- Time of past OR future Camino
- Camino Frances Sept–Oct 2022
We completed our first camino (Camino Francés) Sept.–Oct. this year. We planned for a year, seeking advice from veterans in this forum, YouTube vlogs, Facebook groups, Reddit and various blogs and websites. This forum was by far the most helpful, so I wanted to follow up and share some of our takeaways for anyone else who may be planning their first camino soon. Apologies in advance for the length of the post.
We got a LOT of great advice from members of this forum — some we heeded immediately and some we ignored until we were on the camino dealing with a scenario that reminded us of the sage wisdom we'd previously discounted. I'm sure everyone starts with an idealized vision of what their camino will be, but once you're on the Camino, you realize some things you thought would be important aren't, and some things you didn't give much thought to have greater impact than you imagined. My first takeaway was, it's OK to let go of the idealized vision of the camino you started with — it will still be better than you imagined!
In the planning stages, we focused a lot on packing light. We bought 38L and 36L backpacks, ultralight/packable gear, and kept the weight to 16lbs (7kg). I was committed to carrying my backpack everyday as long as I wasn't injured. I don't know if it was pride, a misinterpreted obligation to have an "authentic" camino, some form of self-induced penance, or a combination of these things; but after a couple of weeks of slogging that 16lb bag up hill, after hill, after hill, and realizing how miserable the thought of strapping it to my back made me every morning, I finally let go of my idea that sending the bags ahead was a sign of weakness. This allowed me to enjoy the walk instead of seeing each day as a trial of endurance, and it brought our actual camino experience much closer in line with our ideal of what the camino would be.
Our plan was to complete the Camino, from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Finisterre, in 35 days, walking an average of 16 miles per day with several longer days of about 20 miles closer to the end of the trip. One of the most common pieces of advice we heard from veterans was that we should consider stretching our camino to more days with shorter distances. Unfortunately, we were limited on the days we could take off from work and wanted to pack in as much as we could not knowing if we'd ever be able to do another Camino. And this is my biggest regret — we didn't have enough time to enjoy the places we passed through or to explore and get to know the places we stayed each day. In retrospect, there were some things we could have done differently to give us more time.
Each day, we would set out when the sun came up, usually closer to 8 a.m. because we wanted to see the places we were walking through. We'd stop for breakfast and lunch along the way and then push through all the villages in between without stopping so we could make it to our destination with enough time to do our laundry. We only brought 2 changes of clothes and failed to anticipate how much time would be consumed by doing laundry every day.
Averaging 16 miles a day, we usually arrived at our next stop around 2–3 p.m. By the time we'd shower and get laundry going, it was usually 4–5 p.m. Some places had laundry service, so we could drop off our clothes and go exploring, but most days we had to either find a laundromat, or use the machines/clotheslines provided, which you can't leave unattended, and you often have to wait for your turn. By the time laundry was done and we'd re-packed our bags for the next day, it was 7–8 p.m. and time to eat dinner.
So, my second takeaway was, consider the trade-off. While it's certainly wise to limit what you bring, if we hadn't been so focused on packing light so we could carry our backpacks each day, we could have brought larger bags and 3 or 4 changes of clothes reducing our laundry days to twice a week. For us, the trade-off for making the backpacks easier to carry was spending a lot of time, the most valuable commodity, doing laundry.
Another regret we have is losing contact with the cohort we started with on the Camino. We decided to rent e-bikes and cut our time on the Meseta down from 9 days to 5 in order to give ourselves a rest day and a few days to see more of Spain before heading home. This meant that we left the group we had been traveling with for almost 2 weeks — the people we met when we arrived in St. Jean, the ones who encouraged us as we struggled up the Pyrenees, the ones who showed us the way down into Roncesvalles, the ones we shared our first dinner with, and all the familiar faces we met over and again as we moved from village to village. And even though we met and got to know many new people along the way, there's something special about the group that you start out with. While I wouldn't change the decision to jump ahead, my third takeaway is that I wish we would have spent more time getting to know some of those "day ones" better and found a way to stay in contact.
Walking as a couple, the best advice we got was to make a game plan for how we would walk together, set some ground rules and talk about contingency plans beforehand. I have no doubt that doing this saved us from arguments every single day! For example, I like to stop and take a lot of photos but my husband likes to keep moving and get to the next stop. So, our "rule" was that if I stopped to take pictures it was perfectly fine for him to keep walking and I would catch up with him at the next stop. We also decided that our health was the top priority for the camino, so if one of us couldn't continue walking we would stop together and rest, and/or find alternate transportation if needed.
Although we're active (running, biking, swimming, etc.), we're not hikers and we live in the flatlands of the Gulf Coast in the US. So, the mountains and hills were hard for us — not impossible, but much harder than we imagined, even though we walked 5-10 miles daily with loaded packs for 9 months before the camino. This brings me to my final takeaway — the most important thing we learned was, no amount of planning and preparation will guarantee a camino that meets your expectations, so you need to be flexible enough to adjust your plans and your expectations.
There were several things I planned in advance because I wanted an "authentic" camino experience, including some very long walk days in the first week so we could stay at specific albergues for the traditions they offered. As we got closer to those long walk days and we realized we didn't have the stamina to complete them without risking injury, we adjusted our plans to walk shorter stages, and we adjusted our expectations of what an "authentic" camino experience looks like. Toward the end of our camino, we even grew to the point that we relaxed the expectations we had on ourselves to complete our camino the way other people thought it should be completed.
