Looking for recommendations for lodging only.

[daveo19]

We are looking for an affordable company to just arrange lodging during our Camino. Any Advice? Plan to start in June on the Camino Frances route. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[J Willhaus]

Many if not most members of this forum plan their own Camino and many do not book ahead at all. I hope you will get some responses, but it is not a common topic on this forum

 

[Robo]

What is it that you want the booking company to do, that you could not do easily yourself @daveo19 ?

Sorry, it's not meant to be a smart question, but it would help others to advise you.
And it will help others in the same boat.

For example, it could be simply that you are not sure how to book accommodation along the Camino easily.
Or maybe you just want the convenience of having it done for you.
Or perhaps you are concerned you don't have the language skills to do it?

These and others are probably quite common concerns for someone planning their first Camino.

Examples from my own experience............

On my first Camino I had those concerns, and I met a friend who had an 'agency' booking everything for them. He suggested the agency would likely just do accommodation bookings for me and gave me the contact number. The 'agency' was run by an Australian guy living in Spain. We'll call him Tom.

Seemed like a great idea at the time.

I would text on Whatsapp, where I was heading to in the next 2-3 days, and 'Tom' would book accommodation for me. And then it started to get hard and bit frustrating.

"But Tom, you've got me booked in a place that requires a 32 kms walk. I said my max distance is 25 kms" (this was due to injury).......

"It's easy, don't worry, the place you wanted was full"

This happened a few times.

So I went back to doing it myself.

The easiest way for a first timer? Just use booking.com When you know where you are headed and what your comfortable distance is, book 1-2 nights ahead. Very simple. All done online, no Spanish required.

With more Caminos and greater confidence (and a bare minimum ability speaking Spanish) I now use a combination of booking.com, calling the accommodation direct (last resort), or sending them a message on Whatsapp (usual approach). I get all the contact details from Gronze.com

So I suppose the point of my reply is.........having someone do the bookings for you, can sound like a great idea, but in fact you lose a degree of control over your Camino. And it's not hard to do yourself.

Easy to say I know, for someone who has walked a few, but you quickly realise when you get there.

But of course you may have other reasons for having someone to make the bookings for you, which I certainly respect and understand. Hopefully others will come along with ideas for booking agencies.

 

[Robo]

We are looking for an affordable company to just arrange lodging during our Camino. Any Advice? Plan to start in June on the Camino Frances route. Any help would be appreciated.

Where do you plan to start @daveo19 ? And what time of year? And what type of accommodation?
That may influence my comments above.

For example. If you were planning to walk from Sarria to Santiago, using private rooms in peak season.
I might suggest 'what the heck', it's just a few days, use an agency if you want peace of mind.

I'm sure others will chime in with lots of other ideas though.

 

[lovelyshell]

You can easily do this yourself using Booking.com. Plan your stages on Gronze.com. Read Brierleys or Village to Village guides to determine your stages. I know it might be overwhelming but if you just take the time to do it you will be grateful you did. You will be able to learn more while reading the guide but also you’ll save a ton of money.

 

[truenorthpilgrm]

I would hate to hire someone book me the entire way, then either get sick or injured, thus needing to scramble to either rebook or forgo paid reservations. In my past caminos I've had to take unplanned rest days due to minor injuries or just plain exhaustion. My most recent camino I came down with acute bronchitis for 9 days which I did not anticipate, as I rarely get sick like that.

I've also met people using companies that tend to get booked away from other pilgrim. Personally, the real essence of the camino is being amongst the crazies (pilgrims) who chose this journey.

The Frances is so easy to diy. It allows one the flexibility to stay in a village/town/an extra day, either due to exhaustion, injury...or just because. You never know what village will charm you.

 

[trecile]

Not surprisingly, the first responses you have received have been to book your own accommodation.
Firstly, if you really want someone else to plan your Camino for you the tag "travel-agencies/groups" has been added to the top of this thread. If you click on it you will find other threads on the topic.

The primary reason that I would not use a company to book everything in advance is that everything would be booked in advance - but not by me. This means that you are walking the stages determined by the agent, not you. Furthermore, you probably won't be able to make any changes to your itinerary if you discover that you aren't able to walk the stages that the company has set up for you. Or maybe you get sick or injured, then you are likely busing or taxi-ing the Camino rather than walking. You can do all the bookings yourself, then you maintain control. Or, you can do what many recommend, and book the first few nights, then see how you are doing and book a day or two ahead.

Hang out here on the forum for a while, and you will find many, many experienced pilgrims happy to help you plan your Camino.

 

[Stephan the Painter]

We are looking for an affordable company to just arrange lodging during our Camino. Any Advice? Plan to start in June on the Camino Frances route. Any help would be appreciated.

