Most of the comments that are negative about walking a Camino barefoot seem to be from people with a probable habit of wearing shoes and therefore don't know any different from their own experience.
It is correct that if I usually wear shoes then without extensive preparation then I will have many difficulties. I do usually wear shoes these days (or Jandals) and I would not attempt walking a Camino barefoot.
As a child, however, for the first seven years of my life the only time that I wore a pair of shoes was for my Confirmation. My feet were deeply calloused and I could and did walk and run anywhere. On gravel, through thorns, on hot tarmac and everywhere else my fancy took me. I did sometimes need to dig out a thorn with a stick or an old nail but nothing slowed me down and none of it really injured my feet.
I remember when we moved to NZ and some kids at my new school tried to bully me for being from Fiji and tried calling me a fire walker. So one day I took a packet of matches to school and during the lunch break I gathered the chief bullies together and dared them to do what I did.
I lit two matches and held them to the sole of one foot and then did the same to the other foot. I then invited them to do the same. None of them would and the bullying stopped.
I mention this story to illustrate that our feet are quite capable of taking us pretty much anywhere, without the need for shoes, IF we prepare them correctly.
There is nowhere on the
Camino Frances that can't be walked in bare feet if our feet are properly prepared, including through the snow.
