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Thanks for your response.As we say back home, I like to "read the room". I feel it's important to get a sense of the person or conversation before charging forward. However, many folks aren't wired to read and pick up social cues. I have pretty deep and involved reasons for walking my caminos, and quite frankly, not everyone deserves to hear my story.
An adjacent (and maybe not the best) example: I no longer automatically ask my fellow women "do you have children" or "are you married" while I'm on the camino...or for that matter, anywhere. Simple questions but often the answers ("yes, but my husband/partner died" or "a son, but they passed away") left me with the sense they may have divulged a painful memory they weren't necessarily ready to share with an overeager stranger. So I let folks open up to me and then go from there.
I'm not married, never wanted children, so I think it was just a rote question I automatically asked without thinking about it. Also...there are about a 1,000 other questions I could ask women besides babies and marital status
I think my friend may have found it easy to have that question on the tip of his tongue for ease of conversing.
I might have to plan a future Camino around your next hospitalero gig
. From your thoughtful and often humorous posts, you sound like such lovely people 
I agree with others that it is natural to ask after you have been walking a camino with others for awhile or sharing communal dinners. In many cases, it will be offered without asking.
After my husband died - Are you married was a very difficult question to answer. And it always took me by surprise. Sometimes I would say something like - not any more - to avoid talking about it.
It's not rude to ask and it's not rude to not answer the question.
Hi Lisa, if your friend would start by telling why they are walking, then it is likely the other would volunteer the information they are happy to share without being asked.
If you are only showing people who are happy to be filmed and have their faces and words posted for the world to see then perhaps the sample is not entirely random!
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I would say not at all, if someone doesn’t want to answer in full “for personal reasons or it’s private ” suffices and no one should ever take offence to that.
Not to derail and get into discussion, but I'm not sure this is true, especially for a blog, which is written and can be done with virtually no direct human-human interaction. Appearing in a video is a different story.
I can see introverts being more comfortable creating videos and podcasts than they are about talking about themselves in person.
I agree that this is a better conversation starter.
BTW, stayed there twice. Once with my mom and then later with my sister. I got in trouble though, because we were a little too loud with two friends met from Canada on my second trip. I remember my mother being so in love with that place. I always stay at rabanal whenever on the Frances, but that place hasn't been open for a while... Vespas a trip at the church. i have two stories, but I'll spare you.
True. I certainly didn’t ask everyone when I was walking but sometimes conversations developed. I was surprised to hear my friend say he asked everyone and therefore prompted my question for everyone here.
Some people can't wait to tell you why they are on the Camino while others find the question intrusive and too personal. The problem is knowing which kind of person they are in advance.
Safest not to ask - let people volunteer their reasons if they are so inclined.
I think people want to legitimately want to connect with others on this journey. If you feel it is intrusive, you can say your reasons are private, as many of ours are.
If you’re not prepared for the response, I would tend to agree.
I would personally not want to be asked that until I got to know a person for a while. I would rather start with "Where are you from?" or "Where did you start?" or "Have you hiked this route before?", as these questions would naturally lead to a person's reason for hiking the Camino if they would like to share more. That way, they volunteer their reasons without being asked.
It’s fabulous isn’t Damien! Lovely albergue with the beautiful garden and the afternoon tea! Fantastic if they serve a homemade baked treat, which often happens.
I understand this. It is true and I hope to always be considered and respectful.
Spot on, fellow Washingtonian, Lmccue!
Wow! I’d never expect that question either.
When asked, I just say "because it is there", period
For me it was a profound experience, I will remember each all my life.
I don't recall asking that question to anyone, unless they asked me first, then I would have been inclined to ask the same of them.
You need to realise that the rules of politeness are not universal. They differ from country to country and community to community. People you meet on camino may not share your views on what makes polite conversation.
I consider mself long enough in the tooth to realise that, Molly, but that is life. I believe that we should try not to be offended by, or even slightly put out by, the different cultural approaches of people that we meet. We might even use a tricky situation to enlighten ourselves and the other party about such differences. This especially applies on the Camino, where so many cultures come together, sometimes just for minutes, and sometimes for hours or even days on end. The key, as I suggested above, is surely sensitivity to other people, including those within our own culture who are, after all, almost as various as may be found from culture to culture. Of course, everyone is free to disagree entirely with the views that I express.
I both ask and answer. However, I let the conversation develop before asking as that way I can judge if the other person wants to answer or not. If by the way, you ever meet me on the trail, do not ask unless you have the time to listen to me talk about it. I will go for it at the drop of a hat and folk will tell you. if talking was an olympic sport, I would win gold for Ireland
I don't understand how you make that assessment. There's something behind this that I'm not seeing. Would you care to explain.
Thank you. When I walked the camino it was during some very dark days of my life. If someone had asked me that question I would have been hard-pressed to come up with an answer, much less a polite one.
I personally feel that it’s not random at all. A path that attracts those that need healing plus those who can listen.
Yes tiredness brings it all out of us. I hope you found some peaceful moments as well.
What a bleak view of the world you have presented here. I hope that I never become so jaded that I cannot see that even ordinary people have interesting lives, and that others are curious enough to enquire about others lives and motivations. It might be just a conversation starter, or it might be that someone is searching for answers to questions that they have about their own lives. Either way, we have the choice to share our stories, and perhaps we owe it to those who ask not to have already judged their motivations.
Wow.
So cynical!
We ARE all complex. Joking around I may try out ……I’m on a Middle Aged Womens Weightloss Programme.
That may serve me. I may seem shallow but at least I wont need to launch into anything deeper if I don’t feel like.
Yours is a simple sentence that easily solves the question. I think it is unproductive to worry needlessly that we may possibly offend every person we come in contact with on the Camino. General kindness and a bit of sensitivity can go a long way. Just don't be "a bull in the china cabinet".
When my then-boyfriend and I bicycled across most of North America, we found that after four and a half months we were tired of answering the exact same questions that every non-cyclist who saw us wanted to ask: Where are you going? Where did you come from? How far are you going today?? (We were polite, as long as the questioner asked politely; because it wasn't their fault they were the fifth person to ask us that day.)
I wonder if the difference is that, when the questions are asked by a fellow traveller it is an exchange of information. When they are asked by a local the information flow is one way.
We always try to be kind to tourists, but it can be difficult!
