Episode 5: What Are You Walking Away From? What Are You Walking Towards?
The Camino de Santiago is an ancient pilgrimage that dates back over a thousand years and traces its roots back to medieval stories and miracles.
In the final episode of our Flights Summer Book Club, host Stephanie Tam shares her week-long pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Why have people been drawn to walk the Camino from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century? Why are more people than ever—over half a million in 2025, both religious and non-religious, with numbers steadily increasing—walking to Santiago today? What are they walking towards? And what are they walking away from?
And why did Stephanie decide to make the trek? What surprised her along the way? Did she find what she was looking for?
Follow Behavioral Scientist Reads wherever you get your podcasts, including: Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
Map and photos from Stephanie’s journey
Stephanie has added key spots and photos from her journey along the Camino to our shared travel and memory map. You can view the town where she started her journey, befriended a stray dog, discovered the Iron Age fort ruins, the detour to the Romanesque church, the pulperia that serves “the best seafood on the Camino,” Finisterre (aka “The World’s End”), and more. Look for the yellow shell on the map to explore these places.
And here are some of Stephanie’s favorite photos from the trip:
Resources and media related the Camino de Santiago
- “The Way” (movie)
- “Pilgrimage” (BBC television series)
- “Shall We Walk Together” (Korean television episode)
- Pilgrim’s Reception Office (which collects the pilgrim statistics)
- Wise Pilgrim (the pilgrimage app Stephanie used)
Our itinerary
What you can do this week
- Listen to episode 5
- Check out Stephanie’s key Camino points on the shared map
- Share your reactions to Stephanie’s journey in the WhatsApp community
Episode 5 was produced, edited, and mixed by Stephanie Tam with help from Evan Nesterak. Our theme music was composed by Nina Humphreys.
Thank you to the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science & Public Policy at Princeton University for sponsoring Behavioral Scientist Reads and helping to make the podcast possible.
