Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino (Woman on Her Way, #1)

What do you like most when reading about adventures: descriptions about the terrain, the culture, the challenges, the personal growth, the interactions between other adventures? Women of the Way successfully combines all these elements in a heartfelt and personal recounting of Jane V. Blanchard's 2011 five-hundred mile pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago—hiking from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France over the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles in Spain, and then westward across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostella.
Though Women of the Way is about Jane's journey on the Camino de Santiago and discussions with women she met along the way, this is not a "chic" book. It is about embracing the Camino. Jane discusses how she prepared for the Camino, the daily rituals in long-distance walking, the camaraderie, the personal changes, and the beauty and appeal of the most popular of all the pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela, the Camino Frances.

Jane V. Blanchard is the author of the award-winning "Woman on Her Way" series. Since retiring in 2011, she has visited sixteen countries by foot and by bicycle and written two books about her wanderings.
Jane was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Upon graduation from college, she worked as a travel guide in Madrid, Spain, and cried at her first bullfight. In 1975, she and her husband Dennis lived in a tent in Winchendon, Massachusetts, for six months (until December) while they built a log cabin. After two years of living off-the-grid, they lived a self-sufficient lifestyle on a five-acre "gentleman's" farm.
Before moving to Sarasota, Florida, she lived in Hampstead, New Hampshire for twenty-four years, where she raised two children, was a soccer and Odyssey of the Mind coach, and received the New Hampshire Excellence in Education Volunteer of the Year Award in 1996. She enjoyed hiking and biking, and climbed twenty of the forty 4,000-foot mountains in New England.
In her fifties, Jane started mountain biking and racing. In 2002, she placed second in the Eastern Fat Tire Association Senior Division. "Even though I was not the fastest competitor, I did attend and complete the majority of that year's races. Just like with the turtle and the hare, slow and consistent wins over fast but sporadic."
When she married in 1974, her husband Dennis and she joked about creating a lifetime of memories to chat about when sitting in their rockers in old age. Now in her late-60s, Jane is still creating memories, experiencing life as fully as possible, and looking forward to a long future. "I have to live long enough to write about all my adventures," she says.
In addition to having adventures, Jane enjoys gardening, cooking, reading, and spending time with friends and family.