I’m Off Then (to Toronto, England and … oh yeah … Sevilla)

After I decided to walk the Vía de la Plata back in January, I spent some time on the Internet reading about cities along the route and dreaming.

Most of the websites I found were aimed at tourists, and included sections like Getting There and Away. The first time I saw those words, my instinctive response was confusion.

Obviously, you get there on foot and leave walking.

A split second later my brain kicked in and reminded me that most travellers take planes, trains and buses.

I’ve been one of those travellers. I backpacked around Europe, volunteered in Thailand, worked in England and travelled in Mexico, Southeast Asia, and a bit of China. And then I walked the Camino from Le Puy to Santiago, and decided walking was by far my favourite way to travel.

So I’m off again in two days. I’ll be doing some non-walking travel for the first week: flying to Toronto to visit friends, then to England to see another friend … and finally to Sevilla, where I’ll start walking the Vía de la Plata.

I’ve spent the last few months accumulating information and other things I’ll need for the trip, walking around the neighbourhood with my backpack, and buying a variety of airplane tickets. And I still can’t believe I’m really going.

It seems too good to be true.

* * *

As far as this blog goes, I have at least one post ready for you next week.

After that, I’ll try to keep you posted intermittently (I’m aiming for at least once a week) about my Vía de la Plata walk.

If you want to follow along, you could sign up to receive posts by feed reader or e-mail (just use the box on the right side of this post; Google and I both promise not to use your information for nefarious purposes), or “like” the Pilgrim Roads Facebook page to receive updates in your Facebook feed.

Or of course you could just check back here occasionally.