Walking Through Transformation: Interview with Camino Author Kevin Wittmayer

What happens when travel stops being consumption and becomes transformation?

When I first picked up 40 Days and Nights on the Camino de Santiago, I expected a book about pilgrimage. What I didn’t expect was how much it would overlap with many of the themes I regularly explore here on Mindful Wellness Traveler: liminal space, solitude vs. loneliness, symbolic transformation, temporary vs. lasting friendships, surrender, slowing down, and the way travel can reshape us from the inside out.

Released on March 31, 2026, the book by Episcopal priest Kevin Wittmayer combines journal entries from his Camino pilgrimage with reflections added years later, creating a layered reading experience that allows readers to experience both the immediacy of the journey itself and the perspective that only comes with time and hindsight.

Rather than simply describing the Camino from a distance, the book invites readers to walk alongside him through physical exhaustion, emotional breakthroughs, silence, uncertainty, fleeting connections, shared meals, cultural encounters, and moments of unexpected grace along the road.

Throughout the book, Wittmayer reflects honestly on a difficult personal season that shaped his decision to undertake the pilgrimage in the first place. One of the things I appreciated most was that the transformation described in the book never feels overly polished or romanticized. Instead, readers witness how pilgrimage gradually strips away distractions, routines, expectations, and false identities, creating space to confront emotions and questions that everyday life often keeps buried beneath the surface.

I also found it especially interesting that Wittmayer often moved through the Camino simply as another pilgrim rather than primarily identifying himself through his role as a priest. That openness allowed for honest conversations, unexpected friendships, and deeply human moments of connection throughout the journey.

The book explores the tension between solitude and community particularly well, including the strange intimacy of temporary friendships formed on the road, the emotional impact of impermanence, and the way slowing down physically can shift the way we listen, observe, and move through the world.

Along the way, readers also encounter local traditions, celebrations, and moments of cultural connection that remind us pilgrimage is not only internal, but deeply tied to place, history, and human encounter. The book additionally includes reflection questions throughout, inviting readers to engage with their own experiences of transition, identity, uncertainty, solitude, faith, and personal transformation.

Because so many of these themes overlap with topics I frequently write about here, including spiritual travel, pilgrimage, meaningful solo travel, festivals and traditions, and how travel can become a catalyst for personal growth, I was excited to speak with Kevin Wittmayer directly about the deeper ideas behind the book.

Below is my interview with Kevin Wittmayer about pilgrimage, surrender, stillness, impermanence, and what can only be learned at walking speed.

👉 Read 40 Days and Nights on the Camino de Santiago here

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Interview with Author Kevin Wittmayer

Topics below include pilgrimage, solitude, symbolic transformation, temporary friendships, surrender, liminal space, and the deeper emotional layers of the Camino experience.

The Symbolism of Pilgrimage

Sarah: Your book is divided into four sections, and as I was reading, I noticed they mirrored many of the symbolic themes I explore on my blog: shedding, surrender, transformation, stillness, and renewal. Did you consciously think of pilgrimage as unfolding in symbolic stages, and if so, how would you describe those stages?

Kevin: I don’t think I consciously thought of the pilgrimage unfolding in symbolic stages while I was walking. However, a conversation I had with a fellow pilgrim, recorded in Day 17 of my book, provided a mental framework for examining my time on the Camino. As I write on that day, the pilgrim explained that a person could divide the Camino into four stages: letting go, purgation, dying to self, and resurrection. After that conversation, I was able to use that insight as a way of understanding my own pilgrimage experience.

Sarah: You write beautifully about liminal space and the “already and not yet.” Why do you think periods of uncertainty and transition can become spiritually transformative?

Kevin: We spend much of our lives living on autopilot. Liminal spaces disrupt long-established patterns and force us to pay attention. How we respond to those moments of uncertainty often determines whether they become transformative.

In my own experience, I could have responded defensively and fought to return to the status quo. Or I could honestly examine my life and the circumstances that brought me to the Camino and allow them to change me. I chose the latter. Uncertainty creates the possibility for transformation because it forces us to confront who we are and who we are becoming.

