3 Things To Make The Camino Easier
When we get asked what we did to make walking the Camino de Santiago easier, there are three key things that come to mind. We’re talking walking 260km, heavy packs, and inconsistent weather. This isn’t what most people would consider a holiday, but for us, we couldn’t think of a better way to spend 2 weeks of our lives. However, there were things we did to make it a more enjoyable experience.
Santiago de Compostela Cathedral
PRE-BOOKING ACCOMMODATION
We chose to stay in private albergues to ensure we could pre-book our accommodation. I have explained the 3 different types of albergues in a previous blog, How To Budget On The Camino De Santiago. The alternative to pre-booking accommodation is to walk with a destination in mind and plan to arrive by 12 pm, where you then wait to see if there are enough beds for you to stay. This would suit a solo pilgrim, or perhaps someone who wouldn’t mind the extra challenge of potentially walking further than they intended. We had a few instances where people were turned away, or they found they were rushing their whole day away trying to reach their accommodation in time. For us, booking ahead allowed us to walk at our own pace, stop for breaks if we wanted, and overall have a relatively stress-free experience.
Here are our top three albergues:
Walking the Camino de Santiago
USE A LUGGAGE TRANSFER
We knew we didn’t want to carry a heavy pack, so we combined all our non-essentials into one bag among the three of us. We used our Kathmandu Litehaul Carry On v3 38L for this, which was great. We had one day where our luggage transfer couldn’t take our bags all the way to our destination for the night, so we had to carry our 38L, Kathmandu 28L, and Kathmandu 18L. These 7km reassured us that we had made the right decision in sending our bags ahead; on average, it cost 10 euros per day. We used the company Top Santiago and had a great experience. We highly recommend this option to anyone walking 15km+ per day.
Toby & Kate walking the Camino de Santiago
PRE-MADE LUNCH/SNACKS
We quickly learnt that pre-making lunch the night before or the morning of was the best hack. It meant we could stop whenever we wanted and didn’t have to rely on shops or cafes being open! This was very important on Sundays or early in the morning if we were walking before 7 am. We also couldn’t believe how hungry we were getting, so carrying lots of food was crucial!
Words of wisdom on the Camino de Santiago
There are many different ways to approach walking the Camino de Santiago; everyone is on their own journey and is doing it the way that suits them. Don’t allow anyone else’s opinions to influence your decision to do things that might make your pilgrimage more enjoyable.