An Invitation to Keep Exploring

Beyond the Trans Canada Trail: More Journeys with Come Walk With Us

 
When we first stepped away from Cape Spear, Newfoundland, in 2019 on our #Hike4Birds, our attention was fixed on the thousands of kilometres of Canada that lay ahead. We hoped to follow the Trans Canada Trail from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic, discovering the landscapes, communities, birds, wildlife, and histories of our own country at walking speed. What began as an ambitious journey eventually became six years of walking, almost 18,000 kilometres of trail, and an adventure that carried us from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific to the Arctic.

 
Yet the Trans Canada Trail was never our first long-distance walk, nor would arriving at the Arctic Ocean mark the end of our desire to explore. Before setting out across Canada, we had already wandered along the Niagara Escarpment, followed the rugged coastline of Newfoundland, and experienced the ancient pilgrimage routes of Europe. In the years since and those that followed, our travels continued along mountain pathways, coastal trails, railway lines, and across the Atlantic Ocean aboard ships that allowed us to experience the distance between continents rather than simply fly over it.
 
Each journey has been different, but all have grown from the same curiosity: a desire to slow down, pay attention, and discover the natural and human stories that connect the places through which we travel.  For those who have joined us along the Trans Canada Trail, we would like to offer an invitation to keep exploring through our travel journals and photographs.
 

Before We Walked Across Canada

 
Long before we set out from Cape Spear, our interest in long-distance hiking had developed through years spent following the Bruce Trail along Ontario's Niagara Escarpment. From the vineyards and woodlands of the Niagara Peninsula to the limestone cliffs and forests of the Bruce Peninsula, the trail introduced us to the remarkable natural and cultural diversity that can be found within a single region. Walking it in sections over many years also taught us that exploration does not always require travelling far from home. Sometimes it means returning to familiar places in different seasons, noticing what has changed, and gradually developing a deeper understanding of the landscape.

 
Our curiosity eventually carried us farther east to Newfoundland, where we followed the East Coast Trail along the Avalon Peninsula in 2018 as we trained for the Trans Canada Trail (along its easternmost segment). Its coastal cliffs, ocean-side communities, seabird colonies, and exposed Atlantic landscapes offered a very different kind of walking experience. That journey also brought us to the region where our much larger adventure across Canada would eventually begin. As such, when we returned to Cape Spear in June 2019, the coastline was no longer entirely unfamiliar – though the journey ahead was unlike anything we had previously undertaken.

 
These earlier walks helped establish the interests that would later shape Come Walk With Us and our #Hike4Birds. We were drawn not simply to the challenge of covering distance, but to the opportunity to observe birds, wildlife and nature, explore local histories, meet people, and discover how landscapes can be experienced by slowly hiking across them.
 

Following the Ancient Pilgrimage Routes of Europe

 
Beyond Canada, our experiences in Europe introduced another dimension to long-distance walking. In 2016, at the height of a family and personal crisis, we followed the Camino Francés across Spain, travelling approximately 800 kilometres from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela. Walking through the Pyrenees, agricultural countryside, historic towns, and the landscapes of northern Spain offered our first sustained experience of pilgrimage. Along the way, we discovered that the Camino was about much more than reaching a destination. It was also about the people we encountered, the history around us, and the ordinary routines that gradually become the substance of a long journey.

 
We returned to France the following year to follow the Via Podiensis, or GR65, from Le Puy-en-Velay toward the Pyrenees. Crossing the volcanic landscapes of the Massif Central, the Aubrac plateau, and the villages and countryside of southwestern France introduced us to another pilgrimage tradition. Although the route eventually connects us back with the Camino Francés, its landscapes, communities, and walking culture gave it a character entirely its own.

 
Since those early journeys, we have returned to the Caminos of Spain and Portugal many times. The Camino Portugués carried us north from Lisbon through Porto toward Santiago, while our later Portuguese Coastal and Spiritual pilgrimage introduced us to the Atlantic shoreline and waterways of northwestern Portugal and Galicia. We also explored the dramatic coastal landscapes of southern Portugal on the Rota Vicentina, where sandy pathways, cliffs, coastal vegetation, and opportunities for birdwatching offered another experience of travelling slowly beside the ocean.

