California to Jerusalem
the route
keep life simple?
[Updated from Spain March 2010]
We will began our walk formally on 16 January 2009 when we headed south east toward the southern deserts. Before that we had already made our beginning. We started earlier when we walked from our home to San Louis Obispo. Before we made our formal start we had walked as far as Solvang going one day at a time farther and returning by bus to our parked car.
We have walked 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 crossed Kansas on the Santa Fe Trail. The Katy Trail across Missouri was next. We then headed north along the Mississippi and cross Illinois to Woodstock where I grew up and still have family. Along the way we visited two of my sisters in Kansas. We made it to Woodstock by mid-August.
Next we went up to Milwaukee, crossed Lake Michigan on a ferry, crossed Michigan and southern Ontario to Niagara Falls. And finally it was the Erie Canal and the Hudson River to New York City. That took us till early December.
After visiting a friend in Brooklyn we flew to Lisbon, Portugal and walked to Santiago de Compostela and Finisterra. After visiting Germany for Petra's mother's 80th birthday, I returned to Santiago and am now walking the Camino de Santiago east. Petra's staying back in Germany sitting out this section because we have both walked it three times before. From Puente la Reina on the east end of the Camino, we'll continue to walk across southern Europe. At this time it looks like we'll walk down the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic through Croatia and Albania to Greece. There really is no reason to walk to Rome since we have already been there and done that. We wrote about this walk in our book Germany to Rome in 64 days.
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 Istanbul then either through Ankara or along the coast and through Syria or through Cyprus
- And a hundred or so other combinations.
This and 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, an Excel spreadsheet with routes and mileage showing where we have been.
- 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.