The Plant City woman will walk the 500-mile pilgrimage to prove to herself and others that a disability isn’t a deterrent.
Plant City resident Linda Salvato can often be seen walking along the city streets wearing a mismatched outfit, a backpack strapped securely on her back, trekking poles in her hands and a look of determination etched on her face. The former marathon runner is training for a once-in-a-lifetime long-distance pilgrimage that will take 33 days and test the limits of her physical and mental endurance.
The Camino de Santiago, also known as the Way of St. James, is a network of ancient pilgrim routes that converge at the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in northwestern Spain. Salvato’s journey, which spans nearly 500 miles, will begin in St. Jean-Pied-du-Port near Biarritz in France.
At the end of the journey, pilgrims can stop to obtain a Compostela, a certificate of accomplishment that commends pilgrims for traveling at least 62 miles from any starting point.
For Salvato, it’s not about the piece of paper. Her decision to embark on this arduous journey was deeply personal. Diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of five, she spent years managing her condition while refusing to let it define her limitations.
“I want to show everybody that epilepsy is not a disease or a disability, it’s an inconvenience,” she said.
That inconvenience didn’t stop her from becoming a distance runner. In her younger years, she ran everything from local 5k races to marathons. Several years ago, Salvato started looking for another challenge. A friend at St. Clement Catholic Church told her about the Camino de Santiago and encouraged her to watch The Way, a movie about one man’s experience walking the trail after his son’s death. “I found out one of my friends, who was a widow, was walking it at that time and it turned her life around,” she said.
In 2018, Salvato quickly decided to commit to making the trek but the timing wasn’t right because she and her husband had just decided to be foster parents. She tried to make the trip in 2020, but COVID shut everything down. In 2021, she got the double knee replacement that she’d been putting off. Last year, she was determined to make the trip this year. “I told my husband Michael I’m going in 2023 and he said okay,” she said. “He thinks I’m crazy but he tells everybody he didn’t marry a prom queen.”
Her orthopedic surgeon was less than thrilled. When she told him about the Camino, he told her she couldn’t do it. Nothing was going to stop her this time. “I’m the original ‘hold my beer’ girl, tell me I can’t do something and I’m going to do it.”
She’s been training for the trip for months, walking miles a day. She can sometimes be spotted on the festival grounds walking the stadium stairs to simulate some of the mountainous terrain she’ll be hiking over.
While the long journey may sound intimidating (she’ll walk about 15 miles each day), the path is dotted with small villages where Salvato can rest at pilgrim hostels, wash her clothes, eat a meal and resupply. In her backpack, along with a change of clothes, an extra pair of shoes and snacks, will be as 45-day supply of phenobarbital that she takes to control her seizures.
The medicine keeps her grand mal and petit mal seizures at bay. Her last seizure was February 22, 1992. “I get a birthday cake every year with ‘Go Me’ written on it to celebrate being seizure-free,” she said.
Salvato will fly out of Tampa International Airport on August 26, arrive in Madrid the following day and then transfer to St. Jean. She’ll begin her pilgrimage August 29.
“I’m dying and itching to go, I’ve been counting down the days,” she said.
Plant City residents can follow her journey on Facebook at Plant City Peregrina.
