Interview: Jennifer Andrewes talks about The Only Way is Up

Jennifer Andrewes is a New Zealand-based writer whose life journey is a testament to resilience, transformation, and an unstoppable spirit. As a child, Dunedin-born Jennifer Andrewes spent time living in France, kicking off a lifelong love affair with the country. An avid walker, Jennifer first joined a local walking group to meet people and explore the local countryside while working as a language teaching assistant in Dunkerque. Thirty years later, she’s hooked! A communications professional, she has worked in tourism and government roles both here and in the UK, as well as undergoing stints as a freelance travel writer.

Her blog on the family’s French adventure www.myparallellives.com was widely enjoyed, and it was prompting from readers that led Jennifer to write a book about the family’s experience: Parallel Lives: Four Seasons in the French Pyrenees. Diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s in 2019, Jennifer took up long-distance walking, which she uses not only to maintain her physical health but as a profound metaphor for overcoming life’s challenges. Her pilgrimages include the Voie du Puy (2022), the Voie de Vézelay (2023), the 2400 km Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome (2024) and the Via de la Plata (2025). In 2026, she will walk the 1500 km Chemin d’Assise from Vézelay to Assisi and has plans to walk fromRome to Santiago in 2027.

Tell us more about the genre you write in and what draws you to it.

I write what I would loosely call ‘travel memoirs’ – non-fiction tales based around my experiences walking and travelling in Europe. Though I did dabble in children’s stories when I was a teenager, I’ve always found that the authenticity of writing non-fiction comes more naturally and is easier to me than writing fiction. I once wrote to Margaret Mahy for a school project and was privileged to receive a reply in which she pointed out that basing your writing on personal experience always makes it more credible. That advice has stuck with me and rings true.

What inspired you to write your book?

After walking my first Camino in 2022, the 800km Voie du Puy across France, I became addicted to long-distance pilgrimage, or so-called ‘through-walking’. There’s something intoxicating in the art and practice of walking, day after day, with only your footsteps for company and carrying only what you need to live on your back. Walking itself inspires me – when I walk, anything seems possible and ‘all problems are soluble’, as my husband Stephen would say. Walking the Via Francigena in 2024 – almost 2,500 km from Canterbury, England, to Rome, Italy – I was inspired by this life-changing opportunity to write about it. Partly as an extension of the Camino - a way of processing the experience even after taking the final steps. Partly as a way of unpacking what made the experience such a transformative one for me. Partly as a way of articulating how I – and others – could replicate and sustain the healing qualities of long-distance walking in daily life.

Tell us a little about your book

The Only Way is Up: on Foot to Rome is a memoir of long-distance walking, but it is also a meditation on how we move forward when life asks us to begin again.

Setting out from Canterbury and walking some 2400 km to Rome along the Via Francigena, we undertake a modern pilgrimage across England, France, Switzerland and Italy. What begins as a physical journey soon becomes something deeper: an exploration of momentum, mindset, and the quiet power of putting one foot in front of the other when the way ahead is uncertain.

Structured as a series of daily stages, the book follows the rhythms of pilgrimage life – early starts, long days on the road, chance encounters, moments of solitude, and the simple rituals that sustain a walker: coffee stops, conversations, rest, reflection. Along the way, we meet fellow pilgrims from around the world, navigate doubt and discomfort, and learn to trust the unfolding path rather than trying to control the outcome.

While written through the lens of walking to Rome, The Only Way is Up speaks to anyone standing at a crossroads. It offers pilgrimage not as an escape from real life, but as a practical framework for living well: shedding excess weight – physical and metaphorical – building resilience, cultivating presence, and finding meaning through steady forward movement. The journey reveals how momentum can transform thinking, restore confidence, and open new possibilities.

For readers considering a Camino or long walk, the book offers an honest, grounded portrait of life on the trail. For others, it provides something broader: reassurance that clarity often comes through motion, that the path reveals itself step by step, and that sometimes the only way forward – in walking and in life – is onwards and upwards.

What was your routine or process when writing this book?

Ever since we were young children, my mother encouraged me, my brother and sister to write a diary when we travelled, and at the heart of this book is the ‘daily diary’. As I walked each day, unencumbered by the minutiae of life, settling into a steady rhythm of one foot in front of another, my mind was free to roam, ideas floating in and out, the brain making connections to other experiences – taking mental ‘notes’. While others like to listen to music or chat while they walk, I deliberately walk without headphones, often alone, even when in wider company on the path, preferring to use walking time as thinking time. At the end of each day, having arrived, completed basic chores, and with time before dinner, I would sit down to write up an account of the day for friends and family. Pretty much every day, I would wonder what I could come up with that would be different to the ‘eat, walk, sleep’ of the previous day. But, without fail, every evening when I sat down to write, something different would emerge in the retelling. This has become a routine process for me and is now an inseparable element of my Camino experience.

What did you most enjoy about writing this book?

The research! Nothing beats the liberating experience of pilgrimage walking – just me, my backpack and my wits, out on the road, literally not knowing what lies around the corner. It is there, in the face of uncertainty, that we learn and grow. And did I mention the pastries? And the gelato?! I do enjoy those…

What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?

Finishing the book coincided nicely with us moving house (it was quite full-on there for a few weeks!) So, we took the opportunity to crack open the bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne kindly given to us by the real estate agent. It did seem an appropriate way to celebrate, having walked through the vineyards themselves while passing through the Champagne region on the Via Francigena. And I did enjoy the excellent film of the same name.

If a soundtrack were made to accompany this book, name a song or two you would include.

From a playlist of more than 100 songs that my husband and sons selected for me as a daily soundtrack for my walk, it’s hard to narrow it down to just one or two, but a couple do stand out.

Obviously, the eponymous ‘The Only Way is Up’ by Yazz would be top of the list. My fabulous walking buddy Citt (pronounced ‘Kit’) introduced this one to me on a day of relentless, steep, uphill climbing, and it became a bit of an anthem, powering us over more than one mountain range.

I would also choose ‘Unwritten’ by Natasha Bedingfield. There’s something about this song that is perfect for setting out into the unknown, and a powerful reminder of the agency we have to move forward in life on our own terms. Chosen for me by my youngest son, Nicholas (12), for my first day of walking out of Canterbury, this will always have a place in my heart.

Finally, Nina Simone’s ‘Freedom’ is a personal favourite – an anthem for the road. Synonymous for me with the intoxicating feeling of liberation that comes with setting everything aside to walk. The freedom of shedding weight – physical, mental, and spiritual.

What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?

I am currently reading Still Life by Sarah Winman, given to me by my son Tom (21) for Christmas on the recommendation of the wonderful staff at Unity Books Wellington. I’m only partway through it, but it is fast becoming unputdownable. Set in London and Florence during and after World War Two, the story brings together so many places and interests that resonate with me.

What’s next on the agenda for you?

Walking is never far from my thoughts, and next on the agenda for me are two pilgrimage projects: first a six-day ‘pilgrimage’ tracing a perimeter around Wellington via coastal and hill trails; secondly 1,500km walking from Vézelay in the east of France, to Assisi Italy, following ‘in the footsteps’ of Saint Francis on the Chemin d’Assise.