California to Jerusalem
the route

Supporting pages.

We will begin our walk formally on or about New Year's Day 2009 when we head south east toward the southern deserts. But we have already made our beginning. We actually started earlier this year when we walked from here to San Louis Obispo. In the past few days we have extended that to Orcutt and in the process stepped into the Pacific in Pismo Beach. And before we make that formal beginning, we will walk more steps. So on that beginning day, we will start at the place where we have already walked to.

We will walk from our home to the Pacific and on forward through the Mojave and Arizona-New Mexico Deserts to Albuquerque by mid-March for a gathering of the American Pilgrims of the Camino. Then we'll cross Kansas on the Santa Fe Trail. The Katy Trail across Missouri is next. We'll then head north along the Mississippi and cross Illinois to Woodstock where I grew up and still have family. Along the way we'll visits two of my sisters in Kansas. Current estimates put us in northern Illinois in early- or mid-July (around 160 days) depending on how long and where we stop along the way.

Next we continue east to step into the Atlantic to complete our Pacific-to-Atlantic portion of the walk. Our ultimate East-Coast destination depends on where we can get a freighter for Portugal or Spain: New York, Philadelphia, Virginia, or South Carolina? If we give ourselves a day off each week or so, the total time across the US should be somewhere around 212 days, 35 weeks, about 9 months. That takes us until around October or November, depending on how long we stop along the way.

From Portugal or Spain, we'll will walk across southern Europe and then maybe down Italy to Rome and on to Bari and across to Greece. Alternately we could walk down the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic through Croatia and Albania to Greece. There is plenty of time to decide on one or the other. From this vantage point it looks like we'll walk the former, maybe even through Assisi rather than along the Via Francigena where we have already walked. There really is no reason to walk to Rome since we have already been there and done that. But it is always a nice place to visit.

From western Greece we have many options:

• Greece, the Islands, Crete, and Cyprus
• A similar route but southern Turkey instead of Cyprus
• Greece as far south as Athens and across to Izmir, Turkey
• Greece as far south as Athens and back up to Istanbulthen either through Ankara or along the coast and through Syria or through Cyprus
• And a hundred or so other combinations.

This page gives you an overview of where we plan to walk as we sit in Paso Robles before we begin to walk. The following pages give you details on where we have walked already and where we are planning to walk as we proceed.

• Our journal, WalkingEast.com, is our periodic reports on where we are, what we've been doing, where we're going, and our current thoughts, feelings, and insights.
• Our route in graphs shows you where we've been and where we are going with graphic charts. We'll update this page periodically as we walk.
• Our stops, both planned and actual is an Excel spreadsheet with routes and mileage showing where we have been and where we are going in text form.
• Our planning page is a working page. We are using this page as we walk to determine our exact routes. You can wander it to see where our dreams are leading us. But it the actual route is subject to change at any time.

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