Review: "To Walk It Is to See It" by Kathy Elkind

To Walk It Is to See It by Kathy Elkind
Published August 2023 via She Writes Press
★★★

There is a saying: An adventure is not worth telling if there are no dragons. (loc. 127)

I say that I'm a semi-reformed nomad, and it's books like these that keep the 'semi' part of that in play. Surely I could lace up my boots, lock up my apartment, and go out into the mountains for a few weeks...or months?

When Elkind and her husband Jim wanted an adventure, they did that: they picked the GR5, a route that winds from the Netherlands all the way down to the south of France. As the kilometers slipped by, the route got tougher—but so did they.

This is the second book I've read in as many months about the Grande Randonnée network (the first was The Twenty, about the GR20), and my goodness it fuels the wanderlust. Elkind and her husband had pretty quiet dragons on the trail, all things considered—occasional wrenches thrown in the works, but it would be stranger if there were none in 98 days of walking! Her dragons tend to come more from within, when looking back at years past. I'm particularly intrigued by Elkind's writing about her dyslexia, for which she did not receive adequate support as a child—not learning to read until grade seven—and the fact that she ended up teaching elementary school, with a focus on reading. We teach what we need to learn, she says (loc. 775), and I wonder how much else that might apply to.

I read piles and piles of books about the Camino before I walked that, and another stack or two after—perhaps these books about the GR trails herald a new adventure? One can dream.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.