Discovery, Change, and New Travel Plans

 Travel Plans Emerge

“Just the changing of the tides

Simplify, simplify...”

Los Coast, Simplify


This year began with changes and new challenges entering our lives.  Not long ago, my Grandmother, then some 103 years old, passed away.  At the same time, my parents began to have serious medical issues that meant they increasingly required assistance.  In addition to which, over the past couple of years, we have completed the world’s longest recreational pathway, the 28,000 km Trans Canada Trail, bringing a 6-year hiking journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic to an end.   



With this life-altering adventure behind us and with new change soon to come into our lives, we sought to set out on a new hiking adventure.  The route we initially decided upon was the American Discovery Trail. 




Our estimates were that it would take us hiking throughout two hiking seasons to once again walk from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific coast. The American Discovery Trail is more direct than the Canadian Great Trail and spans 5057 miles or 8138 km from Cape Henlopen, Delaware, to Point Reyes National Seashore near San Francisco, California. 


Question of Entry 


Unfortunately, our well-laid plans, much like our diligently mailed out resupply boxes, had to be abandoned.  As with so many things these days, life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.  A combination of family obligations and political realities in North America would lead us in another direction for the time being.  



As Canadian backpackers, we made the conscious decision not to travel to the United States this year due to the current political climate and increasing uncertainty at the border. In addition to government advisories warning about the search and seizure of electronic equipment by US border officials, we’ve heard firsthand from friends attempting to hike the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail who were turned away simply for carrying backpacks and cameras. In each case, they were treated with suspicion rather than as explorers. With travel advisories from the Canadian government in place, and knowing how unpredictable U.S. border authorities can be, especially toward independent hikers with gear and laptops, it simply didn’t feel wise or welcoming. Since making this choice, we've learned that our friends were far from alone in their experiences.  Many other Canadians and fellow hikers have faced similarly questionable refusals of entry. 


Ultimately, this was just not the year to cross that border.


“Be curious, not judgmental”

Walt Whitman


Hiking Considerations


With our plans scuttled and a small fortune in resupply boxes full of camping food and backpacking gear abandoned, we had to make new plans.   As such, from the outset of spring, we began to reconsider what was possible for us to do this year. 



This is never an easy process, as there is a huge list of possible trails that we would eventually love to undertake.  In the short term, and those that are more easily accessed in Europe are trails such as:


The Way of St. Francis in Italy

The Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome

St. Olav’s Way in Norway

The Dream Trail from Munich to Venice 

GR 22 from Paris to Mont-Saint-Michel in France

GR 331 and GR 221, known as the Camino de Gran Canaria

Camino Norte in Spain  


Each of these is a route that we knew we could reach and undertake with minimal planning.  The only question was which one to do?


New Plans Emerge


In addition to having to make a choice as to which trail to walk, a new possibility presented itself.  We were fortunate to have been offered the option of sailing...literally sailing...across the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean island of St. Maarten to Lisbon, Portugal!  Sailing across the Atlantic was something that we had always hoped to have the chance to do after voyaging several times with Cunard on Queen Mary 2 across the Atlantic Ocean and on Queen Elizabeth from Vancouver to Alaska, returning us to the north.



As such, the plan for this spring is to sail on Windstar Cruise’s flagship, the MSY Wind Surf, eastbound back to Europe, where we will hike the Camino Norte as well as the Ruta Do Mar.


See you on the trail or at sea!
Location: Sechelt, BC, Canada

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