Resources

California Mission Walk Route Guides & Blogs

Several California Mission Walkers have shared their experiences on these websites:

Robert’s 21 Days on the California Mission Trail
Kurt’s California Missions Trail:  walkpuravida.com
Edie Littlefield Sundby’s The Mission Walker: The Mission Walker
Kevin’s Beginner’s Guide to the California Mission Trail
Lin’s interview on Walking El Camino Real:  discover-central-california.com/walking-el-camino-real
Robert’s The Mission Walk: a California Pilgrimage
Walking El Camino Real de California facebook page: facebook.com/CaminoRealdeCalifornia
Bill’s Camino Real facebook page:  facebook.com/Bills-Camino-Real

Other Websites about the California Mission Walk

The California Missions Trail Alliance
The California Mission Guide to Walking the California Mission Trail
The Camino Serra pilgrimage, from Santa Clara to Carmel
The Mission Walker page on Wikipedia

Business that Welcome Mission Walkers

There is a growing list of businesses along the El Camino Real that welcome mission walkers! Look for the “Mission Walkers Welcome Here” decal in their windows. See the full list on our El Camino Real page

Books written by California Mission Walkers

– California Mission Walk: The Hiker’s Guide to California’s 21 Spanish Mission Along El Camino Real is available for the Kindle app from Amazon, and also in paperback from our Store. Ron “Butch” Briery wrote his trailblazing first edition hiker’s guidebook in 2012, leading hundreds of people to start walking the Mission Trail and form the California Mission Walkers community. Now with the benefit of an additional ten years of Mission Walking experience contributed by dozens of hikers, this fully-updated second edition of the guidebook is available!

– Sandy Brown cycled the mission trail in 2020, then walked it in 2021 and wrote a north to south guidebook Hiking and Cycling the California Missions Trail: From Sonoma to San Diego 

– Christian Clifford completed walking the mission trail in June 2020 and wrote the book Pilgrimage: In Search of the Real California Missions, January 2021

– The Mission Walker by Edie Littlefield Sundby, published July 2017, chronicles her battle with cancer, her California mission walk, and then her epic Baja California mission walk from Misión Nuestra Señora de Loreto Concho, Baja, Mexico, to San Diego, California, journeying 700 miles in 60 days, in the footsteps of Father Serra and Don Gaspar de Portola.

– Maggie Espinosa completed the California mission walk in 2014 and wrote the book On a Mission: An 800-mile Walk to Discover California’s El Camino Real, August 2015

California Mission Walk Route GPS Maps

– The latest up-to-date companion GPX files for the 2nd Edition California Mission Walk Guidebook are available for download from the Files section of the California Mission Walkers Facebook group
– GPS and Google Earth Routes for the California Mission Trail, from One Step Then Another
– Kurt has a Google Map of his route, which followed Butch’s original guidebook
– Mary’s mission walk GPS maps on Ride With GPS

Bicycling El Camino Real

Sandy Brown’s book Hiking and Cycling the California Missions Trail: From Sonoma to San Diego 
Sandy Brown’s Saddling up to ride the California Mission Walk video blog of his journey, July – August 2020
Along the King’s Road: A Guide to Touring the California Missions by Bicycle, book by Meredith Cherry, published in 2015
Ride With GPS bicycle route by Meredith Cherry
Join Warm Showers, a bicycling community that provides host homes to support bicyclists
Touring the California Missions by Bicycle Blog, 2013
In May 1995, Brian Wood and Matt Labovitz bicycled from Mission Buenaventura to Mission San Francisco Asís, sending daily email updates to elementary school students
On the 200 year bicentennial of the De Anza expedition, Frank Riley bicycled from the border of Mexico to San Francisco, along the mission trail and wrote the 1976 book De Anza’s Trail Today

Other California trails that overlap with El Camino Real

Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, maintained by the National Park Service,
with an interactive trail map
Camino de Sonoma, a 75-mile walking route from the mission in Sonoma to Fort Ross overlooking the Pacific Ocean
The Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship maintains several trails in Santa Cruz county
Santa Barbara County Trails Council
California Coastal Trail
The California Hiking Map, shows ALL of the trails in California, including the Mission Trail!
The Old Spanish Trail, from Santa Fe to Los Angeles

El Camino Real in Baja California

Corredor Histórico CAREM A.C. Museum and Library in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico supports the World Heritage project to designate the El Camino Real in both California and Mexico as an UNESCO World Heritage Trail.
Modern explorer Harry Crosby shed light on Baja treasures, San Diego Union Tribune, Aug 19, 2020

Other long walkers

Longwalking tips
SF Bay Area Hikers facebook page
John Sears travels all over California on foot with his 3 mules, advocating a walking trail system
Planet Walk, modeled on Dr. John Francis’s worldwide pilgrimage, works to sponsor walks nationally and internationally with the purpose of promoting environmental education and responsibility and a vision of world peace and cooperation
“This is our country. Let’s walk it.” New York Times article by Ken Ilgunas
American Volkssport Association (AVA), a national walking organization
The Great Trail, connected coast to coast 24,000 km across Canada

That other Camino: The Camino de Santiago de Compostela

American Pilgrims on the Camino