Marie Maccagno is passionate about walking, the great outdoors, and chocolate. In the spring of 2009 she made a commitment to walk 800 kilometers through Spain in the hopes she could eat all the chocolate she could find.

What she didn’t expect to find was herself.

A walk that long gives a person a lot of time to think. Marie’s mind dished out big lessons around forgiving her mother, entertaining the idea of possibly leaving her husband, and honoring herself as a parent. One step at a time is how Marie completed the Camino de Santiago and learned to love herself after all the years of inner self-hate.