A new tour guide written by two Vashon sisters aims to introduce both adventurous travelers and armchair enthusiasts to a 64-mile stretch of roadside paths and countryside trails in the ancient Scottish Kingdom of Fife — a walk through inland landscapes that boast bountiful wildlife, remains of Neolithic monuments, and buildings preserved from medieval times.

“Walking the Fife Pilgrim Way,” by Shana Lee Hirsch and Victoria Hunter, was published last year by Cicerone Press, a leading British publisher of guidebooks for trekkers, hikers and other explorers.

According to the publishers’ website, the book details a walk — starting in either Culross or North Queensferry and culminating in St Andrews — which passes through rural towns, historic sites, and scenic countryside, allowing for a reflective journey through Scotland’s heart.

For Hirsch, an academic and author at the University of Washington, and Hunter, an artist, photographer and owner of Vashon Island Framery, authoring the book has been, in part, a joyous personal journey.

Born to a Scottish mother and an American father, the sisters are dual citizens of both the United States and Scotland. As children, they traveled frequently to visit family members in Fife, a region in the east and central part of the country. Later, both lived in Scotland and still continue to make annual trips there to visit relatives.

Both are deeply familiar with the terrain detailed in their book.

“Whenever we go back to Fife, it’s like going home, and we can feel it in our body and heart — this is where our ancestors were, and we love walking those landscapes and thinking about them walking those same routes,” Hirsch said.

Still, Hunter and Hirsch both said that in photographing and writing about the Fife Pilgrim Way — trodden by pilgrims for thousands of years but only officially designated as a pilgrim walk in 2019 — they learned fascinating new things about a place they thought they already knew well.

The long history of mining in the area, said Hunter, had been something she had been fascinated to learn more about while working on the book.

In writing and photographing the area as a “landscape of beliefs,” the sisters detail not only the Christian beliefs that led people in medieval times to walk the trail but other traces of still-more-ancient earth-based religions to be found in the region.

As with any tour guide, the book details accommodations along the way, but also contains information about another option for walkers in Scotland — “wild camping,” allowed by the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, which grants travelers free legal rights to be on any land if they behave responsibly. (Find out more about the Code on outdooraccess-scotland.scot.)

But the book, said the authors, is not just for folks who plan to travel to Scotland.

“You can read it and feel like you’ve walked it,” said Hirsch. “One of the things we were aiming for is that you don’t necessarily have to go on the walk. You can read it and learn about things you see along the way. It’s like a story — a nice bedtime story, where [we] take you on a walk.”

Hunter said she had given the book to a friend whose mother is now experiencing mobility issues.

“She was reading it, and she said it brought her to tears because she could picture herself there, even though she couldn’t actually walk anymore,” said Hunter. “That felt really good — to bring joy to someone who can’t get out of the house.”

Hirsch and Hunter have now contracted with Cicerone Press to write another guidebook, about the busier and more well-known Fife Coastal Path. That book will be published in 2027.

“Walking the Fife Pilgrim Way” is on sale now at Vashon Bookshop and Vashon Island Framery. Find out more about the book at tinyurl.com/5n8vybvw.