STORY FOLLOWS STATE
Walking shifts the state of your nervous system, and when your state changes, the story you tell yourself changes too.
This Walk Will Change You
One Family, 500 Miles, and the Surprising Science of Going the Distance
Some relationships need more than a conversation. They need a long walk. Part memoir, part science, This Walk Will Change You explores how walking can help us heal ourselves and our relationships.
PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY
Available on November 10, 2026
Now open · Free to enter
WIN YOUR OWN CAMINO ADVENTURE
Enter for a chance to win a self-guided walk along a stage of the Camino de Santiago for you and a friend or family member, organized by the Camino experts, Follow the Camino.
Entry is free. Pre-order the book and your odds go up. Entries close November 10.
Grand prize
A self-guided Camino de Santiago adventure for two. Accommodations, daily breakfasts, luggage transfers, route planning, maps, and on-trip support are all taken care of. You get yourselves to Spain. Follow the Camino handles the rest.
Second prize
A 4-night stay at the Gather Collection house in Pine Mountain Lake, near Yosemite.
EVERYONE WHO PRE-ORDERS*
A 60-minute masterclass with Lauren called "The Yoga of Walking". Upload your receipt and it's yours.*Available in November along with additional book bonuses.
Enter free
One free entry per day, no purchase, no catch.
Pre-order the book
Any retailer, any format. Five entries per copy, and it climbs from there.
Upload your receipt
Drop your confirmation into the form. Entries post within 48 hours.
| Action | Entries | Value per book |
|---|---|---|
| Free entry (email only) | 1 | |
| 1 book | 5 | 5x |
| 5 books | 40 | 8x |
| 10 books | 100 | 10x |
| 25 books (book club or team) | 300 | 12x |
| Refer a friend who enters | +3 each, capped at 30 |
Between tiers? The lower rate applies. 3 books = 15 entries. 7 books = 56 entries.
Already pre-ordered? Every copy you've bought since the book went on sale counts. Upload the receipt and the entries are yours.
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Open September 23, 2026 through November 10, 2026. No purchase necessary to enter or win. Open to legal residents of the 50 United States and D.C., 18 and older. Void where prohibited.
What are you willing to walk 500 miles for?
Lauren's 2025 TEDx Ojai talk
WHY WALKING?
Walking does not solve a problem. It changes the conditions the problem is held in.
What your body does
Walking’s steady rhythm calms your nervous system while forward motion helps your brain recognize that you are moving out of where you were.
Side by side
Walking side by side reduces the intensity of face-to-face conversation, lowering defenses and making it easier to listen, open up, and face the problem together.
The next workable step
Each step gives you real-time proof that you and the person beside you can do hard things, making what once felt impossible feel possible.
Ideas arrive off the desk
Stanford researchers found that walking boosts creative thinking, even on a treadmill, because movement itself helps new ideas emerge.
Repair happens in the miles
Mile after mile, walking gives you repeated chances to talk, listen, cool off, and try again, allowing trust to rebuild over time.
Praise for This Walk Will Change You
Lauren Duke walked five hundred miles across Spain with the family members she had spent years keeping at arm's length. What she found wasn't a fixed family, tied up neat with a bow. It was a true one, flawed and still standing, which turned out to be so much better.
This book will change you! Lauren Duke captures something science is only starting to confirm: long walks don't just strengthen the body—they're medicine for the mind and soul.
“This Walk Will Change You is a potent reminder that sometimes the way forward begins by putting one foot in front of the other. With vulnerability, humor, and a deep understanding of the body’s capacity to heal, Lauren Duke invites us into a story of movement, family, resilience, and repair. This book shows us that we do not have to leave our stories behind in order to change. We can learn to move with them, walk alongside one another, and discover who we might become along the way.”
“Lauren Duke really gets what all those miles can do. They wear down our defenses, bring the truth to the surface, and sometimes help us find our way back to the people we love, maybe even the ones we’ve been avoiding. This is a book about walking, sure, but it’s really about what can happen between us when we just keep moving forward together.”