You’re likely to get better responses on this particular subject from the various Camino Facebook groups.

I concur with everyone else here, though. I think it would make your experience worse by handing out the booking to someone else. Either download the booking.com app to your phone or just go to their website online and start plugging in Camino towns and you’ll see how easy it is.

Wise Pilgrim or some of the other Camino apps, have direct links through their mapping function too places to stay. Wise pilgrim and Gronze.com also have
websites which has most of the functionality of the app, at least for booking.

It’s worth looking into the issue a little bit more before you decide on a company. Hope you have a wonderful Camino either way.

 

[Robo]

Hopefully someone can answer the question for @daveo19 ?
There must be such services out there.

@daveo19 There are some that book the whole thing for you, accommodation, meals, luggage transfer etc.
But you asked specifically for just accommodation.

 

[Simperegrina]

I’m with everyone else who’s replied. Booking your own accommodation, transfers etc is so easy and gives you the flexibility to go with the flow on Camino/adapt to anything that comes up, that using a 3rd party to book ahead (and crucially, paying for everything up front) simply doesn’t.

But @daveo19 if you still decide to use a 3rd party, do consider your needs re building in rest days to your schedule. I met an American guy in Oct on the Frances who used a 3rd party who not only booked him into hotels away from the Camino (sometimes several kms away), but hasn’t accommodated any rest days. It didn’t occur to James that rest days could even be a thing! So he was permanently racing to his booked and paid for, accommodation schedule.

 

[nilesite]

We are looking for an affordable company to just arrange lodging during our Camino. Any Advice? Plan to start in June on the Camino Frances route. Any help would be appreciated.

Booking Dot Com. Easy peasy.

 

[Former member 104756]

We are looking for an affordable company to just arrange lodging during our Camino. Any Advice? Plan to start in June on the Camino Frances route. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi Dave

I haven't used a company to arrange accommodation or anything else on a camino - so I can relate to some of the comments above.

But if for your own reasons you want or need to have a company arrange your accommodation, I've heard some positive reports about Camino Ways. I saw on their website they are based in Dublin and also have a team in Santiago. My understanding is that they can tailor their services- for example, you may not want luggage transfer or meals arranged. It's not a personal recommendation as I have no first hand experience.

All the best.

 

[basquelady]

What is it that you want the booking company to do, that you could not do easily yourself @daveo19 ?

Sorry, it's not meant to be a smart question, but it would help others to advise you.
And it will help others in the same boat.

For example, it could be simply that you are not sure how to book accommodation along the Camino easily.
Or maybe you just want the convenience of having it done for you.
Or perhaps you are concerned you don't have the language skills to do it?

These and others are probably quite common concerns for someone planning their first Camino.

Examples from my own experience............

On my first Camino I had those concerns, and I met a friend who had an 'agency' booking everything for them. He suggested the agency would likely just do accommodation bookings for me and gave me the contact number. The 'agency' was run by an Australian guy living in Spain. We'll call him Tom.

Seemed like a great idea at the time.

I would text on Whatsapp, where I was heading to in the next 2-3 days, and 'Tom' would book accommodation for me. And then it started to get hard and bit frustrating.

"But Tom, you've got me booked in a place that requires a 32 kms walk. I said my max distance is 25 kms" (this was due to injury).......

"It's easy, don't worry, the place you wanted was full"

This happened a few times.

So I went back to doing it myself.

The easiest way for a first timer? Just use booking.com When you know where you are headed and what your comfortable distance is, book 1-2 nights ahead. Very simple. All done online, no Spanish required.

With more Caminos and greater confidence (and a bare minimum ability speaking Spanish) I now use a combination of booking.com, calling the accommodation direct (last resort), or sending them a message on Whatsapp (usual approach). I get all the contact details from Gronze.com

So I suppose the point of my reply is.........having someone do the bookings for you, can sound like a great idea, but in fact you lose a degree of control over your Camino. And it's not hard to do yourself.

Easy to say I know, for someone who has walked a few, but you quickly realise when you get there.

But of course you may have other reasons for having someone to make the bookings for you, which I certainly respect and understand. Hopefully others will come along with ideas for booking agencies.

That was a really excellent, sensitive , reply. Well done

 

[frannie z]

We are looking for an affordable company to just arrange lodging during our Camino. Any Advice? Plan to start in June on the Camino Frances route. Any help would be appreciated.

Perhaps - you may be blessed - as i was … join a local Camino group (i found mine on Facebook) who have used services and/or have walked recently- made reservations in advance and will share their spreadsheet.

 

[J Willhaus]

We are looking for an affordable company to just arrange lodging during our Camino. Any Advice? Plan to start in June on the Camino Frances route. Any help would be appreciated.

