The Camino For American Long Distance Hikers, Part 2: En La Mochila

If you’re an American Long Distance hiker, you’re used to the idea of being at least somewhat self-sufficient while you’re on trail.  You’re carrying everything you think you need to survive independently -- shelter, food, a stove, clothing, first aid, water purification, a light source, a lighter, a Twister Mat, a compass, a sleeping bag & pad, etc.

This photo of sunflowers bowing to my Mom is proof you
don't need a large pack on the Camino.
And that sunflowers think my Mom is a God.

What each individual chooses to carry will vary by person and change depending on the trail -- some people will say, “well, I’m going no-cook so I don’t carry a stove” and others will say, “I don’t think I need a compass on this trail,” and just about everybody but me will say “wait.  Twister mat?  Did I just read ‘Twister Mat’?”

Yes, you just read "Twister Mat."

The point isn’t so much the things themselves as it is the mindset.  And because you’re going to be in town on the Camino de Santiago more often than a habitual yellow blazer, being self-contained isn’t as much of a focus when you’re putting together your gear.

I walked the Camino with my Mom, who was definitely not a Long Distance Hiker.  She did a lot of her own research, and after putting together what she thought she wanted to bring we laid it all out and pared it down a bit further.  I knew that people are more receptive to the idea of getting rid of stuff after they’ve carried it for a while, and that we’d do this exercise again in Spain.  All I’ll say about that first stateside paring down is that we had vastly different opinions on what constituted “a week’s worth of underwear.”

Unlike my Mom, you probably already have a good appreciation of what it means to carry weight.

But unlike you, my Mom had engaged the services of a sherpa, which, to my surprise, was me.

So we did do another paring down in Pamplona, abandoning some items and mailing some expensive or sentimental stuff home (caution: international shipping costs quite a bit and has the potential for going missing).

But I also ended up shifting a number of items to my pack to lighten my Mom’s load.  That’s right, I’m looking at you, makeup kit.

By Burgos, my Mom had gotten rid of enough stuff
to go from a 50L pack down to a small daypack.
Somehow my pack got heavier.  Hmmmm.

Anyway.


I’m not really into gear lists, and there are a number of Camino-related blogs out there that do a good job of providing guidelines for what you might want to carry.
Instead, I’m going to focus on

A) things you really don’t need to carry that you may be used to carrying

B) things it might not occur to you to bring if you’re used to American trails, and
C) Camino-specific items you might carry, including one that you kind of have to.


WHAT YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO BRING

Shelter:

Weird.  It wouldn’t occur to me to not carry a shelter of some sort on a National Scenic Trail.  But on the Camino you will almost certainly be in town every night.  As I walked I noticed a couple of spots it might have been both possible and nice to set up camp, and there were one or two times where almost getting shut out of a full albergue made a tent seem like a good idea, but for the most part you can do without one.

This is your shelter for the night, which is far too heavy to carry.

Stove/Pot/Food Bag:
No need for any of that.  Other than carrying snacks (picked up at stores each day), most eating happens in town.  This alone is a tremendous weight savings -- on American trails I’m usually carrying 8-10 pounds of food when I leave town.  On the Camino I was carrying bananas, chocolate, and nuts.  Oh, and Jamón-flavored Ruffles.  Man.  I forgot about those.  I would murder you right now for some Jamón-flavored Ruffles.

Food bag.  Sort of.

A “Sleep System”:
You should bring something for sleeping, but it doesn’t have to be a 20-degree bag and a sleeping pad.  We carried actual sheets and pillow cases treated with Permethrin, because there are occasional outbreaks of bedbugs along the Camino (I also treated our packs to avoid bedbug hitchhikers and cross-albergue contamination).  Most albergues will have sheets, and many have blankets.  I suspect our paranoia about bedbugs was mostly overblown, and that all you really need is a travel sleep sack, silk liner, or something like the 55-degree REI Helio Sack -- which my Mom also used -- that can be opened up completely to use as a quilt.

Water Treatment/Filter:

Every town has a “fuente” (which means “source”) -- basically a water fountain for public use.  And there are many in between towns as well, and almost all of them are potable.  I was fine with just a couple of water bottles (I had Aqua Mira with me and never used it).



A walker and two cyclists filling up at a fuente.

Navigation Aids:

Aside from the maps in the guidebook, you don’t really need maps or a compass.  The only time you’re likely to get “lost” is on the way into or out of a large city.  And you’re probably not going to die of exposure standing next to a McDonalds on a street corner in Burgos.
In case you do lose the Camino in a city, learn the phrase, “¿Dónde está la Catedral?”  Invariably, the Camino goes past the Cathedral; you can pick it up again there.

Generally speaking, if a thing is something you use for camping in the wilderness, you don’t need it.  Because you’re not camping in the wilderness.


ITEMS I HIGHLY RECOMMEND

Buff:Never used one on trail before.  But we picked them up along the way and found them invaluable for sun protection in the Meseta, warmth in the early morning, eye shades for snoozing before lights out, and above all, to keep flies out of our mouths, ears and noses.  I cannot emphasize enough just how many flies there were in certain places, or just how badly they wanted to be inside the various holes in my head.  If my Mom hadn’t had a Buff, she would have been driven even crazier than she already is.

Either my Mom covered up to avoid bugs, or a Basque terrorist.
But probably my Mom.