Walking is medicinal. As the apothecary of stroll, Lauren Duke's writing walks away with your heart. She toes the line between growth, scorched earth and resurrection. Be an eyewitness to the inner workings of her family drama, complete with hairpin twists and drunk blind turns - a literal rocky path on a perilous pilgrimage. In this memoir that blends science, psychology and the raw carcass of sibling dynamics, this family uses walking as a medication to heal their very complicated love.
Lauren Duke doesn’t just write (hilariously, beautifully) about the kind of walking that changes your life. She takes you on that walk, cracking your heart wide open somewhere along the way. I usually roll my eyes when people use the word journey unless we’re talking about the band or an actual trip, but I’ll be damned-this book earns it. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll close the last page wanting to call the people you love, lace up your shoes, and start walking. Run, don’t walk (despite the subject matter) and get this book.
About the book
A memoir of one family’s journey along the Camino de Santiago, illuminating the science, history, and enduring human instinct behind long-distance walking—and why it has the power to change us.
When Lauren Duke sets out to walk the Camino de Santiago with her family, she is searching for a connection that has always felt just beyond reach. Years of unspoken trauma have shaped the patterns between them—but as the miles unfold, she begins to wonder whether those patterns can change.
Across 500 miles of ancient pilgrimage routes, the family moves through changing landscapes, long days, and the quiet discipline of putting one foot in front of the other. Along the way, Duke begins to explore a deeper question: why does walking—especially over long distances—have such a powerful effect on the human mind and body?
Interweaving her family’s experience with research in neuroscience, psychology, physiology, and the history of pilgrimage, she traces how sustained movement regulates the nervous system, sharpens attention, and opens space for reflection. Over time, she comes to see that long-distance walking does more than provide clarity—it offers a form of narrative reorganization, allowing us to revisit old stories and respond to them differently. Through walking, we not only change our relationships with others but also with ourselves.
The insight is both simple and hard-won: we cannot change the people in our lives, but maybe we can change the patterns we carry into those relationships. The Camino becomes not just a physical journey, but a lived experiment in how change actually happens—slowly, repetitively, and through the body.
At once personal and expansive, often humorous and deeply reflective, This Walk Will Change You offers a new understanding of why we walk—and what becomes possible when we go the distance.
Lauren, her mother Mary, and her sister Leah. Morning coffee stop.
Leah, Mary, and Lauren, resting in the shade.
Lauren and Leah at the first road sign that says Santiago.
LeahRose, Mary, Lauren, and her brother Danny at the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela.
About Lauren Duke
Lauren Duke is an author, educator, speaker, and longtime leader in the movement and wellness space. For more than two decades, her work has explored the intersection of movement, psychology, physiology, nervous system education, and human connection. Drawing from yoga, Pilates, breathwork, and somatic practice, Lauren approaches these modalities not simply as forms of exercise, but as forums for psychological, physiological, and relational healing.
Lauren is the founder of Gather Encinitas, the influential Southern California movement and wellness cooperative that became an important part of Vuori Clothing's early story. As the wife of Vuori cofounder Chris Miller, Lauren played an influential role in the brand's formative years, helping cultivate the teachers, community, and movement culture surrounding its launch. Gather became an early hub for Vuori, and its deeply engaged community helped organically champion the brand as it grew from a local startup into a global name.
Lauren holds a master's degree in psychology, with graduate research focused on long-distance walking, resilience, and interpersonal repair. She is the author of Sh!thouse and the forthcoming This Walk Will Change You, which follows her family across more than 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago while exploring the science of what happens when we move together.
Lauren is also a TEDx speaker whose talk, What Are You Willing to Walk 500 Miles For?, explores the transformative power of walking, relationship, and repair. At the center of her work is a simple idea: movement changes more than our bodies. It changes what becomes possible within us and between us.
PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY
Available on November 10, 2026
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