@daveo19 there is a very active chapter of American Pilgrims on the Camino in Colorado. I think you could connect with them to find out options that will work for you. https://americanpilgrims.org/iwpmap_directory/colorado-front-range/

 

[Felice]

Another thing to consider if you go with a booking company, is to know how far you want to walk each day. You can't just say 'I want to walk the camino in x days' as the company will then work out an average daily walking distance, which may or may not be suitable for you.

Also - you say you want to walk in June. If you plan to do the entire SJPP to Santiago, it will be hot by the time it gets to July. That may make a difference to your walking ability. If you're just doing the last 100km, then you'll be absolutely fine!

 

[Pilgrim9]

Robo said: "The easiest way for a first timer? Just use booking.com When you know where you are headed and what your comfortable distance is, book 1-2 nights ahead. Very simple. All done online, no Spanish required."

I agree with Robo.

I have made numerous many-months-long trips composed of a series of short stays and this has lead me to devise some techniques to streamline the on-the-go administration of Booking.com and other reservations:

1. Be sure your Booking.com profile points to an email address that you will be easily able to access along your route.

2. Consider choosing only non-prepaid lodgings, or if that is not possible, only lodgings that offer a generous free-cancellation period.

3. When you finalize each booking, download a .PDF of the confirmed reservation in whatever language you are most fluent in, AND download a second .PDF of same confirmed reservation in the language used in the location of the lodging place (e.g. French in SJPdP, Spanish along the rest of the Camino Frances in Spain, etc.), so that you can show that one to the check-in clerk. (Booking.com provides language-selector buttons to be used when downloading the .PDFs, or at least it did every time I have used Booking.com.)

4. When you save each .PDF, consider prefixing its filename with its start-date in format YYYY-MM-DD. If you then sort the list in alphanumerically-increasing order in your device's file manager, they will sort themselves by date, making it easier to quickly find "today's" reservation as you approach the check-in counter. If you are really keen you can suffix the aforementioned date string with a language identifier (e.g. E for English, S for Spanish), thus: "YYYY-MM-DD-E*", etc.

5. Keep track of the deadlines for free cancellations, and compare/contrast with your progress along your route to facilitate changing reservations to suit your pace.

6. Once you have checked out, consider prefixing the filename(s) of the dead .PDFs with "z ", thus: "z YYYY-MM-DD-E*". This will push the dead ones to the bottom of the alphanumeric list in your device's file manager, where they will still be available for archive purposes but not in the way.

 

[Tickbush]

I did not pre-book my Camino, but I have done several hikes in UK and Ireland, using Mac’s Adventures. They did a very good job with each trip. There were only a couple of times that we had to leave the route and Mac’s had arranged a taxi to and from those lodgings.

 

[Gringazolana]

Hi there! I booked it myself, but I met several people who used Camino Ways (I think that is what it was called). I also remember passing a small tour bus that I believe had that name on the side. I was struggling along (uphill both ways, in the rain, you know probably barefoot and heavily laden!) and at the crest of the hill was this lovely black van with snacks and warmth and refreshing beverages for the folks that had hired them. Pretty sure there was a light streaming out of it and like feathers and glitter or something. I just grouched on by it and then forced myself to do an attitude adjustment because the Camino is for all of us! Blessings to you, whether you do a grumpygrueling walk, or skip along between hired snack stops, or whatever! Buen Camino!

 

[Seger]

We are looking for an affordable company to just arrange lodging during our Camino. Any Advice? Plan to start in June on the Camino Frances route. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm on the Camino Frances now. I have used Booking.com during most of the journey. There is a good selection of places to stay. Albergues are all better than I had expected and most of the singles rooms that I occasionally book are a good price. Easy to do yourself and save a few $

 

[StephenHLanark]

Walk the Camino are very good and helpful

 

[good_old_shoes]

June is not a busy month on the Francés - not too crowded, usually. If you're worried about not finding accommodation without an agency, I'd say don't worry. Even pentecost is in may in 2024, so no major holidays in june either.

You'll probably spend at least double the amount of money by using an agency, if not more, and from what I heard the rooms they book are often at places far off the Camino. In june, that's not really necessary. Maybe better to spend all that extra money in the local cafés and restaurants, or leave some extra donations in a donativo albergue. Sorry, couldn't resist! If that's not your cup of tea and you need pre-booked single rooms, an agency probably will be expensive but useful.

Can't give actual information since I prefer not to book.

But what I can say is, that if you really do need/want an agency for whatever reasons but still want to interact with other pilgrims in the evening, make sure that the company will book rooms that are actually on the Camino and not a taxi ride away, which from the view of a walking pilgrim is basically in another galaxy.

Buen Camino!

