Head First Into The Camino

How to mentally prepare for, and successfully complete, the Camino de Santiago.

Every year, thousands of people lace up their boots and walk the Camino de Santiago. Most prepare their bodies. Almost none prepare their minds. Yet it's the mental battles -- not the blisters -- that determine whether you finish.

Head First Into The Camino is the mental preparation guide the Camino has been missing.

This isn't a guidebook telling you where to sleep or what to pack. It's the book that prepares you for the morning your mind tells you to quit. For the day the rain doesn't stop. For the Meseta, when the flat horizon stretches endlessly and your thoughts turn dark. For arriving in Santiago and feeling nothing -- and not knowing why.

Drawing from years of personal journals, conversations with hundreds of pilgrims, and the hard-won lessons of walking more than a dozen Caminos, Wall covers what no other Camino book does: how to build a Why List that keeps you walking when your body wants to stop, how to navigate the three mental stages of the trail, how to survive post-trail depression, and how to carry the Camino's simplicity home with you.

Part preparation guide, part trail memoir, part conversation with a friend who has been where you're going and still doesn't have all the answers, Head First Into The Camino is for anyone who has ever dreamed of walking across Spain and wondered whether they have what it takes. The answer is yes. But the Camino asks for more than strong legs. It asks for an open mind.

This book helps you build one.