 
Other pilgrimages challenged our expectations in different ways. In 2022, while waiting for the seasons to change at home, we connected the Camino de Madrid, the mountainous Camino San Salvador, and the demanding Camino Primitivo into one extended journey across Spain. Despite having already completed several long-distance walks, we discovered that experience did not eliminate uncertainty, fatigue, or the need to adapt to difficult circumstances.

 
In spring 2025, an unexpected arrival in Cádiz, Spain (which in itself is another whole story) led us to begin another connected pilgrimage, following the Via Augusta, Via de la Plata, and Camino Sanabrés once again toward Santiago de Compostela. That journey carried us through Roman history, agricultural landscapes, historic cities, and rural communities, but it also became one of the most difficult pilgrimages and hikes we had undertaken. It reminded us that walking slowly can deepen our appreciation of a place without necessarily making every experience pleasant or easy.

 
Together, these Caminos have given us opportunities to consider the meaning of pilgrimage, the relationship between walking and reflection, and how returning to familiar traditions can reveal something different each time. For each opportunity, we have been profoundly grateful.
 

Walking Across Britain

 
Our curiosity about long-distance trails also carried us to the United Kingdom, where we spent the early part of 2024 following several of Britain's established walking routes. After crossing the Atlantic aboard Queen Mary 2, we began with Wainwright's Coast to Coast, travelling across northern England from the Irish Sea to the North Sea. Crossing the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, and North York Moors introduced us to three distinctive national parks and a walking tradition shaped by public footpaths, working farms, quaint village pubs, and centuries of settlement.

 
After another trail and a series of technical difficulties, we then turned north to Scotland, walking one of the country’s most popular and busiest pathways - the West Highland Way through lochs, forests, open moorland, and mountainous terrain.  Beyond which, we continued along the Great Glen Way, following the remarkable geological corridor linking Fort William and Inverness, rambling along engineered waterways, mythological lochs, and through communities connected by the Caledonian Canal.

 
Our British walking adventures eventually brought us to Hadrian's Wall Path, where the landscape became inseparable from the history of the Roman frontier. By then, weeks of walking and difficult weather had taken their toll, reminding us that even shorter national trails can become challenging when undertaken as part of a much longer sequence of journeys.

 
These routes offered a fascinating contrast to the Trans Canada Trail while also getting us back in shape to return to it.   Britain has an extensive network of public footpaths, ancient rights of way, and long-established walking traditions, often passing through landscapes that have been inhabited, farmed, and travelled for centuries. Yet despite the differences in scale and history, we found ourselves asking many of the same questions about conservation, public access, cultural heritage, and the relationship between people and the places through which they travel.
 

Discovering Canada by Rail

 
Of course, not all our journeys have been undertaken on foot. Travelling by train has also played an important role in developing our appreciation for Canada's geography and the distances that connect its communities.
 
Aboard VIA Rail's Ocean, we have repeatedly travelled from Halifax through New Brunswick and Québec to Montréal, continuing onward through to Toronto, Ontario, on the Corridor service. The experience offered a different perspective on the communities, forests, waterways, and railway corridors of eastern Canada.

 
Beyond the east coast, our trail travels continued aboard VIA Rail's Canadian, which has carried us much farther (many, many, many times), from Toronto to Vancouver, through Northern Ontario, across the Prairies, and into the Rocky Mountains. Over four nights and five days, we watched entire regions of the country pass by beyond the train windows.  In fact, I think it is safe to say that for almost two decades the two of us spent much of our time exploring the country through trips on the Ocean and Canadian as we travelled between school, friends, family, work obligations, and simply to explore.

 
These railway experiences helped inspire our desire to explore Canada more closely on foot. They revealed the extraordinary scale and diversity of the country while leaving us curious about everything that remained beyond the tracks. Eventually, we would return to many of these regions along the Trans Canada Trail, travelling through communities and landscapes at a pace that allowed us to notice details the railway could only introduce us to.

