It was the throes of summer in Europe, though I seemingly placed myself in one of the few European areas where grey and chill still reigned. Climbing alone on the second day of my trek with a backpack from Fene, Spain through Galician forests and mountains, I finally reached an apogee of the verdant landscape. There was relative silence once the incline turned flat, as if the natural air now far removed from civilization required more focused listening. Pure introspection seemed futile. The landscape, intimidating and humble, surrounded me. There was truth to be sought, something greater and more selfless to be extrapolated in the moment. After my Masters program at the University of Oxford, I decided to backpack in the Galicia region of Spain between my final exams and graduation. My experience at Oxford ingrained simultaneous values of a curious and critically engaged disposition while embracing challenging and uncharacteristic adventure. I viewed this as a logical principle. Truth or evidence required empirical rigor throughout my post-graduate course, but where would such truth guide me in different and adverse contexts? The English Way on the Camino de Santiago trail in the Galician region of Spain, in its quiet yet profound expanse, is an example of the importance of pure immersion in travel. In immersing, we are unexpurgated in expression, refilling and cleansing the soul all the while. This was especially the case for me. As a person with a speech impediment- stutter - the Camino also became a physical and mental speech therapy. Often being a covert stutterer, wherein I avoid certain difficult sounds and words to maintain the semblance of fluent speech, the Camino's expanse, with just me and occasionally fellow pilgrims (as Camino backpackers are called) and village residents I met along the way, I could literally yell and scream my voice on many parts of the trail, as in certain areas, particularly the lush mountainsides, there was not a human or sound in sight. In a very real sense, I felt unchained within the nature surrounding me; it prioritized my perspectives by slowing my thoughts down- and humbling them. This feeling, one inaccessible in the rapidity of modern society, is the essence of travel. Travel, at is core, should make us evolve and mature, reflect in ways that confront us with our blind spots and allow the newly opened pathways to become perspectives in which we newly view the world through, offering in more compassion all the while. I have traveled, lived and worked in many places around the world, some particularly difficult and challenging. While those places also undoubtedly matured me, the Camino was unique in its natural therapy, one that did not offer a self-indulgent therapy but one that required patience, genuine listening and humble introspection to bear fruit. The Japanese proverb, “We should not forget our beginner’s spirit”, went through my mind atop the Galician mountainside. Rather than a moment of introspection, it was a time of truth that morning of the second day on the trail. Tracing my roots of giving up baseball in college and the route taken since, I was reminded of my need to work for a greater need and purpose. In surveying the natural landscape, I felt simple truth in the silent expanse around me. The English Way serves as a religious mission for many Catholics, though I am not religious. The final stop is the holy city of Santiago de Compostela, and when I arrived crowds of people sobbed as they reached their spiritual goal at the Cathedral of the Old City. I was cynical, even dismissive of the emotion I saw at first. But the more I thought about my moment atop the mountainside from Fene, I understood the similar emotional, even spiritual power one could feel on the journey. I could understand why one would put faith into something higher by the end of the pilgrimage, even if I was confident in a completely different source of that spirit than others were. Acknowledging the context of my experience, even if my spiritual experience differed, led me to a more humble and human truth.