Camino Signage

Charlie: we have been impressed at the high quality of the signs on the Camino. It seems like whenever you are wondering whether you are still on the Camino a sign shows up to tell you that you are, unless, of course, if you are not actually on the Camino and have lost your way, which had happened to us only once and only for 30 meters or so. There was no sign where we looked.

This has given rise to the popular “Camino quantum sign theory.” This theory claims that there is actually only one Camino sign that is everywhere along the Camino at the same time in a state of quantum superposition and when a pilgrim begins to wonder whether they are still on the Camino, an “act of observational wondering,” the wave function collapses and the sign appears exactly where the pilgrim is looking for it. We have seen this happen dozens of times.

Not all pilgrims accept this theory however. Some support a “Many Caminos” theory which claims that each pilgrim has his own Camino where the signs are exactly where he looks for them. You can see examples of this in guide books that talk about “your Camino” or “walking your own Camino”.

The sign quality had gone from stellar in Navarra to merely very good in La Rioja but they have added km posts every km which are nice. You can see them in our pictures and videos. Navarra used these pretty blue and yellow tiles with the Camino shell on them.

The most common sign is the painted yellow arrow which appears on sign poles, on the pavement, on roadside guard rails, etc. They are very reassuring.

In fact, you could walk the Camino with no map or guide book at all and just follow the signs. I like to read the guides though. I am constantly switching between the Brierly guide, Google maps, and the My Track app to see how far we have gone. When we are close to a town I get the walking directions from Google maps, mostly for the distance to go. You can update it with two taps and count down the km.