Pieter and I recently had the privilege of attending the FIPP World Media Congress in Madrid, Spain.

Major learnings? Artificial Intelligence is turning the world on its head. The Internet is broken. Alice may never escape Wonderland. And it might be time to move to a remote smallholding without cell phone signal and grow your own vegetables (you heard it here first).

But industry chaos aside, it also meant a rare opportunity for us to travel internationally. With three kids at home – plus one dog, 20 tadpoles and 1 000 mosquito larvae (to feed said tadpoles) – finding babysitters can be a challenge. Thank goodness for our power team: Granny and Grandpa, Ouma and our incredible nanny, whose combined efforts made our trip possible.

And when in Spain… well, you must walk the Camino, of course.

The Camino de Santiago or Way of St James is a network of ancient pilgrimage routes across Europe, all leading to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of the apostle James are believed to lie. Some pilgrims walk over 800km from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France. With only four days, we started at the cathedral and walked west towards Finisterre, which the Romans once believed to be “the end of the world.”

Walking through the Spanish countryside was an incredible experience. Most days we woke before dawn (don’t be too impressed, the sun rises late there), packed our slack packs and picnic lunch and simply followed the signs. With the scallop shell symbol and yellow arrows marking every crossroad, it’s nearly impossible to get lost.

The greatest gift of the journey was unhurried time together. We walked and prayed, talked, met fellow hikers and often walked in silence.

We listened to The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer – an apt companion. The book explores spiritual formation through ancient Christian disciplines: Silence and Solitude, Sabbath, Simplicity and Slowing. All aligned perfectly with the rhythm of the Camino. It’s only been a week, but we are already seeing the fruit of continuing these practices at home.

Comer compares these spiritual habits to a trellis that holds up a vine. The point of the trellis, he says, isn’t to make the vine stand in neat rows, it’s to produce a rich, deep glass of wine. A framework for healthy, abundant growth.

He argues that modern Christians have been swept up in the whirlwind of modern life and that it’s slowly killing us. Breaking away from a hurried, hollow lifestyle takes intentional work, but the result is the life Jesus intended: “to have life, and have it to the full.”

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