Andrew McCarthy came to fame in the 1980s as a member of the "Brat Pack," starring in beloved teen and young adult classics like Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo's Fire. Over the years, he has expanded his creative talents by directing episodes of acclaimed TV series including Orange is the New Black and The Blacklist. McCarthy is also a prolific writer, authoring the books Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain, and Brat: An '80s Story. Most recently, McCarthy directed the Hulu documentary Brats, a deeply personal project in which he reconnects with fellow Brat Pack members — including Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, and Demi Moore — to reflect on how the iconic label shaped their lives and careers.
More: Andrew McCarthy: Brat: An ‘80s Story (The Treatment, 2021)
For his Treat, McCarthy shares how Jack Hitt's book Off the Road served as the catalyst for his decision to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Initially unfamiliar with the historic pilgrimage and lacking any prior outdoor experience, McCarthy felt an irresistible urge to take on the 500-mile journey. The trek proved profoundly transformative, forcing him to confront and explore the fears that had long shaped his life. It also ended up sparking his path as a travel writer. Years later, he returned to the Camino with his son and wrote his book, Walking with Sam about the experience.
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This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
People have said that books change lives and there's a book that changed my life profoundly. It's called Off The Road by a fellow named Jack Hitt, and it was about him walking along the Camino de Santiago in Spain, which is an ancient pilgrimage route, for 500 miles.
I stumbled into a bookstore years ago, 30-odd years ago, and I just came across this book. I'd never heard of the Camino de Santiago or anything about it. For some reason, I bought the book, and then for some reason, I read the book… and I found it life-changing. I said, 'I'm gonna go do that.'
I'd never been hiking, I'd never been camping, I'd never done any of that, but something in his journey spoke to me. I was at a point in my life, I think, after some early success and stuff, where I was looking without knowing I was looking. And so I went to Spain, and I walked across Spain for 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago. And it was a life-changing experience.
Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim's Route into Spain by Jack Hitt. Photo credit: Aurum Press
There's sort of before and there's after in my life. I had a moment in the middle of it where I fell down sobbing in a field of wheat and realized in sort of this white light experience, how much fear had dominated my life and how it had informed so many of my decisions without me being aware of it, and that changed my place in the world.
It didn't make fear go away, but you know, once you identify something like that, it can never have the blind hold that it always did before. And it was an extraordinarily liberating moment. It made me become a travel writer. It made me do all sorts of things that wouldn't have happened had that moment not existed.
And I recently walked across the Camino again, a couple years ago, 25 years later, with my eldest son, which was also a rewarding, life-changing experience. But the journey is the journey, you know? That's where the juice is at, right?
And something physical, emotional, spiritual, that all sort of tied into one. And walking is a profoundly spiritual act. It literally is a step at a time, and I didn't think I could make it and all that kind of stuff, and I knew something would happen if I went, and I just was ready in life to have something happen.