About this trip

Charlie:

This is a record of our walk on the Camino de Santiago. The Camino is a pilgrimage path that has been used for at least 1000 years. See our page Camino links for more information about the Camino.

We plan to walk about 500 miles over about 40 days starting April 3, 2013. Most people who walk the Camino stay in pilgrim dormitories called albergues. We decided to stay in hotels rather than the dormitories. We will eat in restaurants.

People walk the Camino for many reasons. The Santiago Cathedral gives out compostelas (certificates of completion) and asks some questions and compiles statistics on the people who complete the Camino. Religious and cultural reasons dominate.

When we heard about it, it just sounded like something we would like to do. We like the adventure. We like being in Spain. We like doing something that many other people have done and found meaning in. We liked the idea of a long walking vacation. We liked the idea of having a lot of time to think about things and observe life. We wanted a chance to reflect on things and think about our lives.

There are many blogs about the Camino on the internet. We have found them helpful in getting and idea of what it will be like. We wanted to write about our experiences so other people can do the same thing and so our friends and family can know what we are doing.

We didn’t train as much as we expected we would. We are walking 2-4 miles each day around Albuquerque. We have gone on about a dozen longer hikes over the last few months. We did three 10-mile hikes. We hope this will be enough. We plan to start slow and work up to 12 miles a day.

Here is Wynette on one of our mountain training hikes.