“I just really disconnected, not completely”: Extended Walking Pilgrimage, Smart Phones, and Social Ties

Abstract

Pilgrims who engage in extended walking often note the desire to escape their everyday lives, to take on new roles, and to connect with self and unknown others in fresh ways. At the same time, researchers have stressed the weight of digital technologies and mobile media in contemporary experiences of extended walking pilgrimage. I extend the conversation by exploring the stories of pilgrims who desire to escape the everyday as they reassess their sense of self in the wake of ending intimate long-term relationships. Drawing from ten formal in-depth interviews with individuals who have engaged in extended walking on the Camino de Santiago and the Appalachian Trail, I detail the numerous social forces that intersect as pilgrims work to distance themselves from digital obligations to claim time away. I illustrate how their relationship to smart phones, economic position, life stage, and the character of their intimate relationships off the trail shape their time away from everyday life as they work to fortify self and reflect on relational loss. My findings suggest directions for new research to explore how social position and ever-present digital connections shape walking pilgrimage in a post-COVID world.