 
There is a remarkable difference between crossing a province in a day or two and spending weeks or months walking through it. Yet both experiences offer opportunities to consider how communities, transportation corridors, and geography connect the country together.  These trains also afford people the opportunity to see the natural wonders and diversity of the nation with ease.
 

Crossing Oceans and Exploring Northern Waters

 
Our interest in travelling slowly eventually extended beyond trails and railway lines to the sea. Rather than flying between continents, we began exploring the possibility of making ocean crossings part of the journey.
 
In 2024, we sailed eastbound across the Atlantic aboard Cunard's Queen Mary 2, beginning a series of British walking adventures that concluded with a westbound return crossing taking us from Southampton back to New York. Life aboard the world’s last operational ocean liner introduced us to a different rhythm of travel, with days shaped by the passage of the ship, changing weather, conversations with fellow passengers, and opportunities to observe seabirds and marine wildlife far from land. 

 
We later crossed the Atlantic aboard the sailing yacht Wind Surf, travelling from the Caribbean toward Europe in 2025. Changing weather altered our intended itinerary, eventually bringing us to Cádiz and helping inspire another long pilgrimage across Spain. We returned aboard Wind Surf in 2026 for a second eastbound Atlantic crossing, discovering that even a familiar ship and ocean can offer a very different experience depending on the circumstances that bring us aboard and those en route.

 
Other voyages drew us toward northern landscapes. Sailing through Alaska's Inside Passage aboard Queen Elizabeth introduced us to forested islands, glaciers, fjords, whales, and seabirds along the Pacific coastline. In 2025, our voyage aboard Ambience carried us from the UK along the Norwegian coast and beyond the Arctic Circle, where we experienced the Northern Lights, participated in marine wildlife observations, and discovered historic communities connected to northern pilgrimage traditions that immediately began to draw us to them.

 
Given the natural beauty of the north, we returned to Norway and Iceland in 2026 aboard Queen Mary 2 on a solar eclipse voyage. Although clouds obscured the anticipated eclipse, the experience offered another reminder that nature does not follow our expectations or itineraries.
 
For us, travelling by sea has never replaced hiking. It has simply offered another perspective on the landscapes, wildlife, history, and distances that continue to fascinate us. Whether watching whales from the deck of a ship or looking for birds along an unfamiliar coastal trail, we find ourselves approaching the natural world with much the same curiosity.  These voyages have also afforded us the opportunity to begin to connect our hiking expeditions around the world through slow travel journeys across the sea.
 

Different Journeys, the Same Curiosity

 
Looking across these experiences, we are often struck by how much our journeys have differed. Some have involved months and years of walking through remote landscapes with everything we needed carried in our backpacks. Others have taken us through historic European towns, along established national trails, across Canada by railway, or between continents aboard ships.

 

With that said, there is no denying that not every journey has been easy or even enjoyable in every moment. We have encountered exhausting weather, difficult terrain, uncertainty, unexpected changes of plans, and circumstances that sometimes made us question why we had set out in the first place. We have also experienced extraordinary kindness, remarkable wildlife encounters, fascinating communities, and opportunities to appreciate places we might otherwise never have visited.

 
The Trans Canada Trail remains the largest single undertaking in our travels, but it is part of a much longer story of curiosity and exploration. The questions that accompanied us across Canada did not disappear when we reached either the Pacific or the Arctic Ocean. They continue to follow us along other trails, across railway lines, and over the seas to other continents and countries.  For readers who have followed our journey across Canada, we hope these other adventures offer further opportunities to explore the world at a slower pace. Each series includes our daily journals, photographs, wildlife observations, reflections, and the practical experiences that shaped our travels.
 
You can find all these adventures together in our Come Walk With Us Travel Experiences.
As we continue to add information about the Trans Canada Trail from coast to coast to coast and wherever the next journey takes us, we hope you will continue to Come Walk With Us and follow along.

 
See you on the trails, rails, and sails!