Slowing Time: Reflections from the Camino de Santiago

For fans of transformative travel memoir, a widowed woman’s account of setting out on Spain’s Camino del Norte—and learning as she goes that slowing down may be the most courageous way forward.

On a six-week solo trek along Spain’s rugged northern coast, Debbie carries only a backpack—and the accumulated memories of a life shaped by love, loss, and travel. What begins as a physical journey through rain-soaked forests, windswept cliffs, and small coastal villages slowly becomes something more intimate: a reckoning with time and the uneasy task of beginning again.

As the steady rhythm of walking slows Debbie’s days, unbidden memories surface. The Camino stirs reflections on her marriage, her husband’s death at home, and their travels together through East Africa. Scenes rise and recede alongside her footsteps—a rural community in Mbita, Kenya; the Royal Drummers of Burundi; the spray of Sipi Falls in Uganda—each memory moving forward with her rather than holding her back. With honesty, humor, and emotional clarity, Debbie navigates solitude, physical fatigue, and uncertainty even as she remains open to the quiet generosity of fellow pilgrims, shared meals, and one unexpected encounter that briefly awakens her heart.

Reflective and vulnerable, Slowing Time is not simply about walking through remarkable natural beauty; it is about learning how to live alongside memory, how to carry love forward, and how slowing down can open the way to renewal.