A Detroit Lakes woman walked 900 miles through Europe. It became a journey of becoming.

DETROIT LAKES
— As Jessica Meyers entered a surfer’s hostel in Vila do Conde, a village in Portugal, nearly 75 days and 900 miles had passed. It was late June, and her journey was almost complete. Her final destination, Porto, she said, was roughly 25 miles away.
She had started in France in the second week of April and was walking several stretches of the Camino de Santiago
, a network of pilgrimage routes across Europe that converge at the tomb of St. James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Meyers met travelers who had begun in Porto. The hostel owner told her he had never met anyone who had walked as far as she had. For those resting after their first day on the route, Meyers was a trove of advice, even with the last stretch remaining.
“I see they’re tired, they’re hurting and I’m just looking at them,” Meyers said. “(I say to them) amazingly enough, you’re going to wake up the next morning, and your pain is going to be gone, and you’re going to be able to do it again.”