The Camino is …: more than 50 pilgrims on what the Way means to them

We asked pilgrims how they would complete the sentence "The Camino is …". More than 300 replied – sometimes with a single word, sometimes with an entire life story. Here are more than 50 of their answers.

Let them inspire you. And perhaps you'll find among them exactly the one sentence with which the Camino calls you.

More than 50 answers from pilgrims

• …the very best and most lasting thing I've done in the last 61 years, and something I'll do many more times, as long as my health allows.
  Ottmar Schüßler
• …praying with your feet
  Anette Göttlicher
• …the place where I have felt most whole and complete so far. And I still do today, just thinking about it.
  Jakob Fill
• …the gateway to yourself.
  Petra Amodeo
• …in my head, and I'm going to take on this challenge before I turn 50 and then enjoy it to the full!
  Aleksandra Grotthaus
• …one of the best "things" that has ever happened to me.
  Alexander Rüdiger
• …a format C: for the frazzled mind.
  Christian Kroenert
• …everyone's very own personal journey.
  Roland Götz
• …better than any medicine and good for the soul.
  Matthias Hämel
• …a path that won't let you go. Again and again you walk a new stretch, variants, new landscapes, nature giving you signs, you notice you're not alone, experiences of simply being come to you, you find meaning and clarity in many things, everything becomes simpler, you need less, superficial things no longer attract you, deep love and compassion for all living beings become what defines you. Suddenly you're seized by an indescribable gratitude for your life, your breath, your existence, the earth, the cosmos.
  Beate Sunderbrink-Litzko
• …going deeper into your own soul, step by step.
  Kirstin Straßenburg
• …something different for everyone :)
  Nane Fab
• …the peace you need to find yourself.
  Bibi Gräfinzursee
• …what you make of it!
  Dan Krauser
• …the journey on which I shake off everything that isn't part of me.
  Janet Schmalzl
• …a path that casts its spell on you. You follow it relentlessly, step by step, further and ever deeper, every heartbeat a step towards yourself.
  Petra Wiesenäcker
• …fulfilling the last wish of my recently deceased wife and finding my way back to myself.
  Steffen
• …the best-signposted path in life. One that reveals itself every day like a page from a picture book that holds you spellbound. New villages, new landscapes, the brightest colours, the best coffee. At some point you stop and wonder how you actually got this far, and then you realise in amazement how far your feet can carry you.
  Carolin Gotter
• …pure freedom.
  Heiner Aldag
• …the dearest goal of my heart.
  Jasmin Gessner
• …a path that brings people together. On this path everyone is equal, and everyone has their own reason for walking it.
  Andrea Hillmann
• …like a cleansing thunderstorm after a sultry summer's day.
  Bettina Wiese
• …the most beautiful, most profound journey to yourself.
  Christina Wendlandt-Petry
• …the most enlightening ordeal I've ever been through.
  Rob Star
• …a special path. You feel every step in your heart and in your whole body; step by step it becomes an addiction, because you never want to lose that feeling you've never felt on any other path.
  Michael Vollmer
• …the path I still want to walk in my life, because it inspires me.
  Sandra Heutger
• …long.
  Martin Leingartner
• The Camino was … an enrichment for me in 2012. In 1999 I had a serious accident. I lost a great deal. Among other things, my child. People always said … "Kerstin, you're strong." Because I found my way out of "hell". I thought it was all normal. In 2012 my life had fallen apart so badly that I simply had to get away. The Camino passes through Wuppertal, where I live. So within 3 weeks I organised everything. My destination … Aachen.
  On this path I found my weakness and my strength again (which I had been searching for since 1999). And yet it had all been inside me all along.
  Kerstin Ahrens
• …care for the soul.
  Angelika Biersack
• …is fun, peace, action, life, death, friendship, idiots, hot, wet, joy, pain, madness, beautiful, dirty, but sometimes very well-kept too, delicious, difficult, sometimes easy, warm-hearted, and an experience and a time I wouldn't want to have missed. I was on the way in September 2004, 2006 and 2008. And someday, when my daughter is older, I'll set off again.
  Joke Keks
• The Camino is my support and my hope that my husband may set out on his final journey without pain.
