I can’t go to Spain so I am bringing the camino here

“I did it again,”

I whispered to myself.

I had reached the point of complete burnout. Again.

For the past five years, I’ve found myself here at the same time every year.

Every New Year, I promise myself it will be different. I will be different. I will make different choices. The years keep changing, but the way I feel hasn’t.

In August, I gave myself a month off. I’d wanted to do the Tour du Mont Blanc for as long as I could remember, and each year I’d put it off. Work always got in the way. This year, I made a promise to myself: it is happening. So I booked it.

Like every other break I’ve ever had, I arrived at the airport on departure day exhausted, questioning whether the ridiculous hours I’d worked in the weeks before were worth the time away at all knowing it would take me most of the break just to recover. I also started questioning my choice to do such a strenuous hike with “preparation” that mostly consisted of daily dog walks to the café and back, which was I guess was at least 3 kilometres away - and I had to get home.

I arrived in Geneva the next day and, with no time or patience for jet lag, we walked around the very clean and shiny (not to mention hideously expensive) city. The sun was out. Lake Geneva glistened. It felt polished, impressive, and slightly unreal.

But it wasn’t until we reached Chamonix, France, the following day that I felt like I could actually breathe out. Really breathe out.

Chamonix is an adventurer’s wonderland — breathtakingly beautiful, sitting at the base of Mont Blanc, alive with hikers and climbers and people who look like they belong outdoors. The place was alive. It was time for me to feel the same.

Chamonix - Photo Sally Coates

We started the next morning, setting off at 6:30 am to take the gondola up to the trailhead. As we waited, surrounded by other hikers, there was that mix of excitement and uncertainty about what lay ahead. I’d done a couple of challenging hikes, but well over a decade earlier, so I was nervous — and of course, excited. Seven days through France, Italy and Switzerland. No phone service. No email. I repeat, NO email. Joy!

The hike was more challenging than I expected. There were moments when my heart was beating so hard and fast I thought it might pop out of my chest. I got severe sunstroke on day two and ended up with heavy blistering on both arms — hideously painful. My big toes turned black and each night, I fell into bed exhausted.

And yet, for every moment of that seven-day hike, I felt alive. Truly alive.

My body was pushed. My mind stayed focused on each foot placement. My spirits kept lifting. The scenery felt like a movie set — too beautiful to be real. Other hikers were happy and friendly. We made it through each day without getting lost. We walked anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five kilometres a day, starting early, and finishing with enough time left to rest, reset, and reflect.

It was bliss.

Photo from Tour Du Mont Blanc Hike - Sally Coates

I came home feeling invigorated, relaxed and energised.

And then reality hit.

I was back — back to a reality I had manage to escape in the mountains of Europe. A hard reality. I do hard. I’ve always done hard. But this was hard on a whole new level.

I returned eleven weeks ago and have had one weekend off while consistently working twelve- and fourteen-hour days. It has, without question, been one of the most challenging periods since I joined this business (and I led this business through COVID). Every year for the last five years, I’ve reached November feeling completely exhausted and burnt out — counting down the days until Christmas with a plan that a few days of rest will reverse months of damage to an already sketchy nervous system.

I wanted this year to be different. I wanted me to be different. After my trip, I genuinely thought it might happen for the first time in five years.

But reality had other plans.

I recently took time to reflect on the past eleven weeks — and much further back. But all I was left with were questions.

Was this it? Is this what my life was meant to be?

I want more. I want to be more. See more. Live more. Give more. But what does more even mean?

I feel invisible and small, but still expected to be the fixer of everything.

I wasn’t just tired. I was bone tired — tired of the constant pressure, the continuous and relentless demands, the constant need to “just keep going.”

Around that time, I’d been reading about the Camino de Santiago — a pilgrimage that people describe as life-changing: peace, clarity, perspective, personal discovery. And as I sat there worn down and exhausted, all I wanted to do was jump on a plane to Spain, become a pilgrim, and walk until the noise fell away.

But when you run a business, you don’t have the luxury of disappearing for forty days.

So I asked a different question.

If I can’t go to the Camino… how do I recreate it here?

Tomorrow, I start my own Camino. Right where I will be.

I’m calling it Locamino — a local Camino.

I’ll walk 320 kilometres throughout December, roughly the length of the Camino Primitivo (the original route). Instead of finishing another year burnt out and exhausted, I’m finishing this one energised — and clear on who I want to be in 2026.

There’s no plane ticket to Spain. No forty-day escape.

Just me, the dark, and two hours of space before the world wakes up and needs me.

Here’s what I’m committing to:

Every morning at 4:15 am, I start with my journal and the prompts I’ve prepared. Then I walk around 10 kilometres every day for 31 days. Weather irrelevant. While still running a business.

I’m not doing this for fitness. I’m doing it as a practice.

Daily walking. Disconnection. Solitude. Ritual.

And I’m going to pay attention to what happens as the days stack up — the physical breaking, the emotional release, the clarity, the integration. Not because I’ve mastered any of this, but because I need it. Because I want my life back.

I’m documenting it as I go — the struggle, the breakthroughs, the days I want to quit, the days something shifts.

Why?

Because I know I’m not alone in this. So many women feel exactly what I feel — exhausted, carrying too much, quietly asking, is this it? Wanting more, but not knowing what “more” even looks like.

And because I’m done with reaching November, burnt out, exhausted, and feeling completely invisible.

I don’t know what I’ll find on these walks. I don’t know who I’ll be on 31 December. I don’t even know if I’ll make it past Day 7 without wanting to quit.

But I’m doing it anyway.

If you want to follow along, please do. I’ll be posting on Instagram @sallyacoates and writing weekly reflections here.

If this sounds familiar — the burnout, the invisibility, the longing for more — you’re not alone.

Walk with me.