Sarah: The Camino attracts many people who aren’t traditionally religious. Why do you think pilgrimage resonates so deeply even outside formal faith structures?

Kevin: There is a saying that “Walking is for the body; pilgrimage is for the soul.” Many people walk the Camino de Santiago for recreation or tourism, while others walk it as a pilgrimage. The distinction, I believe, is intention.

One pilgrim I met was not walking for what he would have called a “spiritual” reason, nor did he identify with any particular faith tradition. Yet he approached the Camino very intentionally. Every time he faced a major life decision, he would return and walk a portion of the Camino. That intentionality transformed the experience into a pilgrimage, even though he stood outside formal religious structures.

Sarah: In the book, there’s a recurring sense of surrender: letting go of control, expectations, certainty, even comfort. Do you think surrender is ultimately an act of trust? 

Kevin: Surrender is absolutely an act of trust. It isn’t for everybody, but when I walked the Camino, I didn’t make reservations in advance for lodging. I trusted that I would find a bed and a meal wherever I ended my day of walking. On one occasion, there wasn’t a bed available in the albergue, but a kind pilgrim who did have a bed offered me her foam pad so I could sleep on the cold concrete floor beneath my sleeping bag. Experiences like that reinforced for me that surrender in the spiritual life is trusting that God will provide what we need in a given moment.

In the Nicene Creed, Christians proclaim: “I believe in God the Father, I believe in God the Son, I believe in God the Holy Spirit.” But the word translated as “believe” can also be translated as “trust.” I trust in God the Father. I trust in God the Son. I trust in God the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, surrender—to God or even to another person—is an act of entrusting your life to someone beyond yourself.

Solitude, Community, and Temporary Friendships

Sarah: The Camino seems to create a unique tension between solitude and community. Why do you think solo pilgrimage often leads to such deep friendships and connections?

Kevin: For me, the answer to that question is multifaceted. Walking in solitude created space for me to commune with God. As a Christian who understands God as a Triune community—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—I believe the very essence of God is community. Therefore, as one created in the image of God, there is within us an intrinsic desire for community.

Had I been walking with companions from the beginning, they likely would have become my default recipient of that desire. Instead, walking alone opened me to deeper friendships and connections with others who were sharing the same journey and many of the same struggles, questions, and moments of grace.

Sarah: You write about impermanence in a really moving way: fleeting friendships, changing landscapes, temporary rhythms. Why do temporary experiences sometimes leave such lasting marks on us? 

Kevin: Part of what makes those transitory moments so powerful is their intensity. You begin to treasure moments while they are happening because you know they cannot be repeated. I also think impermanent experiences remind us of a deeper spiritual truth: life itself is a pilgrimage. Scripture repeatedly describes us as sojourners, strangers, and pilgrims passing through this world. The Camino simply makes visible what has always been true. None of us can permanently possess places, people, or even seasons of life. Yet somehow, love formed in those passing moments still changes us.

In many ways, the temporary nature of Camino friendships made them more honest. People often shared things on the road they might never reveal in ordinary life because there was no need to maintain an image. There was freedom in knowing you might only walk together for a day or two. Some of the people I met I have never seen again, yet they still shaped me spiritually. Their kindness, honesty, humor, and vulnerability became part of my journey.

Sarah: Some of the most meaningful moments in pilgrimage seem surprisingly ordinary: shared meals, conversations, blisters, pauses, helping someone else. Why do simple things become sacred on the journey? 

Kevin: The sacredness of these seemingly ordinary experiences is found in a deepening awareness of our dependency on others. That dependency highlights the profound reality that we are created for community, made in the image of the divine community itself. We depend on one another for sustenance, for conversation, even for the healing of our blisters. During my pilgrimage, one of my fellow pilgrims developed severe blisters on both feet from ill-fitting boots. When he arrived at the albergue, the host gently and lovingly attended to his wounded feet. In moments like that, simple acts of care become sacred because the presence of compassion makes the presence of God visible.

Slowing Down and Learning to Listen

Sarah: Pilgrimage also places people in unfamiliar cultures and perspectives. What do you think travel can teach us when we approach it more as listening than consuming? 

