I spent years ignoring the call to pilgrimage, that sense inside that it might be the answer, or at least a way forward in life. Perhaps you feel that call too?
In my mid-40s, I walked the Pilgrims’ Way, the St Cuthbert’s Way, and the Camino de Santiago Portuguese Coastal route, and wrote about the experience in my mid-life travel memoir, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways. But I also did interviews on the topic and collected my day-to-day pictures and thoughts, which might also be useful or interesting. Click on the links below to find out more.
- The Call to Pilgrimage, Resilience, and Embracing Challenge with J.F. Penn
- Pilgrimage: The Perspective of History and Glimpses of the Divine with J.F. Penn (audiobook excerpt)
- Sacred Steps: Pilgrimage with Kevin Donahue
- Journeys in Search of Ourselves: Secular Pilgrimage with Victoria Preston
- Questions to consider on a pilgrimage
- Pilgrimage: The Architecture of Faith with Derry Brabbs
- A Pilgrim in the Path of History: Solo Walking the Camino de Santiago Portuguese Coastal Route
- Transience and Permanence: J.F. Penn on the Sacred Steps Podcast
- Walking to Rome on the Via Francigena with Chandi Wyant
- History, Faith, and Beauty: The Complete American Pilgrim with Howard Kramer
- This Too Shall Pass: Thoughts from The Pilgrims’ Way
- Walking the Camino de Santiago Frances with Ashlee Cowles
You can find the day-by-day account of my three pilgrimages with pictures and other resources below:
- The Pilgrims’ Way, London to Canterbury
- The St Cuthbert’s Way, Melrose in Scotland to Lindisfarne, Holy Island, England
- Camino de Santiago Portuguese Coastal route
You can find Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways on my store, or the usual formats in all the online bookstores, or you can order it from your local bookstore or library.
I also write thrillers, dark fantasy, and crime under J.F. Penn if you fancy trying my fiction. Many of the places I travel to, including some of the pilgrimage destinations feature in my books.
If you’re interested in writing a book, I write self-help for authors as Joanna Penn, and there are lots of resources at my site or on my podcast, The Creative Penn.
