Three hundred thousand people complete the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage every year, but not many of them attempt both the French and Spanish legs in one summer, and virtually no one would even think of doing that with three kids in tow. But long on confidence and short on common sense, two American expats decided to try. Inexperienced, underprepared, and with only the vaguest notion of the pilgrimage, the family set off from Le Puy-en-Velay, France, in July 2012, bound for Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 1,500 km away.

Part family memoir, part history, Onward, Backward! recounts their personal adventure as well as the outrageous, often funny, and sometimes shocking stories of the people who have lived near that old road for the last half-million years.