El Camino Real de California: A Hiker’s Guide to the California Mission Trail: Mission San Diego to Mission Santa Barbara

Discover California’s El Camino Real Trail, an urban backpacker’s dream. In 1774, 3 padres, 20 soldiers, 11 servants, 35 mules, and 140 horses headed north from Arizona to settle Alta California. Retrace their footsteps over 850 miles of rural roads, urban streets, beautiful beaches, and a network of paths connecting California’s 21 Spanish missions. Like Spain’s Camino de Santiago, it’s a religious pilgrimage for some, but for many it’s simply seeing California’s very best at a hiker’s pace.

The first half of the book is a “how to” resource with practical information on what to pack, where you can hike, and how to find food, water, restrooms and lodging. It also contains advice on hiking safety and how to prevent and treat foot problems common to urban backpackers.

The second half is a guidebook for the first 267 miles, from Mission San Diego to Mission Santa Barbara. It’s divided into six sections, each covering the journey from one mission to the next. It contains everything you need to know with over 150 useful internet links, 81 color photographs, 84 detailed route maps, elevation charts, and daily turn by turn directions. The directions are number coded to points on the maps so you know at a glance where you are, how many miles you’ve traveled, and how far you have to go. As a bonus, all maps and hiking directions are printable from hyperlinks in the book.

Future volumes will extend the guidebook to Mission Sonoma where the trail ends.

AUTHOR’S PERSONAL NOTE: I was the 12th person in modern history to complete the journey from Mission San Diego to Mission Sonoma. It started as a series of training hikes for the Camino de Santiago and grew from there. If you think something like this is beyond your reach, consider this. I am just an average, slightly overweight, 57 year-old man who had ZERO experience with long-distance backpacking beforehand. I did this as a series of sectional hikes, figuring things out as I went. There wasn’t a lot of preparatory information available and that is why I wrote this book. THIS IS THE BOOK I WISH I HAD BEFORE I STARTED MY MISSION PILGRIMAGE!