Unknown pilgrims you walked with

[Tarisz]

Is there a database where one can find out about fellow-pilgrims who walked at the same time but you haven't exchanged contact details with?

 

[Olivares]

If there isn't, there should be! A Lesson learned from the Camino- don't leave for later getting contact info because you never know how/when/where you will meet again! I still think fondly of so many wonderful pilgrims I met along the Way and failed to get their contact info. I still keep in contact with many I did, though...

 

[HuntingDrog]

That’s a great idea. I’m a terrible man for not swapping numbers as I think I’m being too forward

 

[Deleted member 3000]

A database of all pilgrims. Let the spam begin!

 

[David Tallan]

I was terrible at that, too, on my 2016 Camino. So terrible that I made myself a personal sello with my email address that I took on my Camino Portugues this year just to encourage me to do better.

 

[Robo]

Is there a database where one can find out about fellow-pilgrims who walked at the same time but you haven't exchanged contact details with?

Thankfully there are laws that prohibit it

 

[Davie Blisters]

Thankfully there are laws that prohibit it

Agree...…..what occurs on Camino, stays on Camino!

 

[Luisa Marie]

We wrote down our phone numbers and blog info so many times on our first Camino (del Norte & Primitivo) that I made business cards for our next one. I have family in El Pais Vasco and in Cantabria (44 cousins altogether!), and they all wanted to “follow” our pilgrimage through our blog. For our next Camino, we will simply give our card to anyone who expresses an interest in staying in touch, either during our journey or via our blog.

 

[t2andreo]

I say this reluctantly, but there are many pilgrims who do not want to take their new friends home with them... reference the previous thread about 'ghosting."

Also, the EU data privacy and data protection laws would never allow this...a central registry of all persons who walked the Camino. In fact, the Pilgrim Office does not keep the names in a database. Once your Compostela is issued, your name is gone...

My professional half can make a rational reason for remaining better records. But my online self understands the great risk involved. I do not want my information in any more databases than necessary for law enforcement purposes. The likelihood of misuse and abuse is simply too great.

This said, I carry slips of paper with my e-mail and iPhone number for texting. I use a piece of paper set up like a "For Sale" poster with the individual contact tags pre-perforated or partially pre-cut. This allows me to easily tear one off. If I choose to give out this information, I do so.

Still and all, it does not prevent "ghosting." Plus, you should SEE my spam. Presently for every legitimate mail message I get, I receive three totally spam messages.

Fortunately, I use a VPN and have developed an ongoing, daily, program of screening spam at the gmail server. I set up rules to 'head it off at the pass.' it is very much a game of 'whack-a-mole.'

Hope this helps the dialog.

 

[John Sikora]

Actually, there could be a simple apporach. All you would need to do is have someone set up a website to which people would subscribe to with their email addresses. All it would contain would be email addresses, names, dates and perhaps route taken. It would need a login to be somewhat secure. You could then search the names and/or dates of people who were on the Camino with you. The email address would be private and only sent if the owner allows it (think of the Facebook friend request). Maybe more trouble than it's worth but it is possible within the privacy laws. There are a few more details but irrelevant for this discussion.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Maybe more trouble than it's worth but it is possible within the privacy laws.

How many of the 300,000+ per year do you think would add themselves to the database?

 

[John Sikora]

How many of the 300,000+ per year do you think would add themselves to the database?

Don't really know. Was just commenting on the possibility. I'd add mine. I'm probably in a couple thousand databases anyway, what's one more.

 

[lissie45]

Thankfully there are laws that prohibit it

EXACTLY - I've travelled for years prior to the Inernet- it would be bloody awful if those randoms who i partied with and more could contact me

 

[J F Gregory]

We connected through Facebook to several pilgrims from Germany, Spain, Mexico and South Korea whom we remain in contact with. They have visited us in the US and we have spent time with them in Mexico. Life friendships. But several we exchanged contact information with have never responded. You have to make contact happen when you are with them.

 

[notion900]

WhatsApp groups made on the pilgrimage stay on your phone afterwards. I sometimes get nice little updates from people who are now on another pilgrimage. But ultimately I think you stay in touch with people if you really want to. It isn't always the people you walked for the longest with either.

