Some decisions do not get made at a desk.

You already know what the question is. You have turned it over on flights, in the car, at four in the morning. More analysis has not moved it, and there is nowhere in your week to set it down long enough to think.

This walk is where that changes.

I'm Tracey Seward, and I lead this walk personally.

I've spent my career in the rooms where the hardest decisions get made. At Accenture I founded the global unit that decided what the firm sold worldwide, and built its first knowledge operation connecting 700,000 people. I know the pace you're running at, because I ran at it.

I've also walked the Camino Francés into Santiago several times, including once with my son. I know what those six days do to people, and what they give back.

I built this walk because clarity does not arrive by trying harder inside the same conditions. It arrives when the conditions change. Distance, movement, and far fewer signals competing for your attention.

The Camino isn't a metaphor. It's a deliberate change of conditions. We walk the final 70 miles of the Camino Francés, Sarria to Santiago, six walking days through rural Galicia. Stone villages, eucalyptus woods, farm tracks, and the cathedral at the end of it. No technical difficulty. No performance. Just steady movement, your bag carried ahead of you, and enough road to hear yourself think.

2027 is a Holy Year. The Holy Door of the cathedral in Santiago is opened, and pilgrims walk through it. The last one was 2021. The next is 2032.

You'll be in a small group, six to ten, each carrying something that speed has not resolved. Not networking. Not a retreat. This is about changing the conditions you operate in so you decide differently when you get home.

Arriving in Santiago isn't the end. It's the beginning.

This is not a walking tour with a workshop attached. It's a deliberate change of conditions, led by someone who has been in both rooms.

You land at Santiago (SCQ) and transfer to Sarria, about two hours east, where the walk begins.

Settle in. Late afternoon we gather for the first time, and it is the only evening with any housekeeping in it. How the week runs. What the days ask of you. Your credencial, the pilgrim passport that gets stamped twice a day from here to Santiago and earns your Compostela at the end.

Then a welcome dinner, and an early night. You have been travelling and tomorrow you walk.

Overnight: Sarria
Meals: Welcome dinner

Early breakfast, then you walk out of Sarria and the week begins.

Oak woods, stone walls, farm tracks. Galician hórreos on stilts beside the houses, granaries built to keep grain off the damp ground. The Romanesque church at Barbadelo comes early and has been standing since the twelfth century.

This first day is about finding the rhythm. Walk alongside someone or walk alone. Nobody is keeping pace and nobody is keeping conversation going.

Lunch on the route. Late afternoon into Portomarín, up the steps from the river, into your own room.

Tonight, the first session. Why you came.

Distance: ≈13–14 miles
Walking time: 6 to 7 hours
Terrain: Oak woodland, farm tracks, country lanes
Overnight: Portomarín
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

Out of Portomarín across the Miño, then the longest sustained climb of the week, up toward the Sierra de Ligonde.

Gonzar, then Castromaior, where an Iron Age hillfort sits above the path. People were living on that hill two thousand years before anyone walked to Santiago. Ventas de Narón, Ligonde, Airexe. Small places, a few houses each, a bar that has been serving pilgrims for longer than anyone remembers.

The second long day back to back is where legs start to have opinions. It is also where the walking stops being novel and starts being yours.

Lunch on the route. Palas de Rei in the late afternoon.

Distance: ≈13–14 miles
Walking time: 6 to 7 hours
Terrain: Sustained climb, open country, small hamlets
Overnight: Palas de Rei
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

A short day, and it is short by design.

Woodland paths through San Xulián, Casanova and Leboreiro, then down to Furelos and across its medieval bridge into Melide. Four hours, maybe five. You arrive with the afternoon still in front of you.

Melide is the pulpo town. Octopus, boiled in copper pots, cut with scissors, served on wood with paprika and coarse salt. Go find some.

Tonight is the long session, and the short day is what makes room for it. You are halfway. Far enough in that the noise has dropped, far enough out that there is still road to think on.

Distance: ≈8–9 miles
Walking time: 4 to 5 hours
Terrain: Woodland, gentle descent, medieval bridge
Overnight: Melide
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

Another short one. Forest tracks and stream crossings, descending gently.

Boente, with its church of Santiago. Castañeda, where medieval pilgrims carried limestone toward the cathedral being built at Santiago. Then down to Ribadiso, across the river by the old pilgrim hospital, one of the oldest still standing anywhere on the Camino.

By now the trail has a texture. You recognize walkers you have passed for three days. Nobody needs to explain themselves.

Up into Arzúa, cheese country, the soft Arzúa-Ulloa they make in the farms you have been walking through.

Distance: ≈8–9 miles
Walking time: 4 to 5 hours
Terrain: Forest tracks, river crossings, farmland
Overnight: Arzúa
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

The longest day of the week, and the last full one.

Eucalyptus takes over here, tall and pale and loud in wind, and the smell of it stays with people long after they get home. Through Calzada, Salceda, past the chapel at Santa Irene, on to Rúa and Amenal.

Santiago is close enough now to feel. Most people notice their attention sharpening while their legs are doing the opposite. Walk it steady.

Lunch on the route. Into Amenal in the afternoon, and an early evening, because tomorrow you finish.

Distance: ≈14–15 miles
Walking time: 6 to 7 hours
Terrain: Eucalyptus forest, country lanes, long steady miles
Overnight: Amenal
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

The last miles. Forest gives way to the edges of the city, then to streets.

Lavacolla, where pilgrims for a thousand years stopped to wash before presenting themselves at the cathedral. Then Monte do Gozo, the Mount of Joy, where the spires come into view for the first time. Medieval pilgrims ran the last stretch from here to be first to see them.

Into the old city, through the arch, into the Praza do Obradoiro with the cathedral in front of you. People react differently and none of them are wrong.

Credencials to the Pilgrim's Office for your Compostela. The Pilgrim's Mass for those who want it, and the botafumeiro if it flies that day.

Later, the closing session. Not what happened out there. What you do with it now. Certificates at the end of it.

Then the celebration dinner, in Santiago, on the night you arrived.

Distance: ≈9–10 miles
Walking time: 4 to 5 hours
Terrain: Forest to city streets
Overnight: Santiago de Compostela
Meals: Breakfast, lunch, celebration dinner

Breakfast together, then the week ends.

Departure transfers run through the day around your flights. Nothing is scheduled, on purpose. Pack, say goodbyes, or take an hour in the city on your own before you go.

Buen Camino.

Meals: Breakfast