Walking to Dinner

Why Walking to Dinner?

Every walking pilgrimage starts with a practical problem: what will I eat today? On a long route, that question gets asked every morning for months. The answers tend to be interesting — they reveal what the region produces, how it cooks, who eats what, and what the land makes possible.

Food on pilgrimage is not restaurant tourism. It is what pilgrims have eaten for centuries — what the region grows, what the inns cook, what the trail towns serve, what the locals share when a stranger arrives hungry and tired.

Walking to Dinner started on the Appalachian Trail in 2017. The trail runs 2,190 miles through fourteen states, and for five months the most interesting question each morning was what there would be to eat at the other end. That preoccupation became a book. Seven years later, on the Shikoku Pilgrimage, the same thing happened — which produced another book, and a more considered interest in what it means to walk through a food culture rather than visit it.

Why Pilgrimage?

Pilgrimage is different from hiking. It moves through human places — villages, temples, churches, inns, markets. It puts you in daily contact with the food culture of the places you’re walking through. You arrive at dinner every evening. You are welcomed as a pilgrim rather than a tourist, which changes what people offer you and what you see.

The great pilgrimage routes — the Camino, the Shikoku O-Henro, the Kumano Kodo, the Appalachian Trail — are also routes through living food culture. Walking to Dinner is the attempt to document that culture from the inside.

Why Food?

The same route walked by two people can produce very different experiences depending on what they pay attention to. Paying attention to food means paying attention to the land, the seasons, the history of who settled where, and what survived. A bowl of udon in Kagawa is also a story about wheat cultivation, water quality, and a particular kind of dough. A plate of bacalhau in Porto is also a story about Atlantic cod fishing, salt preservation, and centuries of Portuguese maritime trade. You can eat both without knowing any of that. It is more interesting if you know some of it.

What Makes This Different?

The food on this site was not sought out for its own sake — it was encountered while walking. The maps come from roads walked and meals eaten in the field. The books come from journals kept on the trail. The reviews and opinions belong to someone who arrived at the table on foot, not by taxi from the airport.

The long-term ambition is to become the most reliable independent resource for food on pilgrimage — built from firsthand experience, one route at a time.

Who is Brandon?

Brandon Shewmake has walked the Appalachian Trail end to end, the Shikoku Pilgrimage’s 88 temples, the Camino Portugués, the Kumano Kodo, the West Highland Way, the Affric Kintail Way, and the Cape Wrath Trail, among others. He is also a writer and software engineer. He grew up near the Gulf of Mexico, which is where his interest in food began.

Having completed both a route of the Camino de Santiago (the Camino Portugués) and a route of the Kumano Kodo — the only two pilgrimage trails in the world to share a UNESCO World Heritage designation — Brandon holds the title of Dual Pilgrim, awarded by the World Heritage Kumano Kodo Certification Program.

The writing on this site comes from being there — on foot, for months at a time.

The Pilgrimages

Brandon’s completed long-distance walks include:

• Appalachian Trail — 2,190 miles, Georgia to Maine (2017)
• Shikoku Pilgrimage — ~750 miles, 88 temples, Japan (2024)
• Camino Portugués — Portugal to Santiago de Compostela (2025) · Dual Pilgrim ↗
• Kumano Kodo — Nakahechi route, Wakayama, Japan (2026) · Dual Pilgrim ↗
• West Highland Way — Scotland
• Affric Kintail Way — Scotland
• Cape Wrath Trail — Scotland (serialized: Walking to the Remotest Pint on the West Highland Way)

The Newsletter

Walking to Dinner is published at walkingtodinner.substack.com. The newsletter carries letters from the road, serialized adventure writing, new food stories, and project updates. Currently serializing: Walking to the Remotest Pint on the West Highland Way.