Berkshire Camino Aims to Provide Safe, Immersive Walking Experiences
LEE, Mass. — Berkshire Camino — a woman-owned walking tour business — has been leading safe, intention-focused adventures through the nooks and crannies of Berkshire County for one year.
A success story from a dark time for small businesses, it launched in June 2020 with programming on two routes and now offers guided walks on seven different routes and growing.
The trips range from one hour to five hours for all comfort levels.
"The mission of Berkshire Camino is to make it easy, safe, and engaging for people to take long-distance hikes in the Berkshires," founder and CEO Mindy Miraglia said.
"And I put 'long' in sort of parentheses, because what we are naturally learning by doing this is not everybody wants to take a long walk, and that's part of why we're offering different durations and distances and routes so that we can give people the choice of what actually works for them, because not everybody has this journey, this pilgrimage kind of mindset."
The business became a limited liability company in June 2020 during the thick of the pandemic but has been in the works since 2017 when Miraglia left her full-time job and stepped off the "corporate career track" that she had been on for 30 years.
Miraglia's journey led her to the Camino de Santiago in Spain in June 2018, which is the inspiration for her business's name. Also known as the Way of St. James, it is a 500-mile pilgrimage of medieval origin to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, in northwest Spain.
"I had heard about the Camino de Santiago in Spain and it seemed like a really ambitious idea that I really didn't know if I have the physical or mental ability to take on, but I suddenly had this precious time in my life when I could give it a try, and so I did," she explained.
"So I ended up researching and training and getting ready to go to Spain and I walked the Camino for the first time in May in June of 2018, I was already having entrepreneurial ideas at that point, but I wasn't yet really certain, and that trip helped me to really appreciate what it is to take these long distance type hikes."
With the addition of seven trail support staff and a Berkshire Camino van, the solo entrepreanuer has expanded the businesses to offer what she describes as a "sacred walking journey" to a wealth of locals and tourists alike.
As a former member of the 1Berkshire Business Boot Camp and the inaugural cohort of the Entrepreneurship For All mentoring program, she used those learned skills to make her ideas a reality operating virtually out of Lee.
Her priorities include locally curated routes that encourage curiosity, safe paths that encourage meaningful engagement with natural surroundings, community building, and unplugging from daily life.
"The lead guides are first aid and CPR certified, we carry first aid kits, we've got a safety protocol, we've got liability insurance," Miraglia added. "This is this is a real business, this isn't just somebody who will say, 'come on, I'll take you for a hike.'"
The activities are designed to be a miniature version of the pilgrimage Miraglia experienced in Spain, setting an intention and using silence and chatter to unwind and feel more resolved about some aspect of life.
"There's a curriculum that people experience on these walks, and we call it pilgrimage mindset, and I've gleaned some of the key moments or experiences that you have when you walk the Camino de Santiago," She explained.
"So we set an intention in the beginning, we walk with curiosity, that shows up in all sorts of ways. It can be noticing a beautiful flower, but it can also be noticing that you're having an emotion at the moment or memory is coming up. What we're trying to do is to get people to forget about daily life, it's like for this little time you're in a bubble, and you're just being super present."
The walks explore South County sites in Lenox, Great Barrington, Lee, and North County trails in Williamstown and on Mount Greylock. Eventually, Miraglia would love to offer a multiday trek from one end of Berkshire County to the other.
It also includes a practice from Spain that involves picking up an item from the path such as a rock, filling it with something negative that is weighing on a person's psyche, and leaving it behind.
The more spiritual practices are optional, Miraglia assured, and can be toned down for groups that are not interested.
Though the business recently included children in its liability insurance, people in their 20s and ages 50 and older have been main supporters of Berkshire Camino. Miraglia welcomes people of all ages and curated a wide array of programming that can appeal to corporate team building outings, wedding parties, and families on vacation.
She also offers customized hikes and "walkabouts" around Lee, Lenox, Great Barrington, and Stockbridge.
Looking into the future, Miraglia would like to work to support the addition of hostels in Berkshire County that align with long-distance walking and add to the growing outdoor recreation industry. In fact, it was her original mission to bring the lodging infrastructure to the area after being inspired by how Europe is shaped around it.
"I really appreciate it understanding how there's this infrastructure in Spain, that supports people who do these long-distance walks, and the infrastructure includes the hostels and the cafes, and the outfitter stores and the guidebooks and there's like a whole industry around it. And so I came back with this thought that it would be really amazing to establish hostels here in the Berkshires, to support people who want to do long-distance hiking," she said.
"My mentors helped me to see that this idea of experiential programming and taking people outside and guiding them on hikes and walks were of the moment and I had been thinking about that, but I thought that would come later I thought it was hostels, and then this, this experiential programming, so now I flip-flopped it, there may still be hostels down the road, still part of the long-term vision."
Staying in a hostel is a part of the pilgrimage experience, she said, and is also inexpensive.
"This sort of communal idea, when it comes to lodging is part of what makes the Camino de Santiago what it is," She explained.
"You're meeting people, you know, you're sleeping in the same place, it's this real sense of community, and people are coming together from all over the world, and so it's not just you in the walk, but it's the people that you meet. So I would really love to find some partners with existing infrastructure that would like to work with us to make this as economical as possible."
Right now, Berkshire Camino's entire guide team is comprised of women. This was not intentional and will likely not be forever, but Miraglia is using it as an advantage to get women into the woods and feel supported.
In early August, she will be running a Berkshire Resident Appreciation week, offering a half-off discount to fellow county dwellers.
For more information visit www.berkshirecamino.com.
Tags: Business, hiking,
