“Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.” ~ Steven Wright
All avid fans of hiking or long distance walking share something in common. They understand that you must walk to truly experience and see a place. Sure, a car or bike will get you there quicker and allow you to see more places, but those modes of travel don’t allow you to see more OF a place. In our modern world where everything seems to move at lightning speed, is it no wonder people are craving slow travel? In a world driven by consumerism and the desire for more, is it surprising that someone like me would seek travel that focuses on meaningful experiences rather than a sightseeing checklist?
Slow travel doesn’t mean you move at the pace of a sloth — it’s a mindset, a different way of looking at vacation.
Slow travelers take their time to explore their surroundings and walking is one of the best ways to do that. Growing up in the American South, I was certainly familiar with lazy vacations on the beach where we just simply existed, but I had never heard of slow travel or walking holidays. It’s not a new concept in Europe, however, and when my good friend Mary introduced us to the concept, Eric and I were hooked! We had often day hiked during our vacations, but a true European walking holiday is different. Your entire trip revolves around walking from town to town. It’s similar to a pilgrimage, but instead of focusing on sacred sites you’re walking towards your next meal and bed.
“If a pilgrimage is a walk to a sacred site, then perhaps nature’s wild places are our cathedrals, and every hike in the wilderness is a pilgrimage both to a place and into one’s heart.” ~ Tom Courtney
Our first walking holiday was in Ireland and we let Sherpa Expeditions do all the work for us. They booked our lodging, planned our route, transported our luggage — it was wonderful!
Walking past Killelton Church & abandoned town
After the Ireland experience, I began researching to see if anything like this existed in the United States and it does! There aren’t as many options and it requires a little more DIY, but it IS possible. The one that caught my attention was Walkabout California, created by Tom Courtney and his daughter Emily. Tom’s story was similar — he had experienced walking holidays in Europe and wanted to do so in America. But it didn’t exist at the time, so Tom began exploring and created his own trips. I purchased Tom’s Walkabout Northern California ebook for $16.00, which provided 12 different trips. 
We chose the Marin Coast walkabout and edited it so we’d have days of rest and could see Mill Valley, a unique town that I wanted to visit. Tom’s itinerary was 38 miles in four days, but as you can see we added days and miles: 
Tom’s book included detailed notes about the route, lodging suggestions, transportation options, and travel diary notes. He also included shorter, less expensive alternative itineraries. This is good to note because California is NOT cheap! We spent more on this trip than we did for trips to Ireland or Greece, and that’s mostly due to the high cost of lodging in the Golden State. His lodging suggestions were excellent and we stayed at three, but I found others through AirBnB that were cheaper or didn’t require a 2-night stay. One of the most unique places he listed, which we didn’t choose because that was WAY outside Eric’s comfort zone, was the Green Gulch Zen Center. 
Some people think inn to inn hiking might be cheaper, because you’re not renting a car, but that’s not always the case.
When choosing lodging for a walking holiday, location is key! No one wants to hike an extra mile just to reach their bed when they’ve already walked all day long. Luckily, Google Maps makes this very easy to determine. For example, for our night in Muir Beach we had two choices: Pelican Inn or Green Gulch. Green Gulch was about $70 cheaper but it was a mile off the route and wasn’t anywhere near the beach. When you have a car, that’s no big deal, but when you have to walk that mile there and back and consider where you’ll get dinner, then it’s a HUGE deal! So sometimes it’s worth paying the extra cost for lodging, and in a place like California that usually outweighs the cost of a rental.
Some people think inn to inn hiking is a great way to lose weight, but walking all day usually results in gorging yourself at the end of the day.
Unless you’re very well disciplined or your dining options are limited to monastery food, then you’ll most likely end up eating huge breakfasts and dinners. You need the calories, after all, which is why food is also an important factor to consider when planning a walking holiday. Remember, no car! Once again, Google Maps is your friend — use it to find grocery stores and restaurants within close walking distance to your trail or lodging. Most inns will suggest local restaurants but they won’t have the hitchhiker in mind when they suggest that Michelin star restaurant just “down the road” — which on foot entails walking down AND up 650 steps!
At this point you might be thinking “this sounds like a royal pain in the a**, why on earth would anyone choose this type of travel?”
While I can’t speak for others, I CAN share why I value an inn to inn walking holiday:
For one, it forces me to move. I’m lazy, I’ll freely admit it. I will always choose the easiest route, sleep late, and be content to miss some excursions if it means I can sit at the lodge and read. And that’s ok and sometimes that’s the type of vacation I need. But most often, I need something to jar me out of my easy, low exercise life. Not having a car to get you to your next night’s rest is definitely motivation to MOVE!
Ironically, it forces me to slow down. When you spend all day walking, you have a lot of time to think. The crunching sounds of your feet on the trail and the wind moving through trees and brush provide the perfect rhythm for meditation. After a trip like this, Eric and I often find our thoughts more organized and our dreams more developed. It gives our brains time to catch up.
You get to see “the in-between spaces.” Unlike backpacking long distance trails, inn to inn walking gives you the best of both worlds. You experience the wilderness AND the civilization, which I believe gives a more in-depth view of that place. In architecture, the phrase “in between spaces” can mean the space between two opposites (outdoors vs indoors, urban vs rural, etc.) It means reading between the lines to get the real truth. It means looking at individual perspectives rather than just the whole. This is ancient wisdom that we’ve forgotten in our age of modern transportation. Take a walkabout and allow yourself to discover the hidden essence of a place.
If you’re intrigued and want to know more about walking holidays, click HERE. If I’ve scared you off but you still want to experience a walking holiday vicariously, then stay tuned for more…
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