Years after returning from South America, the travel bug bit me once again — and without a second thought, I impulsively booked a one-way flight to Spain, ready to see where the journey would take me.
5 Min Read
Distance
529.37 mi
Elevation gain
47,871 ft
Elevation loss
48,088 ft
Time
32 days
In 2016 I discovered backpacking/thru-hiking while vacationing in Chile, and
after returning from that trip I started looking into traveling around the
U.S. full-time while working remotely at my current job. I bought the gear,
researched the cities on AirBnb, worked out the train schedule, and how often
I would return back to Chicago.
But while looking for a place to live as a homebase that I could return to,
things fell apart and I wasn't able to pursue that dream, so life carried on
as usual and nearly two years would go by before I would even think about
going on another vacation.
Then one day in the spring of 2018 I was talking to someone who had done several
international thru-hikes, including the Camino in Spain and the "O" Circuit
in Patagonia. They re-ignited the spark that lay dormant, and about a month
later, on a whim, I purchased a one-way non-refundable flight to Spain.
I was going; no backing out or letting things get in the way.
So what is the Camino de Santiago
The Camino de Santiago, or Camino, or The Way, is a network of trails leading
to the city of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. They start from
all over Europe, and have been continously in use since medieval times. The
most popular route is the Camino Frances which goes from the border of France
all the way to the Atlantic ocean. It's a roughly 500 mile journey by foot
that goes through several autonomous regions of Spain, and through various
biomes.
Reasons for doing the Camino vary from person to person, some do it for
religous reasons (since it's named after Saint James), while the rest do it
for "sport". Either way, I can attest to the experience being a spiritual
retreat from modern life.
It can be walked at any time of the year, however summer is the most popular
time and most of the places to stay, called Albergues, are open. These are
hostel-like accomodations, but only for those walking the Camino. They
provide a dormitory-style sleeping setup, showers and bathrooms, and usually
a kitchen to cook in.
Along the Way I stayed in a variety of places, from the hostel-like Albergues
to sleeping in the attics of churches. Some will be as nice as a hotel, others
as nice as a bed-and-breakfast, and others as rustic as a church attic. Either
way, there's always a place to sleep.
Examples of places I stayed in Mazarife and Sansol
Preparing for the trip
Having grown up in the Midwestern states, I always defaulted to thinking that
every other place in the world is probably mostly flat as well. With that in
mind my training involved walking along the lakefront in the flat city of
Chicago, and it did not involve any sort of gym-based training.
Turns out it didn't matter how much training I did because I was in the same
shape as everyone else: tired and broken at the end of each day. The Camino
wears you down, and then builds you back up. I developed my endurance and
ability to walk 20-40 miles each day while on the Camino. By the end of the
trip I was walking everywhere without issue.
What I brought
Without any sort of backpacking gear in my possession I headed to REI. Here I
had to get a lot of help from store employees with regards to what I needed to
get. I had a loose idea of the various pieces of gear I would need, but no idea
where to start. Thankfully I was paired with an employee who had gone before,
and knew what I needed. None of it was too heavy, and it was a good starter kit.
Here are some essentials for a succesful Camino:
Sleeping bag liner
Extension cord
Pillow
Treking poles
Trail runners
Lightweight pack
Extra water bottle
Advil
There's no requirements for sleeping gear in the places I stayed, but a sleeping
bag liner was a good item to bring in order to have a barrier between me and
the beds I slept in as a way to prevent attracting bed bugs. As well as a
pillow since there wasn't always one in a bed.
And an extension cord helped me charge my items while in bed when the outlet was far away.
I wasn't sure how many miles I would be able to do each day, and since I didn't
have to reserve any places in advance it was easy to just pick up and go, and
walk as far as I wanted to and then pay for a bed whenever I was ready to. Some
days I felt like going far, and other days were shorter.
Stages
Every thru-hike is different, and while some may necesitate the need to follow the guidebook stages, others require the need to be flexible. For this thru-hike some of the stages are by-the-book, while others are a combination of two or more:
There was no shortage of fellow pilgrims on this trip, and by the third day
I had become part of a group that I would walk with for nearly two weeks.
And when I had to leave them behind in Burgos I found my group that I would end
up walking with all the way from Hontanas to the Atlantic ocean: nearly three
weeks together. We still keep in touch to this day, and are working on planning
to do another Camino together in the near future.
