The Depressed Backpacker: Recovering from Depression on the Camino de Santiago

I expected churches, superfluities of reassuringly short nuns, and priests with foot-long beards. I expected beard envy. I didn’t expect to be surrounded by hot chicks in horribly attractive bikinis, sprawling on their bunks.

This is my account of recovering from a depression caused by life events. My recovery occurred during a six-week backpacking trip along the Camino de Santiago – a popular pilgrimage and hiking route that extends 750 kilometres across the north of Spain.

The environment of the Camino is like a toolkit for the mind, offering peaceful introspection, unique social interactions, measurable daily achievements and frequent new experiences. This book journals both my hike and my recovery, and will hopefully be of benefit to people with depression or social anxiety.

Please note there is some strong language.