Preparation for the Camino, 2018
The Camino Frances is one of dozens of traditional walking routes in Europe, and starts at St. Jean Pier de Port in France, and ends at Santiago, Spain. Our trip started when daughter Laura said she would like to go with me, and that she could do 3 weeks in June. Daughter Ciera then committed to 2 weeks in July, and I planned to commit 6 weeks. Below: Laura on the left, Ciera on the right.
Photo by Thomas Lea of Boise.
Picking the date was the start, then we started researching out the trip, a couple of resources we found were these two;
A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino, John Bierly
A Pilgrim's Road to Santiago, the Complete Cultural Handbook, Gitlitz and Davidetty. The latter is a big book, but I got a kindle version which I'll take on the walk.
My preparation included doing a lot of walking, and getting different shoes from the ones which killed my feet on the Grand Canyon hike at Spring Break. I got Altra Lone Peaks, which I'll do a review of. In short, they have been awesome and comfortable. I walked for 3 months in the roads and trails around Boise, carrying a pack. My present fact of life is that I have energy in the morning, and not much energy in the afternoon. If I take a good rest around noon, I can get a second wind and get in some miles.
Things you need to do before your leave for the Camino include:
download the Bookings.com app for your iphone. this can be used to book the next night's lodging.
download various i books and podcasts of interesting material.
sign up for Uber and get their app, for use in big cities at least.
download Citymaps2go, and download their Camino map, plus Paris of any other big cities you might be in, like Madrid or Barcelona. These work offline, which you will need when you don't have wifi.
Download RometoRio to your phone. It allows you to look up bus and train times and routes, and taxi phone numbers.
get some cash in Euros, like 500 Euros, in no larger than 20s.
Put money in a debit account, and maybe get a backup debit card.
Install WhatsApp on your phone. its a program for sending text and photos, and doesn't use data, just wifi. You will have wifi connection several times a day, and you can communicate with family as you go. A phone is about useless for calling home, because when you want to call people, they are sound asleep, and vice versa.