The woman walking the world’s ancient routes [inside my journal]

Photographer, documentary filmmaker, politics & economics scholar, and passionate pilgrim, Talissa Makdessi, shares the story behind ThePilgrimPrj, why ancient routes still matter today, and how her journals have become an essential part of the journey. 

Photo by Alex Cameron

Tell us about ThePilgrimPrj. 

I'm a professional photographer, but I kept feeling like I wanted an enormous challenge. I undertook massive trips: six months backpacking through South America, living in a tent in Patagonia, 18 months of van life in New Zealand, running marathons, but it wasn't enough. I kept reaching for something more.

I think people assume that living in a major city (I’m London-based) means you're constantly absorbing a huge breadth of experiences. But I found the opposite: so much was available that I ended up in a smaller bubble than perhaps my rural counterparts. It's too easy to fill every second with exactly the same thoughts and exactly the same people.

I'd thought about doing the Camino de Santiago for a while, as my aunt lives close to Santiago. So, I went for it, and it was one of the most fascinating, affirming experiences of my life. Being on a pilgrimage brought me into contact with people I would never have otherwise spoken to because of where they were from, their age group, or their political or religious leanings. The routes seem to provide a safe space where people can discuss topics that might normally be avoided.

Routes are also fertile ground for economic development and political myth-making. They always have been. That fascinated me, and I decided to make a documentary. It led to the realisation that there was a lot more source material and a much larger audience for this: people who wanted to see, hear, and learn about it.

I was also noticing a lot of newspaper coverage that was very anti-pilgrimage because the numbers are genuinely enormous. The most popular route has half a million people a year but insufficient infrastructure to cope. And yet I found almost no policy regarding this, no regulation, and no data collection addressing the real story. I wanted to dig into it and ask why.

Is ThePilgrimPrj focused specifically on historic religious routes, or long-distance walking in general? 

There's a lot to be said for any long-distance walking route. If you strip pilgrimage back to its most basic definition, a journey to a place of spiritual significance, it doesn't even need to be particularly long, and it doesn't need to be on foot. Originally, the vast majority of people would have done it using donkeys or horses. In the Victorian era, the pilgrimage to Lourdes was enormously popular, and most people did it by train.

What's really interesting is that the idea of pilgrimage only being authentic on foot is actually rooted in anti-Catholic rhetoric from Victorian-era English newspapers. Before that, before industrialisation and the trains to Lourdes, you simply can't find that argument. So, the notion has a very recent origin.

For me personally, there are simply too many routes in the world and too little time. I'd love to do the PCT, the GR20, and the Tour du Mont Blanc. I think those secular paths can absolutely produce something spiritual. Whether you're looking at it neurologically or spiritually, what matters is that it gives you a moment to hear your own inner thoughts and reconnect with what you truly value. That, to me, is the heart of it.

The reason historic pilgrimage routes interest me specifically is heritage: the art, the architecture, and the economic life that lines those paths. Wilderness long-distance routes offer something different and equally valid, but my personal interest is in the culture and communities that have grown up around these ancient roads.

What percentage of people doing the Camino today are religious? 

A large percentage are completely secular, and that's been actively encouraged by the Xunta de Galicia, the EU, and other interested parties. The economic opportunity is enormous: secularising pilgrimage brings in more people, while more funding is available when it is not tied to a single faith. Japan is a fascinating comparison point: the Kumano Kodo (Shinto) is the only other UNESCO-recognised pilgrimage route and the Camino's sister route. If you complete both, you receive a medal!

What's interesting right now is a notable increase in religiosity among Gen Z. Millennials and Gen X skew secular or loosely spiritual. Gen Z is reaching back towards the church, and I don't think that's surprising. There's something there about returning to things that are physical, that have meaning baked into them, and that you can touch and trust: analogue film, vinyl records, paths, and journals.

How do your journals come into your pilgrimages and life in general?  

I've got more than I should probably admit to! I use different ones for different things because I'm running several projects simultaneously: ThePilgrimPrj as a social enterprise, documentary projects, my master’s degree, while still working as a professional photographer.

I have a grand voyageur [a4] for my master's degree and future PhD, mainly because I can print out excerpts and do my note-taking by hand. I understand things so much better when I write them out. My grand voyageur [xl], a Papier Perjac exclusive, is the perfect hold-all for my documentary work and several other projects, including a novella I’m writing. I use the grand voyageur [xl] mostly for planning, and I'm a half-year person, so I'm a huge fan of the planner 2026-2027.

And then I journal too. I've been a diarist since about 1996. My mum is Swedish, and she used diary writing to teach my sister and me the language. She'd translate whatever we'd written in English into Swedish on the facing page. I still have every single one of those journals.

The most exciting project, though, is the set of bespoke [a6] journals I designed for a pilgrimage route I walked in Portugal with eight of my cousins. The journals were a special surprise: I asked my cousins to each choose a colour, but they didn’t know what it was for. I've had a slot added to the back of each journal to hold the Credential, a document that pilgrims use to collect stamps along the route. Each journal is personalised with their initials and the ThePilgrimPrj logo.

What's the story behind the Credential? 

It was invented in the medieval period because churches and monasteries would offer free food and accommodation to pilgrims, and they needed a way to distinguish genuine pilgrims from people just looking for a free bed. So, the Credential was created: a fold-out document you get stamped at least twice a day, either at your accommodation or at a church, to prove where you've been.

When you arrive in Santiago, Rome, or one of the sacred Kumano Sanzan, you receive a testimonial, essentially a formal document confirming your pilgrimage. To get it, you need proof of having walked 100 kilometres, with at least two stamps a day. You can't simply fly in and claim it.

What are you focused on achieving with ThePilgrimPrj right now? 

Firstly, I’m focused on documentary filmmaking. I've made one on The Economics of Medieval Pilgrimage. The next in the pipeline is on Power and Politics: the new and first female Archbishop of Canterbury walked from London to Canterbury on pilgrimage 500 years after the abolition of pilgrimage in England by Henry VIII. The fact that the Camino de Santiago’s official blue and yellow branding mirrors the EU flag is no accident, which tells you something remarkable about the enduring political potency of pilgrimage.

After that, I will make one about Health and Hospitals because there are new studies on the mental health benefits of walking, and some very interesting architectural theories about why so many hospitals resemble churches and monasteries. Eventually, I want to address the entirely overlooked pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a site sacred to three major religions and one that has a deeply personal resonance for me, as I'm half Lebanese.

My MAs in Cultural & Creative Industries, Global Politics & Economy, and Diplomacy Studies, as well as my PhD research, will all feed into the project as a form of public scholarship. The full scope of this is a ten-year project, and I’m documenting it all in my journals while bringing everyone along for the ride on YouTube!

Finally, what's your favourite section of any pilgrimage route you've done? 

No question at all: the Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard, on the Via Francigena, the pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome. You cross from Switzerland into Italy at altitude, passing the monastery that gave the Saint Bernard dog its name. Those monks are dedicated specifically to helping travellers. There's extraordinary footage from the 1930s of them going out on skis in full black habits to help people caught in avalanches.

Talissa Makdessi is a documentary photographer and visual researcher examining pilgrimage, movement, and sacred geographies shaped by geopolitical, environmental, and economic forces. Visit ThePilgrimPrj. 

Inspired by Talissa’s journals? Create your own made-to-order leather journal with l’atelier bespoke, choosing every detail to make it entirely yours.