Camino de Santiago

A planner’s guide

JUMP STRAIGHT TO:

• When is the best time to walk the Camino
• Camino Diaries
• F.A.Q.s – Coming soon..

In 2019 we decided to complete a goal Alissa had been mentally planning for close to five years – Walking the Camino de Santiago as a family. The traditional Camino Frances route begins in St Jean Pied de Port and culminates 790 km later in Santiago de Compostela. There are numerous routes running all over Spain, and indeed further field that all converge in Santiago.

After much research we decided to begin our journey in Le Puy en Velay and incorporate the Via Podiensis or Le Puy Camino as well, which joins up with the Camino Frances in St Jean Pied de Port, some 1500km of walking in total. The Via Podiensis is one of the four routes through France on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and the tomb of St Jacques / St James. We roughly allowed 3 months, although had no real deadline. We completed it in 86 days. We chose to camp throughout France and while we expected to use our tents occasionally in Spain too we didn’t use them once! We ended up opting for the traditional pilgrim albergues throughout Spain, the price was right and the temperatures made this by far the best option in October and November in Northern Spain.

Here you’ll soon find everything you need to know to complete the journey yourself (it’s a work in progress), and a link to our daily journals so you can see what it’s really like to walk with three children for three months across France and Spain.

If you’re contemplating doing it yourself alone or as a family we say go for it! Although it wasn’t at all easy it very easily was one of the best experiences of our whole lives and we had plans for more this summer before all were waylaid by Covid-19. Camino del Norte & Camino Portugues are next on the list, although Via de la Plata and Camino Primitivo are up there too! If you want any more info or help with planning, we are so excited to see others set out on this journey themselves, get in touch: hello@mountadventureclub.com

For us the Camino was part of a much bigger journey, an 18 month world trip which has currently been put on hold half way through as we isolate back home in NZ temporarily. Before we had to abandon our travels (in addition to completing our Camino we had also spent time in the Cook Islands, England, India, the Maldives and Nepal) thanks to our introduction to hiking as a family on the Camino we were actually on the Everest Base Camp trail when Nepal decided to close it’s borders and we made the last minute decision to jump on the next plane to New Zealand. Read about that here: Everest Base Camp; trek interrupted.

F.A.Q.s

COMING SOON..

When is the best time to walk the Camino de Santiago?

If you’re planning your own Camino or indeed your 2020 Camino plans have been put on hold and you’re trying to work out when to reschedule Mark has researched and written the most comprehensive ‘when is the best time to walk the Camino de Santiago‘ article on the internet. A bold claim backed up by weather charts, pilgrim numbers, personal experience and a region by region weather breakdown for each of the months of the year. More info than you’ll ever need to plan when to walk your own Camino.

Camino Diaries

We wrote everyday and Alissa took way too many photos so if you’re curious to see the entire journey find the links here:

VIA PODIENSIS – LE PUY CAMINO

CAMINO FRANCES

Any Questions get in touch hello@mountadventureclub.com

Buen Camino

We are a family of five from Mount Maunganui in New Zealand ‘Mount Adventure Club‘. We’ve sold up and packed away (almost) all traces of our real life – We traded it all in to travel the world, worldschooling our three boys along the way – We spent 3 months on Camino across France and Spain in 2019 and before Covid disrupted our plans we were heading back to Europe for more this summer