The cultural anthropologist Victor Turner describes pilgrimages as “transition rights” or “rites de passage,” journeys which accompany every change of state or social position. According to Turner, these transitions are marked by three stages: separation, marginal/liminal phase, and reaggregation. As students studying the pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela and also embarking on the Camino, we felt separation, which Turner describes as “the detachment of the individual from an earlier fixed point in social structure.” We left behind our traditional, American lifestyles to become pilgrims. We also entered the liminal stage during our journey, which Turner defined as the “betwixt and between” portion of pilgrimage. So what happens next? To characterize this reintegration, I asked pilgrims who had walked the Camino before how they felt once they returned home.

Our Camino buddy from the Netherlands, Constance with the author.

A 69 year old woman from the Netherlands, who has walked the Camino seven times and done the Portuguese route twice, describes getting back to reality after the Camino as rather difficult. She misses the daily dose of nature and exercise, but most of all, following each pilgrimage, she realizes she has too many material things. She tends to adapt to living minimally along the Camino. Once back home, she donates many of her things – often feeling guilty for living so lavishly, when she survived with a simple backpack for several weeks during her trip.

Jane, a Canadian woman in her 60s who has hiked two previous Caminos, said getting back to reality after the Camino is easy. She feels exactly the same when she returns home, but does miss meeting new people everyday. Jane said she has moments, once she is back home in Canada, when she remembers and misses the Camino trails. She will be at a hockey game or at work and her mind will travel back to the Camino path. These memories make her feel happy, while also bringing her relaxation. To her, there is something serene about simply recalling Camino memories and this helps her during her post-pilgrimage reaggregation.

Camino friend Jane in the foreground

For some, reintegration brings no change, while for others it brings abrupt lifestyle adjustments. There are also a select few who take only memories from their pilgrimage to channel inner peace and enhance their daily living. Regardless, pilgrims return home with a sense of completion. Similar to the Camino itself, reaggregation is specific to each individual.