Kevin: I’m reminded of travel writer Rick Steves warning Americans not to become what he calls the “ugly American.” He describes an ugly American as someone who travels to another country while expecting everything to function exactly as it does back home. The beauty of travel, especially pilgrimage, is the opportunity to encounter another culture and way of life on its own terms. That cannot happen if we approach travel merely as consumers of experiences. We have to slow down enough to listen, to observe, and to appreciate the customs, traditions, and perspectives of others. When we travel with humility rather than entitlement, we often discover that the journey changes us.

Sarah: Modern life often pressures people to constantly perform, achieve, or move faster. What did the Camino teach you about slowing down, stillness, or what you call listening? 

Kevin: I recently read The Three Mile an Hour God by the Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama. Three miles an hour is the average walking speed of a human being. Walking forces us to slow down, and that slower pace creates space to listen and to notice the world around us. I remember walking through the Meseta, where a highway ran parallel to the trail. I was struck by the contrast between the speed of the passing cars and my own slow, deliberate pace. As I walked, I thought about Jesus and his disciples traveling the dusty roads of the Holy Land at roughly the same speed. At three miles an hour, you can stop to notice people. You can pause to listen. You can imagine Jesus interrupting the journey to share a story, heal a stranger, or sit down at a table. The Camino reminded me that much of life’s wisdom can only be heard at walking speed.

Sarah: Many people travel to “find themselves,” but pilgrimage often seems to do the opposite by stripping things away first. What do you think pilgrims are actually shedding on the journey?

Kevin: As I mentioned above, my fellow pilgrim identified the section of the Camino from León to Cruz de Ferro as the stage where we “die to self.” Dying to self means letting go of the “false self” in order to embrace the “true self.”

On my own pilgrimage, I first had to shed the false images I carried about myself before I could begin to embrace who I was in God’s eyes. I came to the Camino seeing myself as a failure, a person burdened by shame. Before I could move toward healing and transformation, I had to let go of that distorted image and begin living into the person God had created me to be.

Sarah: Physical discomfort is such a central part of pilgrimage. Do you think there’s a connection between physical challenge and emotional or spiritual breakthrough?

Kevin: The short answer is yes. Day 4 of my book—the first day I walked the Camino—is a testament to the connection between the physical and the spiritual. The 4,141-foot ascent through the Pyrenees was brutal.

Often, people do not outwardly express the emotional or spiritual pain they carry. I know I didn’t. On that first day of pilgrimage, when I was physically exhausted and overwhelmed, I cried out to God that I could not do this pilgrimage. That honesty, born out of physical pain and vulnerability, gave me the courage to begin acknowledging the deeper spiritual pain I had been carrying long before I arrived in Spain.

Returning Home After Transformation

Sarah: You write that lasting transformation is tested after the pilgrimage ends, in ordinary life and stability. Why is returning home sometimes harder than the journey itself? 

Kevin: In physics, when an object returns to its original position after being disturbed, it is said to be in a state of stable equilibrium. Pilgrimage, especially pilgrimage undertaken with the hope of transformation, disturbs us in profound ways. But it also has the potential to disturb the relationships and routines we return to afterward.

The people and communities waiting for us at home often expect life to continue as it always has. They expect the stable equilibrium to be restored. Yet the pilgrim may no longer be the same person who first set out on the journey. One of the great challenges after pilgrimage is learning how to live faithfully as a transformed person in relationships and environments that may unconsciously pull you back toward who you used to be. In many ways, returning home requires as much courage as setting out on the journey itself.

👉 Read 40 Days and Nights on the Camino de Santiago here

Final Thoughts

One of the things I appreciated most about 40 Days and Nights on the Camino de Santiago was its honesty about transformation. Pilgrimage is often romanticized as a dramatic breakthrough experience, but this conversation repeatedly returned to something more authentic: learning to listen, surrender, slow down, and remain open to change even after returning home.

Whether someone approaches the Camino through faith, personal transition, grief, burnout, curiosity, or simply the desire to walk with intention, this interview highlights why pilgrimage continues to resonate across cultures and belief systems. Sometimes the most meaningful journeys are not about escaping life, but about learning how to return to it differently.

👉 Read 40 Days and Nights on the Camino de Santiago here

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