When we were planning our camino, I loved reading other peoples' takeaways, so I hope someone finds this helpful. Buen Camino!
We got a LOT of great advice from members of this forum — some we heeded immediately and some we ignored until we were on the camino dealing with a scenario that reminded us of the sage wisdom we'd previously discounted. I'm sure everyone starts with an idealized vision of what their camino will be, but once you're on the Camino, you realize some things you thought would be important aren't, and some things you didn't give much thought to have greater impact than you imagined. My first takeaway was, it's OK to let go of the idealized vision of the camino you started with — it will still be better than you imagined!
In the planning stages, we focused a lot on packing light. We bought 38L and 36L backpacks, ultralight/packable gear, and kept the weight to 16lbs (7kg). I was committed to carrying my backpack everyday as long as I wasn't injured. I don't know if it was pride, a misinterpreted obligation to have an "authentic" camino, some form of self-induced penance, or a combination of these things; but after a couple of weeks of slogging that 16lb bag up hill, after hill, after hill, and realizing how miserable the thought of strapping it to my back made me every morning, I finally let go of my idea that sending the bags ahead was a sign of weakness. This allowed me to enjoy the walk instead of seeing each day as a trial of endurance, and it brought our actual camino experience much closer in line with our ideal of what the camino would be.
Our plan was to complete the Camino, from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Finisterre, in 35 days, walking an average of 16 miles per day with several longer days of about 20 miles closer to the end of the trip. One of the most common pieces of advice we heard from veterans was that we should consider stretching our camino to more days with shorter distances. Unfortunately, we were limited on the days we could take off from work and wanted to pack in as much as we could not knowing if we'd ever be able to do another Camino. And this is my biggest regret — we didn't have enough time to enjoy the places we passed through or to explore and get to know the places we stayed each day. In retrospect, there were some things we could have done differently to give us more time.
Each day, we would set out when the sun came up, usually closer to 8 a.m. because we wanted to see the places we were walking through. We'd stop for breakfast and lunch along the way and then push through all the villages in between without stopping so we could make it to our destination with enough time to do our laundry. We only brought 2 changes of clothes and failed to anticipate how much time would be consumed by doing laundry every day.
Averaging 16 miles a day, we usually arrived at our next stop around 2–3 p.m. By the time we'd shower and get laundry going, it was usually 4–5 p.m. Some places had laundry service, so we could drop off our clothes and go exploring, but most days we had to either find a laundromat, or use the machines/clotheslines provided, which you can't leave unattended, and you often have to wait for your turn. By the time laundry was done and we'd re-packed our bags for the next day, it was 7–8 p.m. and time to eat dinner.
So, my second takeaway was, consider the trade-off. While it's certainly wise to limit what you bring, if we hadn't been so focused on packing light so we could carry our backpacks each day, we could have brought larger bags and 3 or 4 changes of clothes reducing our laundry days to twice a week. For us, the trade-off for making the backpacks easier to carry was spending a lot of time, the most valuable commodity, doing laundry.
Another regret we have is losing contact with the cohort we started with on the Camino. We decided to rent e-bikes and cut our time on the Meseta down from 9 days to 5 in order to give ourselves a rest day and a few days to see more of Spain before heading home. This meant that we left the group we had been traveling with for almost 2 weeks — the people we met when we arrived in St. Jean, the ones who encouraged us as we struggled up the Pyrenees, the ones who showed us the way down into Roncesvalles, the ones we shared our first dinner with, and all the familiar faces we met over and again as we moved from village to village. And even though we met and got to know many new people along the way, there's something special about the group that you start out with. While I wouldn't change the decision to jump ahead, my third takeaway is that I wish we would have spent more time getting to know some of those "day ones" better and found a way to stay in contact.
Walking as a couple, the best advice we got was to make a game plan for how we would walk together, set some ground rules and talk about contingency plans beforehand. I have no doubt that doing this saved us from arguments every single day! For example, I like to stop and take a lot of photos but my husband likes to keep moving and get to the next stop. So, our "rule" was that if I stopped to take pictures it was perfectly fine for him to keep walking and I would catch up with him at the next stop. We also decided that our health was the top priority for the camino, so if one of us couldn't continue walking we would stop together and rest, and/or find alternate transportation if needed.
Although we're active (running, biking, swimming, etc.), we're not hikers and we live in the flatlands of the Gulf Coast in the US. So, the mountains and hills were hard for us — not impossible, but much harder than we imagined, even though we walked 5-10 miles daily with loaded packs for 9 months before the camino. This brings me to my final takeaway — the most important thing we learned was, no amount of planning and preparation will guarantee a camino that meets your expectations, so you need to be flexible enough to adjust your plans and your expectations.
There were several things I planned in advance because I wanted an "authentic" camino experience, including some very long walk days in the first week so we could stay at specific albergues for the traditions they offered. As we got closer to those long walk days and we realized we didn't have the stamina to complete them without risking injury, we adjusted our plans to walk shorter stages, and we adjusted our expectations of what an "authentic" camino experience looks like. Toward the end of our camino, we even grew to the point that we relaxed the expectations we had on ourselves to complete our camino the way other people thought it should be completed.
When we were planning our camino, I loved reading other peoples' takeaways, so I hope someone finds this helpful. Buen Camino!
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), so we had the experience a few times of having to scramble for accommodations on the fly. Navigating those situations gave us a feeling of accomplishment and a deeper faith in divine providence, so I certainly understand why most camino veterans prefer to play it by ear!
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