August 4, 2025 For me, the day’s highlight was being able to witness the most important life cycle passage in Balinese culture: cremation. It’s considered a deeply spiritual ritual to prepare the soul for its journey into the afterlife—and reincarnation. Cremations in Bali are celebratory, even joyful occasions, seen as the last step before the […]
August 4, 2025 On the tour I led in Bali last year, one of my students spent time in Sideman and loved it. When she saw on Facebook that I was going, she texted me the name of a local guide she loved, Gede Darya, so I wrote to him on Whatsapp and hired him
August 3, 2025 At 5 AM, in the dark, I hopped on the back of Toto’s scooter, and we took off to the village of Bungaya, Bali to watch the morning market unfold. When we got there, men and women were arriving on motorcycles and on foot, heads stacked high with goods to sell. As
Early Morning Market Read More »
August 2, 2025 I landed in Candidasa, Bali last night and am spending my first two nights at The Lotus Bungalows, a place I’m very familiar with. It’s the first hotel my writers will stay in when they fly in nine days from now. I decided to stay here my first two nights to get
First Full Day in Bali Read More »
I’m writing this next installment of my companionship saga at the San Francisco airport. My daughter dropped me off here an hour ago. I whizzed through check-in and security and am currently waiting for my first flight, a 12-hour overnight flight to Taipei. The fact that I’m flying to Asia tonight is just starting to
Will She Make It or Won’t She? Read More »
July 30, 2025 I take people all over the world but am afraid to travel alone. It’s a bit strange to start a travel blog by telling you I’m scared to travel, but here I am, the morning of my departure, with my suitcase and backpack packed, and that’s what’s going on. Don’t get me
I take people all over the world but am afraid to travel alone. Read More »
I can’t believe I’m leaving for Bali in less than a week, but the piles on my office floor, my plane ticket from San Francisco to Taipei to Denpasar, and the stack of little lined notebooks I’m bringing as welcome gifts for my writing students are all proof that this trip is really about to
Join Me On a Great Virtual Vacation In Bali Read More »
It’s time to close out this Creative Camino travel blog. It’s been a real pleasure creating it for you. I love modeling travel writing for my students. I love the discipline of creating these daily posts. I love having to write them on the fly, usually late at night when I should be sleeping. It’s
Goodbye For Now From Laura Read More »
It’s hard to know exactly what to say at the end of a journey as delightful and remarkable as this one. But I will try. Today, half our group got on airplanes to travel home or to new destinations; the other half opted for one more day together, traveling down to Finisterre, which some consider
Zero Kilometers Again? Read More »
Today, we reached the final destination of our Creative Camino: Santiago de Compostela. We walked into the city from our hotel at kilometer 9. I didn’t get to do the final part of the Camino last year; I got sick and had to leave my own trip the day before we actually walked into the
Kilometer Zero: Santiago Read More »
I don’t know how the time has flown by so fast, but our Creative Camino is drawing to a close. Tomorrow we will walk into Santiago—kilometer zero—the destination of all the Caminos. After that, we’ll have one more day together as a group, and the morning after that, just a few days from now, we’ll
12 Kilometers to Santiago Read More »
Today was the longest walking day of our Camino pilgrimage. We walked over 16 miles. Now it is 6:30 PM and I am lying in my hotel bedroom right now with my feet up. I just massaged them with something called Green Goo Foot Care Salve, which is made of calendula, yarrow and comfrey. It
Today was the last “rest day” on our pilgrimage. From here on out, it will be a straight shot to Santiago, walking every day. I have loved the rhythm we created for this retreat, walking the last 100 kilometers of the Camino with five extra days off to focus on creativity. These extra rest days
Every morning before we start to walk, we gather in a circle and I pull out a little blue cloth bag filled with quotations I’ve collected about pilgrimage and walking, growth and life. I printed them out before I left Santa Cruz on stiff oaktag at Kinko’s and spent a couple of evenings in front
A Poem a Day on the Camino Read More »
I never expected that I’d write a blog post about our Creative Camino pilgrimage entitled “love.” But it was the undeniable choice for today’s post. Our group—twelve pilgrims and three leaders (who of course are pilgrims in their own right)—has bonded so beautifully. The kindness and compassion with which we are greeting each other is
