Book Review: Pilgrimage by J.F. Penn

Reviewed by Joelene Pynnonen

A grounded, interactive travel memoir that exalts in the spiritual power of walking the ancient routes of the Saints

In October 2020, Joanna Penn began her first pilgrimage. While it was something she had been wanting to do for a long time, she never made the time for it until the state of the world demanded it. This was between the times of the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Like the rest of the world, the lockdowns took a toll on her mental health. Insomnia hit her hard, and being stuck at home had her doomscrolling through increasingly bleak news articles. Walking was her way of reclaiming all she had lost when the world shut down. Since that initial six-day walk, Penn has undertaken two other pilgrimages, each of them unique and interesting.

Pilgrimage is a few things rolled into one: a travel memoir, a multi-day walking resource, an interactive workbook, and even a spiritual advisor. It includes further resources for people who are planning their own pilgrimage, questions that delve into readers’ motivations and expectations, photos, quotes from other pilgrims, notes on the specific journeys Penn took, and her story.

For anyone who has wanted to embark on a multi-day hike and needs the motivation or tools to begin, Pilgrimage is exactly what you’re looking for. Penn’s story is motivational while still being resourceful. Beginning her first solo pilgrimage as a forty-five-year-old woman, she offers tools and questionnaires to help others start their journeys. There are also sections that will help readers during their walk and to unpack their thoughts and experiences once the pilgrimage is over. The questionnaires through each part of the process are designed to help with both practical and profound matters. They discuss things ranging from food and accommodation to helping unpack readers’ fears, hopes, and spiritual expectations.

The way people walk and the routes they take is a deeply personal thing. It changes for each individual. While Pilgrimage will light a spark inside every reader, it could also cure readers of wanting to embark on one. There’s a sense of pain through the pages of Pilgrimage. The bustle and stress of the cities Penn passes through, the discomfort of the uneven cobblestones or hard pavement that causes blisters. It’s fascinating to read about a different walking experience, but some readers who aren’t long-distance walkers could lose some motivation from the sheer truth of it all.

Pilgrimage is different than other walking memoirs I’ve read. While Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Raynor Winn’s Salt Path both explore psychological healing through the power of long-distance hiking, they somehow lack the weight and gravity of Pilgrimage. This isn’t a failing on the part of any of these wonderful memoirs, rather a difference in perspective. While Strayed and Winn’s walks brought them back to hectic, lovely life, Penn walks to anchor herself in the reality of things. Her multi-day expeditions truly mirror the title; they are pilgrimages that open spiritual revelations for her. The historical significance of the paths she treads remind her she will not be alive in this world forever. Many people will follow the path after her, just as she follows the thousands that came before her. There is a lovely, if heavy, symmetry to this that stays with us through the pages.

Anyone interested in major pilgrimage routes, in long distance hikes, or in spiritual memoirs will find something to enjoy in these pages. Pilgrimage shows the capacity of the human spirit to endure mile upon mile as it seeks to find something, or change something, profoundly about itself. A true-to-life, transformational journey that will spark something deep inside every reader.

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