Ear Plugs:

If you’re staying in albergues, you’ll be staying in bunkhouses right up until you A) can’t deal with another sleepless night and B) realize that albergues also have private rooms for rent.  Or maybe you’ll stay in bunkhouses the whole time!  Who knows?
Either way, the chances are excellent that at some point you’re going to be enjoying an all-night command performance by the International Orchestra of Bodily Noises, unless you bring ear plugs.  Good ones.  The kind used by jackhammer operators.
Bonus: also helps you sleep through the people who pack their bags at 4am, loud Italians banging around in the kitchen, and a comically drunk German repeatedly trying and failing to climb into a top bunk at midnight.

This guy snored so loud I actually took a photo of him in case I saw him at future albergues.  Even earplugs didn't work with him.  So bring earplugs.  And avoid this guy.

Travel Towel:
All albergues have showers.  Not all albergues have towels.  Or soap.  Or shampoo.

Town Clothes:
I recommend having a set of clothes you walk in and a set of clothes for town, because you’ll honestly spend an awful lot of time in town around normal, non-stinky people.

Also bring the other typical outerwear for a hike -- rain jacket, a fleece or puffy jacket, a wide-brimmed hat for sun and maybe also a warmer beanie-type.  We picked up gloves in Astorga (because it was getting cooler in the mornings in September), and they came in handy a few times.  For some reason Europeans really seem to like big clunky hiking boots.  We wore KEENs because they weren’t full boots but would definitely last the whole way.

Headlamp:
Bright enough to see arrows in the dark in the early morning, preferably with a red light-mode for bunkhouse use.

You might not be night hiking, but you probably will be
early morning hiking.

Multi-USB charger:
It should go without saying, but if you’re carrying electronics you need a charger that works in Spain.  I’m not saying you’re dumb.  I’m saying that a lot of other people are dumb, and if you have a Type-F voltage converting charger with 4 USB ports, sooner or later you’ll be the hero of a whole bunch of dumb people in a one-outlet albergue.

Toilet Paper/Trowel/Hand Sanitizer:
Pretty much what I carry on American trails.  You’re in town often, and if you get on some sort of regular schedule you’ll never need your trowel.  On the other hand, the Camino is littered with evidence that a whole bunch of people made unfortunate assumptions about how their bodies would respond to eating octopus.  And those same people have no idea about digging cat holes.  It’s a problem.  Don’t be part of it.

(The one thing we didn’t bring with us that would have been incredibly useful is clothespins.  We rinsed out our hiking clothes almost every day, and albergues usually have clotheslines.  But they rarely have enough clothespins.  I’m just not sure how you keep other people from hijacking them, because believe it or not they’re usually in very high demand.  Maybe get wooden ones and write your name on them with a Sharpie?  Not sure.)

Again, this is obviously not a complete list of gear.  If you Google “Camino Gear List” you’ll have an incredibly long list of lists from which to choose.


TWO VERY CAMINO-SPECIFIC THINGS


(Note: You can pick up a Shell at the Pilgrim’s Office in St. Jean.  The Credencial is available both there and in Roncevalles, but we ordered ours in advance from American Pilgrims On The Camino, a very useful site)

A Scallop Shell for your backpack.
As mentioned in the first article in this series, the scallop shell, or concha de vieira, is one of the symbols of the Camino, and wearing one on your pack is one of the ways you identify yourself as a Pilgrim, or Peregrino.
There are various reasons for the shell’s association with the trail.  Some are based in myth, like St. James’ martyred body surviving (that’s probably not the right word) a shipwreck and washing ashore covered in shells.  There’s also the symbolism of the lines of the shell all coming together to a point, just as the many different Camino paths all meet at Santiago.  And there’s the practical history of Peregrinos through history using shells for drinking water before bottles came along and ruined the Shell Water Container Industry.

Today, it’s mainly just a cool thing to hang on your pack, not as obviously religious as a St. James’ Cross or as goofy looking as a drinking gourd (or calabaza).  Seriously, don’t attach a calabaza to your pack.  It’s too much.  Just go with the shell.

For some people, there is an inverse relationship
between how many things you need and how
much extra crap you attach to your pack.

The Credencial

The Credencial is a Passport of sorts in which you collect stamps (or sellos) as you walk the Camino.  This is a nice keepsake, but it’s also a necessary thing to carry for two reasons:
The very first thing you will have to do upon checking in to any albergue is present your actual Passport as ID and your Credencial to verify that you are walking the Camino.  There are many types of accommodations in towns -- hotels, hostals, casas rurales -- but in many small towns the only option is a Camino-specific albergue, and to stay in one you have to be a Peregrino.  You can’t just be some random oddball who showed up in town from wherever; you have to be a random oddball who walked through every town on the Camino east of where you currently are.  And the Credencial (and the sellos in it) are your proof.

Likewise, a Credencial full of sellos is the proof you provide to the Pilgrims Office in Santiago if you want to receive your Compostela, the religious document that certifies your pilgrimage.  To get the Compostela you need one stamp per day for most of the trip, two per day during the final 100 km, and two on the day you enter Santiago before you enter the town.  The same requirements apply if you want the secular Certificado de Distancia, which indicates the first day and starting point of your walk, the kilometers covered, the day of arrival in Santiago and the route taken.

You’ll most likely end up with a stamp from each place you stay (even regular hotels have stamps), but honestly, practically every place you’ll go has a stamp.  Churches, bars, restaurants, tourist sites, cafes, outfitters, food markets.  Some towns have a general town stamp.  Hell, one day in the middle of nowhere there was a donkey tied up next to the trail.  The donkey had his own stamp.

And later, when your walk is over and you’re back from Spain living what is probably a relatively donkey-free life, the Credencial changes from a practical necessity to a colorful memento of your walk.

In the next part of “The Camino For American Long Distance Hikers,” the Night Hiking To Mars blog delves further into the fact that EVERY DAY IS TOWN DAY.

To read Part 1 of this series, click HERE.

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