“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson  Hi, my name is Gina Duncan and I have felt the pull of the world beckoning for me to travel the paths that so many others have taken before me and have been taking and leading pilgrimages for the past 11 years.  I went on my first Pilgrimage in 2005. There were 12 of us, 4 adults and 8 teenagers who traveled on a Pilgrimage to Maine, USA.  Our focus was nature and focusing on being quiet so that you can truly hear.  Our location was Monhegan Island, 10 miles off the coast of Maine.  You can only get to the island by a 1 hour ferry ride.  No vehicles are allowed, in fact there aren’t even any roads on the island and many in this small artist community don’t even have electricity. The setting  was a perfect location for meditation, inspirational prayer, and having experiences outside of your normal daily routine all important elements for a pilgrimage. Since that first pilgrimage I have twice been to the monastic community of Taize in France, traveled 24 hours by every means of transportation to the community of Iona a small island in the inner Hebrides on the western coast of Scotland, discovering adventure and culture in Alaska and walking the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James in Compestello, Spain.  I will be walking the Camino for the second time this Summer, 2017.

On each pilgrimage the traveling is a pilgrimage journey of itself.  These travel days I have filled with lobster catching on a boat in Canadian waters, visiting castles, leading faith discussions with teenagers from around the world, painting lighthouses with a community of artists, running in a highland games, dancing the ceilidhs, dogsledding with the winning team of the Alaskan Iditarod,  and visiting a salmon weir.  I have slept in a yurt, more youth hostels than I can count, a castle, several churches and albergues.