Topic

Lightly Burdened Pilgrims: Trip Report and Photo Essay


Forum Posting

A Membership is required to post in the forums. Login or become a member to post in the member forums!

Home Forums Campfire Editor’s Roundtable Lightly Burdened Pilgrims: Trip Report and Photo Essay

  • This topic is empty.
Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #1273250
    Daniel Paladino
    BPL Member

    @dtpaladino

    Locale: Northern Rockies
    #1732547
    Roger Caffin
    BPL Member

    @rcaffin

    Locale: Wollemi & Kosciusko NPs, Europe

    Wonderful stuff. Thanks.

    Cheers

    #1732707
    Tjaard Breeuwer
    BPL Member

    @tjaard

    Locale: Minnesota, USA

    A very fun and insightful read!

    #1732710
    Rick Dreher
    BPL Member

    @halfturbo

    Locale: Northernish California

    What an adventure—a great read and sparkling photography. Well done!

    Cheers,

    Rick

    #1732712
    Kattt
    BPL Member

    @kattt

    From "Alles in Ordnung" all the way to " Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita"…..Great write up, beautiful pictures….thanks so much!

    #1732717
    Dale Wambaugh
    BPL Member

    @dwambaugh

    Locale: Pacific Northwest

    The pilgrim aspect identifies something that has eluded me in describing travel. We are all pilgrims, in search of our own grail, in the wilderness or populated spaces.

    Of course, the ultralight aspect is of interest. It fits with a pilgrimage too, leaving the material world behind and only taking the most elemental supplies to complete the journey.

    Rome is such a fitting end to a journey. What a mind-blowing city!

    #1732732
    Ludek Chovanec
    BPL Member

    @ludd

    Thanks a lot for your trip report. I'm from Europe, currently living in Switzerland, and I totally agree that the notion of wilderness and long-distance backpacking is very different here than in the States.
    In Europe, accommodation is available almost everywhere within day's walking distance, including remote mountain areas and farmlands. It would be in fact possible to travel just with a rainjacket and credit card in your pocket. You can also use the dense network of public transit to skip over uninteresting parts like big city suburbs.
    On the other hand, it is very difficult to plan a trip if you want to sleep in a tent or under a tarp. In most European countries (with the exception of Scandinavia and few others) it is generally forbidden to camp outside of designated areas (campings), which are usually crammed with RVs and motor homes.
    Bivouacs are sometimes tolerated in the high mountains, and you can certainly spend a night in tent pitched on a forest clearing in less populated areas if you keep low profile, but you'd be still in a shady legal area at best.

    #1732748
    HkNewman
    BPL Member

    @hknewman

    Locale: The West is (still) the Best

    Thanks for the hike and history. Kinda bad there's less wild camping in that portion of Europe. Wish there were something analogous to the AT through Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and maybe the "Benelux" countries, terminating in Amsterdam.

    #1732877
    Sam Haraldson
    BPL Member

    @sharalds

    Locale: Gallatin Range

    Although I'd prefer a more camping-based hike the landscape through which you walked sounds spectacular. Thank you for sharing.

    #1733204
    Bart Godefroid
    Member

    @bjgodefr

    Thanks for the inspiring article!

    I'm from Belgium and agree that In Europe civilization is (most of the time) only a day's march away.
    But if you want to wild camp that's also perfectly possible. All you need to do is a little planning to avoid densely populated areas. This can be done very easily in for example Scotland, Scandinavia, some parts of Germany, etc. In France there's even something called 'the diagonal of emptiness', it's a geographical line from the north-east to the south-west of France. This line covers an area with a very low population density. Bivouacing (camping for one night) is also permitted in France if you respect certain rules.

    Of course a pilgrimage, like the one from the article, is a different way of travelling with other benefits and interest points than hiking desolate areas.

    #1733515
    George Matthews
    BPL Member

    @gmatthews

    Nice story and beautiful pictures. Made me recall Thoreau's Walking…

    I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who
    understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks–who had a
    genius, so to speak, for SAUNTERING, which word is beautifully derived
    "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and
    asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre," to the Holy
    Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a
    Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their
    walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they
    who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some,
    however, would derive the word from sans terre without land or a home,
    which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular
    home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of
    successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be
    the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is
    no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while
    sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the
    first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is
    a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth
    and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

    #1735873
    George Gibbs
    BPL Member

    @georgeg

    Nice story. Heard you on Rick Steves I think.

    #1757384
    Adrian MITCHELL
    Spectator

    @adie-mitchell

    Locale: Northwest Mass

    Great Story. My friend and I this spring did a bike tour with a bit of hiking from Northern France to Santiago and beyond. Traveling the pilgrimage is simple, easy and beautiful – and we were stealthcamping as often as possible and never eating in restaurants. We did imagine though, that if we were walking and had a much larger budget, we could live with only a smart phone, debit card, poncho, toothbrush and earplugs.
    Reading this makes me want to take a plane to somewhere in Europe and just see where the wind takes me…

    #1757407
    Travis Leanna
    BPL Member

    @t-l

    Locale: Wisconsin

    What a fantastic account of a European walk! Its a great change of pace to the typical forests and mountains.

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Forum Posting

A Membership is required to post in the forums. Login or become a member to post in the member forums!

Get the Newsletter

Get our free Handbook and Receive our weekly newsletter to see what's new at Backpacking Light!

Gear Research & Discovery Tools


Loading...