Great book by Robert Macfarlane, "The Old Ways" (NY: Viking, 2013).
This choice line about pilgrimage:
...many of Chaucer’s pilgrims traveled on horseback; while the hajj to Mecca now involves air travel for the majority of pilgrims. But there are two obvious differences between walking and vehicular travel. The first is that walking is a full-body experience; mind and body function inseparably, such that thought becomes both site-specific and motion-sensitive. The second is that on foot you are unshielded from the world. There is no sheltering glass or steel between you and the weather, and whoever or whatever you might encounter. Walking a path, you greet or chat with the people you meet: I can’t remember ever having flagged down a stranger’s car on the other side of the highway to talk things over.
Here's link to the book review of the book in NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/travel/why-walk.html?_r=0
The road, friends: the road calls!
Buen camino!
Brett
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