 

[David Tallan]

We wrote down our phone numbers and blog info so many times on our first Camino (del Norte & Primitivo) that I made business cards for our next one. I have family in El Pais Vasco and in Cantabria (44 cousins altogether!), and they all wanted to “follow” our pilgrimage through our blog. For our next Camino, we will simply give our card to anyone who expresses an interest in staying in touch, either during our journey or via our blog.

I thought about putting my phone number on my sello when I was having it made, to facilitate texting/WhatsApp, but I realized I'd be getting a new one with the SIM card I picked up when I arrived. I figured my email is pretty permanent and I can always send my phone number, Instagram link, etc. through email.

 

[notion900]

Oh and there's a reason Friends Reunited died a death!

 

[Rusty walker]

I made business cards and handed them to people I wanted to keep in touch with; I also just wrote stuff down in a small notebook I carried in my pocket. I was pleasantly surprised months after I came home by people getting in touch with me because of those cards--or one I had given to another friend.

 

[Via2010]

Hi,

you can register your own camino on Facebook or on some pilgrim-orientated websites such as
pellegrinibelluno (Italian site), but your efforts are more or less like searching for a "pin in a haystack".

I miss some of my fellow pilgrims, too. But you have to take into consideration that some people may like to share their camino experience with you but not their ordinary life.

BC
Alexandra

 

[Deleted member 12253]

Be careful. Camino ends bye bye

 

[Tarisz]

A database of all pilgrims. Let the spam begin!

Some people including you seem to misunderstand me completely. Perhaps the term database is frightening these days. What I had in mind is a simple list of first name, nationality, route and date of completion and right here on this website that one can browse and we would easily recognize our fellow-pilgrims. Perhaps for safety reasons registration should be a prerequisite. But even then one could worry about privacy. However, nowadays we give out details for simply buying a ticket to a concert, a train ticket, a book or many things we order online. Also, spams are often computer-generated messages. Having an email address we are already endangered. I just truly want to find out about some of the people I met during my walk but failed to note down their number or address.

 

[trecile]

I think that this thread highlights the fact that if you meet people that you think that you may want to remain in contact with after the Camino it is your responsibility to exchange contact information. Otherwise, just look back on them fondly.

 

[Tarisz]

Of course, it is. You are absolutely right. Yet over several weeks you are bound to gradually get close to people who you bump into by chance every once in a while and you never know when your last meeting is. It was especially toward Santiago where there are so many unfamiliar faces among the growing number of people that I started to look for earlier fellow-pilgrims who just disappeared in the crowd. I did arrive to Santiago with friends and have met some of them there lingering but was wondering whatever may have happened to some others who I had shared many hours of walking, dinners, albuergues with. For example, there was an elderly Slovenian woman who started from Lisbon alone with practically no foreign language competence and when I first met her after Porto where there were already some other pilgrims to walk with every day, she already spoke a little English. She started extremely early every morning before 6 but was walking very slowly so around mid-day I always caught up with her and we spent the evenings together. Then one day I just haven't caught up with her anymore for whatever reasons. She may have had trouble with her health, it may have been due to an injury, or I may have slowed down, I don't know. But I would be interested in finding out what had happened to her. She is my heroine: walking alone for more than two weeks because before Porto one hardly meets any fellow-pilgrims with no useful language to her aid and being as old and fragile as she was. A real adventurer. Hers is but only a single example. There are others who I wonder about as probably every one of us have similar experiences. I just posted my question because I felt there must be some kind of a resource where one can fish around for rekindling memories of the Camino by finding out about old companions. First name, nationality, route and date. That's all. Nothing against privacy.

 

[Blintintin]

I hear you..and I understood your good intent, I got back 3 weeks ago and am struggling to find an impressive peregrina I walked with one day and lost contact the next day. I have a fabulous photo of her at a really special moment for her on our 1 day..and I regret not sending it to her then and not exchanging info. but I continue to search thru others.

 

[Silencio Por Favor]

I do have a minor regret of not exchanging contact info on at least one occasion. Nonetheless the memory is there and maybe that just adds to what was "the moment in time"?