. Well, thank you so much. And I want to thank all of our listeners, all of our viewers. We hope that you will check out all of Susan’s website or Facebook groups. We will have links in the information when we post our videos and the podcast. So you’ll be able to get to them easily. And thank you for watching.

Thank you for being a part of our community. And we hope that you’ll be back for our next podcast interview.

Thank you so much, Susan.

Susan: Welcome

NOTE: Who would imagine that 5 years have gone since I walked this route on this exact day – that is a SURPRISE!

Day Three on the Camino Ingles was all about surprises – good surprises like churros and castles. The climb out of Pontedeume was not a good surprise, but there was a reward at the end, the little village of Mino, nestled on the mountain with views to the sea, and a railway line vanishing into the distance. On day three, we climbed over the next headland from Pontedeume, and down again all the way to Betanzos, through farmland and forest, and at Mino we turned inland towards Betanzos.  This day was sunny and warm, just the type of day to life your spirits after previous damp and soggy day.

Viewing Platform in Mino

Mino

The next time I walk the Ingles, Mino is definitely going to be the night halt for me. Apart from the blindingly beautiful views, the chocolate and churros in the cafes was to die for. I could scarcely believe how good it was. The churros perfect light and melt in the mouth, and the chocolate thick and smooth like molten earth. not sweet,not runny and not a quagmire either. The look on my face is a mixture of stunned joy!!!

Chocolate and churros

About the castle

Why is there a little castle in the picture? Why not? Someone built themselves a little castle in the middle of the forest that we walked by, it was gorgeous, and another surprise, so while there was great architecture, beautiful scenery and soaring churches on Day three, thisis what I loved about Day Three. After Mino, we walked parallel to the coast, before turning inland after crossing the river, and heading into lush green forests filled with birdsong and trickling streams. Fortunately there was no rain!  While it was a steady climb until about 10 kms from Betanzos, it was not as steep as the climb out of Pntedeume, and this time, we stopped whenever we could for cafe con leche,

Alas, today was also the day that my backpack split, and I had to use the trusty old nappy pins to secure it, and prevent further tearing.

If you want to read all about the more important stuff, like how you can walk the Camino in just 6 days, check out my book.

13th August 997 was a deadly day for Santiago de Compostela. On that day, the bells of Santiago were ripped out of the burnt and destroyed Cathedral and carted on over 800 kms on the backs of Christian prisoners to the Cordoba moque by Al mansur, who yearly attacked Christian towns and villages, razing the cathedrals, destroying the towns and enslaving the population. The bells and the doors of the cathedral were installed in the mosque in Cordoba, while they were lost the bells were not. They were hung from the ceiling and used as lamps.
But these bells are now here – sometimes you just walk into history.
These beds are back, because in 1236, Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain in the Reconquista brought these bells back from Cordoba and put them into Santiago, and they were dragged back by Muslim prisoners.
However, the Cathedral was being rebuilt and these bells never got put back to use. A side note: as they were considered the spoils of war they could not be used again.

So I’m literally stepping into history.

The bells are in the cloister above the cathedral, you need to buy a ticket to visit the museum – there is a wealth of artifacts, but in my opinion, the bells and the actual copy of the Codex Calixtinus are the best. In this photograph, they look small and insignificant, but in the video, you can see the true scale of the bells. After all they were the timekeepers of the city, as well as calling the people to prayer.

The Ancient Bells of Santiago

I’ve had complaints that my book, The Camino Ingles: 6 Days to Santiago has very little historical context, so in the latest version, I have added some cultural context. It has also been completely updated for 2020. Click the button below to get the book and escape!

The Camino Ingles is a medieval era pilgrimage trail in Galicia in Northern Spain. It is quieter, shorter and less popular than the epic Camino Frances, but it has a unique beauty and is not without challenges. In the time of the virus it has the advantage of being completely in one province, Galicia. Galicia exited the most stringent features of the lockdown in mid-June as opposed to 1st July like the rest of Spain. This post has been updated with new information for the new normal in Spain. Be sure to check the latest conditions and rules of your Government about travel to Spain.

Is it a valid pilgrimage?

Ferrol to Santiago is more than 100 kms. So you will qualify for the Compostela! The Compostela is a certificate awarded by the Pilgrim’s Office of the Catedral de Santiago to pilgrims who have walked the last 100km to Santiago, and have the sellos to prove it. Cafes, albergues and hostals are open, though with less capacity, but you can still get a stamp or sello along the way, on your credencial.

Is it safe?

The Camino Ingles goes through rural Galicia. It is uncrowded and safe. You can call 112 anywhere in Spain to get English speaking operators at the police or Guardia Civil. Take normal precautions to safeguard your valuables.  Install the AlertCops app on your mobile phone to call the Guardia Civit for help anywhere along the way.

Do I have to camp out?

No! you do not have to camp out. There are public and private albergues, hostals and well-priced hotels. Note that capacity in the albergues has been reduced due to the need for social distancing. All Xunta albergues can now be booked online and Booking is recommended.

What are the distances per day?

The distances per day are from 15 – 30 kms, but there are options if you cannot walk 30 kms on a single day. Additional albergues and hostals along the way give you more options especially on days three and four. You can also take a taxi and go off the camino if needed. For example, at Bruma, you can find accomodation either at Meson do Vento or even Ordes.

Where does it join the Camino Frances?

The Camino Ingles is a totally different route. It never joins the Frances! Oh, except at Santiago of course.

I’m vegetarian! What will I eat?

There are vegetarian options, or you can buy cheese, bread, fruit and vegetables in abundance. Of course, Galicia is famous for its seafood and pork, so you will miss out on that. If you are not vegetarian, be sure to try the pulpo, the delicacy of the region.

Do I have to be religious?

No, the vast majority of pilgrims are not religious. You can be as religious, or spiritual, or not as you like. If you want to attend Mass be aware of the new timings, restricted numbers and necessity to wear masks.

Is there enough challenge or is it too easy?

120+ kms is do-able in 6 days. Every day has steady uphills and downhills. It is not a stroll in the park, and you do need a moderate level of fitness to enjoy it.

Do I have to carry a backpack?

No! You can have it ported from stage to stage. Correos offers a great service for 20 E. But you should carry at least a day pack for food, water and valuables. Because of the virus, you must carry a sleeping bag as albergues no longer provide blankets.

Can I drink the water?

There are plenty of fountains along the way to refill your water bottle. I would rather not drink from the public fountains in Santiago, but along the way, it is fine. Do carry a cup to collect water from the fuente, as you want to avoid touching surfaces that may harbour germs,

Can I cycle the Camino Ingles?

Yes and No. Yes, you can physically cycle the route, though you may have to dismount occasionally to navigate streams or steep muddy uphill slopes. No, you will not qualify for the Compostela, as cyclists need 200 kms to gain the Compostela.

What cities does it pass through?

There are no cities or large towns on the route. Betanzos is the only largish town. You can start at Ferrol or A Coruna, and Sigueiro is the last larger town before Santiago. For all these places, wear a mask when you cannot maintain a distance of 1.5m from others.

Any more questions? Add them to the comments below and I am happy to answer them! Or you can get my book here.