Curious about the differences between a life lived at a 5 km/h. walking pace and contemporary life lived at 100, or 1000 km/h., the author undertook 2/3 of the medieval pilgrim's hat trick, walking from Rome to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. His three-year camino took him through the Alps to Briancon, France, from there to the foothills of the Pyrenees, and finally across the Pyrenees, through Santiago and on to Finisterra on Spain's Atlantic coast.
He shares his observations of the culture, cuisine, customs, and countryside of Italy, France, and Spain, reflects on distance walking, his own character, and the experience of pilgrimage in a post-religious world, and wrestles with questions of forgiveness and peace.
Ultimately he agrees with Paul Coelho who, "... walked so many miles to discover things (he) already knew, things that all of us know but that are so hard to accept," and with Wab Kinew that, "We have a choice in life – we can choose how we are going to behave. We can determine whether we reflect the good around us or lose ourselves in the darkness."