 

[MassNative]

We are looking for an affordable company to just arrange lodging during our Camino. Any Advice? Plan to start in June on the Camino Frances route. Any help would be appreciated.

My wife and I walked our only camino, to date, last fall. I booked all of our lodgings, mostly private rooms in Albergues or Hostels. I booked all our nights between SJPdP and Pamplona before leaving home. After that, I booked two nights ahead, as we walked. I never had difficulty booking on my own and liked having the flexibility to short days and days off as we walked.

I would look for properties that listed a WhatsApp number, typed up my request in English, ran that through Google Translate into Spanish. Then I sent both, as a single message, to the property through WhatsApp. I usually got a response, even to say the rooms were booked. The few times I did not succeed that way, I used booking.com

Good Luck

Jim

 

[trecile]

I would look for properties that listed a WhatsApp number, typed up my request in English, ran that through Google Translate into Spanish

Even easier is to use the WhatsApp Message Maker on the Wise Pilgrim app. Just long press on the WhatsApp icon and you will get this pop up that will compose a message for you in Spanish!

 

[MassNative]

Even easier is to use the WhatsApp Message Maker on the Wise Pilgrim app. Just long press on the WhatsApp icon and you will get this pop up that will compose a message for you in Spanish!

View attachment 159764

I tried that out. I don't remember the specifics of what happened, but I did not trust its translation. So I went with Google Translate instead. That worked fine for me.....

 

[trecile]

I tried that out. I don't remember the specifics of what happened, but I did not trust its translation. So I went with Google Translate instead. That worked fine for me.....

There was an issue for a while where the WhatsApp message was defaulting to something like personas indeterminadas, but it looks like it's working properly now.

I liked using the feature mostly because I could quickly add the property to my contacts when I sent the message, because all the information had been filled in by Wise Pilgrim.

 

[CWBuff]

Another voice for doing it yourself but if you are really hell-bend on letting someone do it for you (and charge you for it, mind you') all you have to do is Google Camino de Santiago or Camino Frances (or any other route)> The internet is full of various tour companies willing to do it for you

TourRadar, MacAdventures, Road Scholar, CaminoWays, FollowTheCamino, HikeThe Camino..... enough to start?

Like it or not whatever "they" may offer - it will be ultimately up to you to do the compare homework and choose the best that suits you and your need. Nobody can help with that try as we may if not for any other reason that "whats good form me may not be so for you"
Good luck and Buen Camino

 

[ginniek]

Even though I am sometimes a logistics professor, and also have organized all of the aspects of conferences, etc., when I am off the clock on the Camino (I do about 100 kms. each year), I like to let someone else handle the details of making reservations (with my input as to where and what I prefer) and arranging to have my bag transported each day. And I have really appreciated quick assistance the two times that things have gone awry. I've used Follow the Camino five times now (including walking the Canal du Midi from Toulouse to Carcassonne one year). Their prices are reasonable, and you get a new Camino Buff every trip. They also now have an app that is very easy to use and really clarifies things.

 

[daveo19]

Where do you plan to start @daveo19 ? And what time of year? And what type of accommodation?
That may influence my comments above.

For example. If you were planning to walk from Sarria to Santiago, using private rooms in peak season.
I might suggest 'what the heck', it's just a few days, use an agency if you want peace of mind.

I'm sure others will chime in with lots of other ideas though.

Thanks for your response. We are planning to do the Camino Frances starting in St Jean. Plan to start in early June. We are looking to have a room with private bathroom and no other frills. Just need our own bed. Current plan is to work it through Booking.com.

 

[Molly Cassidy]

Thanks for your response. We are planning to do the Camino Frances starting in St Jean. Plan to start in early June. We are looking to have a room with private bathroom and no other frills. Just need our own bed. Current plan is to work it through Booking.com.

Just make sure you take a good look at the map to see exactly where the accommodation is. Booking.com has a map search facility that you can zoom in, so it's not too difficult.

 

[trecile]

Just make sure you take a good look at the map to see exactly where the accommodation is. Booking.com has a map search facility that you can zoom in, so it's not too difficult.

When using booking.com I cross reference the properties on Gronze.com. Or I use the booking com link on Gronze. Then I can be sure that the place is on or near the Camino.

And I wouldn't limit my accommodations to only places that use booking.com. Gronze lists the contact info for each listed property, so you can use email or WhatsApp to contact them.

 

[daveo19]

Where do you plan to start @daveo19 ? And what time of year? And what type of accommodation?
That may influence my comments above.

For example. If you were planning to walk from Sarria to Santiago, using private rooms in peak season.
I might suggest 'what the heck', it's just a few days, use an agency if you want peace of mind.

I'm sure others will chime in with lots of other ideas though.

Thanks! We are planning on starting in St Jean on April 15th. Appreciate your input.