  I promised myself I would make the pilgrimage from Porto to Santiago de Compostela if this wish is granted.
  Edith Hödl
• …everywhere.
  Christiane Feriancz
• …a challenge I'd like to take on one day, when I'm ready for it.
  Kerstin Seeland
• …a mental liberation.
  Ulrike Steuer
• The WAY has become my home; I can trust it. Even if it sometimes demands a lot of me, it gives me infinitely much. I feel at ease, protected and in good hands.
  Renate D.
• …more than 800 km of the purest meditation.
  Claudia Schuster
• …the realisation that you have never been so much yourself as on this journey. Pain, joy over the smallest things, frustration, encounters with people and incredible conversations, no status symbols and an amazing solidarity among pilgrims from all over the world. It never lets you go.
  Dan Gatzhammer
• …the path on which heart and soul come to rest. And you feel what's important in your life.
  Ela Reinicke
• …a great experience with a lot of despair and pain, as well as strength and courage, on a path with a mix of sun, rain and snow!
  Benjamin Krasper
• …the only place where space and time never exist. Where you don't spend a single second thinking about yesterday or tomorrow – about earlier or later – where you're simply in the famous "here and now" and just put one foot in front of the other.
  Sabrina Teufel
• …a wonderful experience that has shaped me for the rest of my life.
  Franziska Wenzel
• …a longing, a feeling deep inside me that one day I will walk it.
  Diana Marie
• …change.
  Leaving and arriving.
  Letting go and holding on.
  Joy and sorrow.
  Moment and eternity.
  Body, mind and soul.
  The way is the walking.
  Finn Kelly
• …for me, more than 2,600 km long, and it confirmed that so much is possible if you only have the courage to dare the adventure.
  Martina Drogosch
• …an inner liberation.
  Joachim See
• …my first conscious encounter with myself.
  Julia Magger
• …a wordless, lovingly offered invitation to find yourself and let go of everything unnecessary in your life.
  Peter Lilienbecker
• …breaking free from the chains we have put on ourselves.
  Marlene Hiden
• …a journey to yourself on which every step brings calm and peace. You realise that the path doesn't actually exist, but that it only comes into being with each of your steps. It's your path that you walk!
  Thorsten Hüllen
• …much more than just a path. It carries you; but where to, only you can find out.
  Ramona Gleich
• …like a whole life. You're born onto the path and you begin to learn. To walk, to understand, to look after yourself, to take care of others and to grit your teeth when things get hard. Slowly you put one foot in front of the other. Like back then, as a small child, with someone opposite you with open arms, ready to catch you if need be. Beginning and end lie so close together.
  Jürgen Wellmann
• …is a path on which you can simply be, without pressure, without prejudice, without rush… You're part of a big community & at the same moment completely alone with yourself & your thoughts; neither time nor space counts, you can simply be, in the here & now.
  Ulrike Salmen
• …a mysterious path for reinventing yourself.
  Hans-Georg Dungel
• …making peace with my late daughter.
  K.T.
• …the most wonderful, most exciting, most painful, most empowering and, in a very special way, most healing journey I have ever undertaken! And I travel a lot.
  Simply the best experience of my life!
  An Ne Roe Mer
• …a psychosomatic cure without medical supervision. A path of self-discovery!
  Bernfried Otte
• …a heart-opener.
  Manuela Kra
• …the path that has the power to bring about change as soon as you've made the decision to walk it.
  Manfred Peipp
• …a new beginning
  Charley Babbit
• …the path to yourself.
  Judith Hinterberger
• …the chance to strip yourself down so much that your original personality shines through again. On the way to Santiago (Finisterre) the gemstone is cut from its rough state. And after the Camino the setting is made, so that the shine of the Way stays forever
  Danny Zielonkowski
• …the path into the innermost self.
  Michael Gabler
• …the beginning of a new life.
  Marianne Kulik

And what is the Camino for you?

Would you like to tell us what the Camino means to you? Write to us at info@caminoninja.com – we'll be happy to add it to this page. That way, you too can help inspire others to go on pilgrimage.

More inspiration: The most beautiful Camino quotes · The 10 commandments of the Camino

Cover photo: Wiebke Döbbeling