The Camino de Santiago: The Road That Followed Me Home

vanessa Edmonds
16 hours ago
6 min read

A Personal & Professional Reset

The Camino de Santiago is a network of ancient pilgrimage routes leading to the Cathedral de Santiago in northern Spain, where some historians believe followers of Jesus’s apostle, St. James, buried him. Since medieval times, “pilgrims” (referred to as “peregrinos” in Spanish) - kings, farmers, monks, soldiers, and ordinary travelers – began the journey from their homes, crossing Europe and walking through Spain in search of faith, reflection, healing, forgiveness, adventure - or, in my case, a much-needed health reset.

Training for the Walk

For me, completing the Camino was just as much about the training as the pilgrimage itself. During the COVID pandemic, I ate my way through long stretches of valuable family time at home. The result was about thirty extra pounds and a growing realization that I could no longer make eye contact with my favorite jeans, judging me like a "mean girl".

I love travel, so preparing for the Camino - eventually working my way up to walking fifty miles a week - felt like a great reason to reclaim my health. And training gave me something unexpectedly amazing, long before I reached Spain. Extended walks provided time to think and read again (if audiobooks count as reading). I listened to business books, self-help books, and fiction. More importantly, my mind finally had room to wander, something it rarely does when I am moving at my usual hyper-speed entrepreneurial pace.

The Walk Itself

Many people who walk the Camino describe a dramatic moment of clarity - a mountaintop epiphany where everything suddenly makes sense, or an intense moment when they realize “everything must change” when they return home.

When I began my pilgrimage in September 2023, with my then-seventeen-year-old daughter and a childhood friend, I secretly hoped for a divine or profound moment like that.

Because we only had five days, not months, we started in Sarria with a plan to walk the final seventy-two miles of the trail. My epiphany, I figured, would simply have to arrive a bit faster than it did for others who had more time to walk.

For the first couple of days, I didn’t have any revelations - only blisters and a painful horse bite under my arm. The horse altercation, especially, messed with my head, so I assumed I was doing the Camino “wrong.”

Maybe it was because I wasn’t doing my pilgrimage the "purist" way (yes, there is a "pure" way to do it). I carried a daypack while a luggage transfer service hauled my heavier backpack to the next stop - a definite no-no among "purists". Don't tell them, but I highly recommend the "hack". We stayed at VRBOs instead of the crowded auberges where "real" pilgrims stay, and I listened to music. Purists don't need music to put a skip into their step, but sometimes I do.

I tried to work it out in my head - why was my epiphany stalling? I am inpatient by nature, and I continued wondering if it's because I was breaking all of the purists' rules.

But slowly - step by step and mile by mile - I realized something important was happening to my psyche - almost unnoticeable like a whisper - influenced by the steady rhythm of walking and the fascinating people sharing the trail with us.

Learning to Listen

Pilgrimages have a curious ability to slow people down while simultaneously pushing forward. It’s a fascinating paradox. There are no meetings, no emails to answer, and no urgent deadlines. Sometimes there isn’t even an internet connection. There is simply a destination waiting at the end of the day - with a well-earned shower, a nap, a hearty dinner, and a good night’s sleep. And somehow, despite the screaming pain in our muscles, something kept pulling us forward - eighteen miles on our longest day.

Of course, all of that walking is hard - it certainly was for me - but it is also incredibly simple, another fascinating paradox. Unless you fall down, you really have just one job: walking.

And within that kind of simplicity, I began listening differently. I listened to strangers walking beside me and asked why they had come and what they were carrying - emotionally. When you walk alongside people long enough, real stories eventually emerge - complicated, messy, and deeply human experiences. My fellow travelers shared stories of grief, curiosity, celebration, uncertainty, and sometimes something else entirely. I wanted to hear whatever they were comfortable sharing and absorb it without judgment. I was crying, laughing, learning, and celebrating with complete strangers who didn't feel like strangers. They were teaching me about the nature of humanity, each through their unique lens.

I also listened to the sounds around me: the quiet of the countryside, the wind and rain, and the crunch of fall leaves under the weight of hikers’ shoes.

And as the miles passed, I began noticing small moments that normally disappear in the rush of daily life: a village slowly waking in the morning, locals offering prayers to passing pilgrims, two women laughing together as they washed clothes in a basin made of large stones, and someone stopping to help a traveler who had stumbled. I fell twice, and there was always a gaggle of people scrambling to lift me up.

A View from the Hill

On the fifth day, as we crested the final hill and caught our first glimpse of the Cathedral de Santiago—our destination—I heard something unexpected: the entrepreneurial voice in my head. It’s usually restless, juggling ideas all at once. But that day, it was quiet, focused, and methodical. And I was fully listening.

My Camino was gently shaping the next chapter of the Utility 2030 Leadership Collaborative (U2030), an organization I co-founded in 2020, unintentionally timed in the middle of a global pandemic, to help utility leaders navigate an era of enormous change.

At the time of my pilgrimage, U2030 was already bringing leaders together through a membership community where they could share ideas and learn from one another. The Camino helped me think about how we could do that work differently. I wanted to make it more personal, more thoughtful, easier to digest, and more human by creating safe spaces for real people to share real stories in ways that don't feel like more "work" for leaders whose schedules are already taxed. I wanted it to be more about listening - the kind of listening I did on the Camino.

The Road Continues

It has been two and a half years since my pilgrimage, and I am constantly reminded that the realizations I had on the Camino didn’t end when I picked up my certificate at the Pilgrims’ Office in Santiago.

They are still unfolding and brought me back to a project that had been quietly forming in the back of my mind for nearly six years. So, in March 2026 - after taking a few nervous breaths - I am announcing that I started conducting interviews for a book called Women Holding the Line.

It will tell the stories of women leading critical infrastructure systems, electric, gas, and water, during the moments when communities depend on them most. When storms strike, wildfires spread, systems fail, or entire regions lose power, someone has to hold the line between chaos and stability. Increasingly, that person is a woman.

Through my work with U2030, I have the privilege of building relationships with many of these impactful leaders. Their stories are complex, human, and often misunderstood, told through headlines, politics, and public pressure rather than through their voices - the people actually making the decisions.

If I’m being honest, telling these stories feels like a big responsibility - and a little scary. But because I’ve had the privilege of knowing these women and hearing their experiences firsthand, not telling their stories would feel like a greater injustice than trying.

And when I reflect on the Camino, I’m reminded of how to approach something this big. I lost 30 pounds preparing for the Camino, one step at a time. And by listening - one story at a time - that’s how I’ll write this book.

So, this project is - in many ways - a continuation of my Camino story - and hopefully the continuation of amazing stories of Women Holding the Line.

Another stretch of road, but we get to walk this part together.

Buen camino, peregrinos.