I have been following Joanna Penn for a while as her podcast on being a self-published author is one of the biggest podcasts within the subgenre. When I heard she was holding a Kickstarter for a new book – one themed around travel – I was instantly intrigued. And it didn’t hurt that the Kickstarter made it to the stretch goal where her notes on writing a travel memoir would be released.

Pilgrimage is a book about Penn’s three pilgrimages, why she did them, and how the reader can carry out a pilgrimage too. The book is divided into three sections:

1. Preparing for the journey
2. The journey itself
3. Arriving and the return home

Given that this book is both a ‘how-to’ guide and a memoir, it’s not surprising that one half dominates. In Pilgrimage’s case, I felt that the ‘how-to’ section was a lot stronger; the first section was pretty much on the practicalities of preparing for a pilgrimage and even the second pilgrimage section had chapters on things like food and what to carry. Each chapter also ends with a list of questions/journalling prompts and/or resources. Personally, I didn’t need the resources/prompts at the end of every chapter – when it came to the more personal chapters, having a list of questions at the end felt out of place.

Of course, my favourite parts of the book were the more personal chapters (especially since the odds of me doing a multi-day walk are very small). Penn touched upon her journey from evangelical to non-believer in one early chapter, and I really wanted to hear more about that and how it influenced the way she experienced the pilgrimages; she has another chapter titled “a glimpse of the divine in sacred places” and I had hoped that chapter would relate back more to her past. It does feel like presenting the practical information on how to go on a pilgrimage helped to put a bit of distance between the reader and the more personal, possibly touchy things.

Would I have read a version of this book that had zero pilgrimage advice but focused solely on her personal journey? Absolutely.

In fact, this together with the mini e-book “Notes on Writing a Travel Memoir” was interesting. Penn goes through her journey writing the book and how this was different from her other non-fiction. I did think it interesting that the chapter on menopause resonated with a lot of people, mostly because I read it as an “aside” and didn’t realise how much courage it took to put it out there – that behind the scene’s look was very interesting to me!

Overall, I found this to be an interesting book. I have always toyed with the idea of travel writing, though I find that I am not descriptive enough in my travel posts, so that is one huge difficulty right there! But the fact that Pilgrimage manages not to be too personal through the concrete tips on how to conduct a pilgrimage makes encourages me that perhaps one doesn’t need to be too personal to write a travel memoir. It was lovely to see Penn’s journey and receive some tips on how to conduct a pilgrimage and I can definitely see myself revisiting this book.