TrailTracers 5

10 Powerful Life Lessons My Retreat Guests Learned While Walking the Camino de Santiago

Email 5: The Question No One Asks Before Their Camino (But Everyone Wishes They Had)

Between the planning and the packing, between choosing the right boots and the best backpack, there’s a conversation we rarely have about walking the Camino—one that matters more than any gear you might bring…

I was sitting with a cup of coffee in my farmhouse kitchen last week, watching rain patterns dance across the vineyard, when a message arrived from Claire, a past retreat participant:

“I keep thinking about something you asked me the day before I began walking. It changed everything about my experience, but I never would have thought to ask it myself.”

Her message brought me back to that question—one I now pose to every person before they step onto the Camino path with me. Today, I’d like to ask it of you, too.

The Questions We Ask (And Those We Don’t)

Most people preparing for the Camino have a mental list of practical questions:

• How many kilometres will we walk each day?
• What should I pack?
• Will my body handle the physical challenge?
• What if I get blisters?
• Are there toilets along the way?
• Can I fill up my water bottle as I walk?

These questions matter, of course. But beneath them lie the unasked questions—the ones we sometimes fear to articulate:

What am I really seeking?

Not the surface answer (“adventure” or “challenge” or “time away”), but the soul’s deeper yearning. What healing, what wisdom, what connection am I truly hoping to find?

What am I willing to leave behind?

Not just the extra shirt that won’t fit in your backpack, but the stories, identities, and certainties that may be too heavy to carry forward.

Who might I become if I fully surrender to this experience?

Beyond the photos you’ll take and the stories you’ll tell, how might this journey reshape the person who returns home?

What if I discover something about myself I’m not ready to see?

This is perhaps the most tender question of all—the fear that in the quiet steps and open landscapes, parts of yourself long ignored might finally demand attention.

The Space Between Question and Answer

Here’s what I’ve learned from guiding hundreds of pilgrims along these ancient paths, even as my own vision has diminished: the power isn’t in having perfect answers to these questions. The power is in creating space to let them breathe.

When Claire first encountered these questions, she laughed nervously and said, “I just want to see if I can walk that far.” Three days later, sitting beside a stream where she’d stopped for lunch, she thought, “I’ve been afraid of my own being on my own for years.”

That’s the alchemy of the Camino. The questions you bring become transformed through walking, through community, through the simple act of moving forward one step at a time.

Preparation Beyond Boots and Backpacks

If you’re considering joining us in the sunflower fields and ancient paths of southwest France, I invite you to try a different kind of preparation:

Find fifteen minutes of quiet. Light a candle if that helps create sacred space. Take three deep breaths. Then simply ask yourself:

What do I hope will be different in my life after this retreat?

Don’t rush to answer. Let the question sit with you like a companion. Notice what arises—not just the first thoughts, but the whispers that follow when you stay patient.

Whatever emerges—whether clarity or confusion, hope or apprehension—is exactly right. There is no correct answer, only your truth in this moment.

The Wisdom of Not Knowing

People often come to me expecting that, as a guide, I have all the answers. The truth is much simpler and more profound: I’ve simply learned to love the questions themselves.

My visual impairment has been my greatest teacher in this regard. When you cannot see the path clearly, you learn to trust the process of walking it. You develop senses beyond sight—intuition, presence, coping with uncertainty.

This is what I offer those who come to walk the Camino here: not certainty, but companionship in the questioning.

One participant, Robert, arrived determined to “figure out” his next career move during our retreat. Each day, he grew increasingly frustrated that clarity wasn’t arriving in the neat package he expected.

On our final evening, as we sat among the vineyard rows watching the sunset paint the sky, he suddenly laughed.

“I’ve been asking the wrong question,” he said. “I’ve been asking ‘What should I do?’ when I needed to ask ‘Who am I becoming?'”

The Question I Wish Someone Had Asked Me

Before my first Camino, over twenty years ago, I was meticulously prepared in all the practical ways. My backpack was perfectly packed. My route was thoroughly researched. I had trained my body for months.

But no one asked me the question I now wish they had:

What will you do with the space this retreat creates in your life?

Because the Camino does create space—in your mind, in your heart, in the way you perceive time and purpose and connection. This space is precious beyond measure in our crowded, demanding world. Yet without intention, it can quickly fill again with the same noise you temporarily escaped.

This is why my retreats include not just the walking, but the practices of integration—the journaling, the discussions, the silent reflections among ancient trees. These are not separate from the Camino experience; they are how the Camino becomes not just a memory but a transformation.

A Conversation Between Friends

If we were sitting together at my farmhouse table, steam rising from pottery mugs of coffee and tea, sunlight filtering through the windows, I would lean forward and ask you gently:

What feels unfinished in your life that the Camino might help complete?

Where do you feel most disconnected from yourself, and how might walking these ancient paths help restore that connection?

What brings you alive that you’ve been setting aside for too long?

These aren’t questions to answer to me or even to yourself in words. They’re invitations to a deeper conversation with your own wisdom—one that unfolds not in a single moment but across landscapes both physical and interior.

The beauty of walking the Camino together is that we create space for these conversations—with ourselves, with each other, with the land itself. We walk not just to arrive somewhere but to become more fully who we already are.

The Question That Awaits You

There’s a question that lives in the heart of the Camino itself—one that has whispered to pilgrims for a thousand years, though each hears it differently. I won’t name it here, because your version of this question is uniquely yours.

But I promise you this: if you come with an open heart, with willingness rather than certainty, that question will find you. Perhaps while standing in a field of sunflowers. Perhaps during our forest bathing meditation. Perhaps in conversation with a fellow walker whose story unexpectedly mirrors your own.

And though I cannot predict what your question will be, I can tell you from experience: it will be exactly the one you need.

The practical preparations matter, yes. But this inner preparation—this gentle turning toward your own unasked questions—this is what transforms a walk into a pilgrimage, a journey into a homecoming.

What’s weighing on your heart right now?
You don’t have to carry it alone.

What are you walking away from? What are you walking toward?
Hit reply and tell me. I read every message personally.

Buen Camino,
Margaretha Montagu

PS. This e-mail is part of a series I send to subscribers to my mailing list. If you would like to receive the free series, as well as the free 10 Powerful Lessons My Guests Learned While Walking the Camino de Santiago guide, you can subscribe by clicking here: Download the Guide.