Another insightful comment by our stalwart commenter Henry got me to thinking about ways to walk the Camino. This is a follow up to an early post about the Camino.
The usual style of Camino walking is to walk about 15+ miles a day. When everyone does about the same distance each day you keep up with a group of people and see a lot of the same people each evening at the albergue. This promotes friendships and finding walking partners. People often talk about having a “Camino family”. This works well for people who can walk 15-20 miles a day and most people can do this so it remains the Camino standard.
But some people can’t walk that far, or don’t want to, or are walking with someone who doesn’t want to, or just want to take it slower. Wynette and I are in this group. On our first Camino we tried to walk the longer distances and Wynette came home with a stress fracture.
To avoid foot problems we have been walking radically shorter days than other pilgrims, more like 5-7 miles a day. We did three 10+ miles a day early on and that (and the cold weather) lead to our week hiatus. So we have the practice and now I am starting to see the theory behind our short-day style.
If you walk three five mile days you see the same things you see in one 15 mile day. And you notice more things because you are taking your time. And you get to stay in three towns instead of one and you have time and energy to look around the towns. We like to have our big meal in the middle of the day and short walking days allows that. We also like to get private rooms so we have a place to hang out and blog and read and do a lot of the things we like to do at home, except the next day we get to walk through wonderful Spanish countryside and eat Spanish food and stop frequently for our beloved cafe con leche.
This style only works for some people. You have to have more time. It costs more because of the extra days. But mainly you are not going to be part of the social life of the Camino. But for us it works and we are very happy with it.
