Walking Home: A Pilgrimage from Humbled to Healed

I admire Sonia Choquette's fortitude to try new things with a reasoned approach. She expresses competence throughout her work and leads with admirable strength and courage. 'El Camino' is a personal journey that demands stamina and represents a lasting testament to the physical journeys we undertake with spiritual undertones. Sonia generously shares intimate details of her physical hardships as well as inspiring insights into the spiritual side of human nature, as well as a very personal spiritual message conveyed in rather miraculous and unexpected fashion along 'The Way'. Her journey, so generously and compellingly shared in these pages, is as remarkable as it is emboldening to the reader making one's own way in this fleeting, oft-troubled world. A most worthy read for learning about this challenging destination through the experiences of an accomplished, competent leader in character-building and self-development. This story will stand the test of time for its honesty, clarity of direction, and inspirational message of finding meaning and strength through personal challenge, exploration, and self-discovery.

I abandoned this book about halfway through. The author was simply too self-involved for my taste. I have walked the Camino de Santiago three times and served as a hospitalera in a parochial albergue on the Way. I found Ms. Choquette's pilgrimage experiences to be atypical. Although I respect her thoughts and choices, I found I didn't care to read about them.

I completed the 500 (it is really 480) Camino at age 58. I was really looking forward to this book because it looked like it was going to have a profound spiritual aspect seeing that the author makes her living as an intuitive. I originally gave the book 2 stars because the beginning is very self indulgent, whiny and annoying. You can barely believe the author makes her living as an intuitive guiding others as many of her her relationships are so messed up. I am a fan of strong woman personalities and she was definitely not one. I was dismayed to see that right at the get go she made the decision to stay in B and B's which she refers to as hostels but are not the typical pilgrim lodging. Anyone thinking of going on this journey should know that the typical pilgrim stays in an alburgue which is dorm style and does not serve breakfast. But they are clean and free or cheap. They do include dinner quite often which was always wonderful. Too bad she was always sleeping at dinner time because the food is really wonderful. Also most pilgrims carry their own pack and keep it down to 10% of their body weight. The pack transpo service is there if you need it but most just try to live frugally. So her Camino was a bit more luxurious that most. And she still whined constantly! The body issues are part of it- it is rare to escape that. But I did find that even if you keep waking with intense pain your body still gravitates toward wellness. $1000 worth of insurance! That never even occurred to me. The Camino invites you to let go and leave things up to the universe. The little towns are 5- 10 km apart the whole way so I don't understand how she was running out of food and water. and BTW the books that she read about wild dogs were written quite some time ago. There are no wild dogs. The govt. sees to that as well as making sure the path is safe and well marked. They are very proud of their Camino. I hung in there and kept reading because I was enjoying reliving my own Camino in her descriptions but by p. 241 she was still going on about her "needs" but starting to get a grip. Finally on p. 266 the Camino lessons kicked in and she started thinking like someone who has worked on herself a bit, appreciating the good things in her life, of which there were many. I found myself wishing she had started her journey there; it would have meant so much more to me. I enjoyed the last 70 pages quite a bit, they were actually quite moving once she cut the complaining. So I am giving it one more star.

Wow!! I got this book to read before I went on my pilgrimage to Spain to walk the Camino. It was like a diary, and it was such an incite before the trip. I almost felt like I was hiking with her. She felt like a friend. I could relate. I met 3 women while I was hiking. There were many women who were travelling alone (either married or not), and we hit it off. I kept telling them stories from the book as we were hiking. I think that by the end of the trip, they all wanted to read the book. It's an excellent read. I wished the author would travel to other places and write about them. The Camino is a very personal and thought provoking trip. You can't feel it until you go. I recommend it to everyone...the book and the trip.

This is so badly written - and dull. Sonia has toast and cafe con lêche for breakfast; she has a PowerBar for lunch. She feels angry, she feels okay; she puts on her poncho; she removes her poncho; sometimes she'll skip dinner...yawn! Every chapter is a lazy version of the previous - I didn't get a sense of progress at all. Avoid if you want to read about an authentic experience. Sonia didn't even carry her own bag. I am prepared to believe that she didn't walk the entire Camino at all.

I read Sonia"s book a year after a serious car accident which left me unable to walk for several months. As I read it I came down with an awful dose of flu. It seemed that Sonia's book spoke directly to me. I experienced the painful feet and the chills and the fever at the same time. Through Sonia's own experiences and revelations I have come to a much better understanding of what has been going on in my own life. I read this book at a crucial time in my life and it has inspired me to make my goal walking some if not all the Camino. An amazingly frank and honest book written with great observation, humour and soul searching. I loved it.

This book is interesting in its own right but also inspires others to make their own incredibly journeys! I find Sonia Choquette very accessible and have read her books and bought her programmes as she helps me realise that we all have powerful intuition that we can utilise to help us live our best lives. Just after I finished reading the book I heard from a good friend who was doing a similar walk. I met up with her and compared notes. By this I mean she told me about her adventures and they had amazing parallels with Sonia's experiences. I sent her a copy of the book as I am sure reading it will help her to make the most of her own experience. She found the walk so inspiring she is going again in September!

Compelling, wonderful book. Sonia takes you through the ups and downs of her "pilgrimage", which is sometimes funny, sometimes painful, sometimes cringe-making. Some moments I really wanted to join her, and others I was glad of a warm sofa. I felt her aching bones and blistered feet. Sometimes, I wanted to yell at her and tell her to get on with her life and stop dwelling on her past. But the journey was about reflecting on her marriage, and her past. It's very hard to be so honest, so public, to know that thousands will read this book and will hate it or love it. I love it. Such a brave book to write

I bought this book mainly because I'm fascinated with the Camino. This is the fourth account of this pilgrimage walk that I have read and is by far the most spiritual and yet it still captures the spirit of love, companionship and joy to be found on this ancient pilgrimage. I was gripped throughout though early on I was feeling that this was a bit of a 'me me me' exercise though this soon feel away and at the end It has left me a lot to think about . But what a woman, starting the journey an emotional wreck then persisting despite appalling foot problems, fever and mainly poor weather to finish without a day off. A true heroine.