Can You Sleep Outside On the Camino de Santiago?

Can You Sleep Outside On the Camino de Santiago?

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Today, the “Way on the Camino de Santiago” is a whole series of routes of varying difficulty and duration, from several tens to several hundred miles.

There are varieties of the path: French, Northern, Original, English, Portuguese, and Via de la Plata.

According to other estimates, there are about 15 such paths.

You can go all this way on foot, and it will take from two weeks to a month, or you can do it on a horse or a bicycle.

Everyone chooses for himself the route according to his strength.

On each of the routes, the pilgrim will find a developed infrastructure of shelters for wanderers, or, as they are called in Spain, “albergues.

Landmarks for travelers following in Santiago de Compostela are signs with the image of a shell, which is an ancient symbol and the emblem of the Apostle James, considered the patron saint of all pilgrims.

Today, let’s talk about shelters on the way to the Camino de Santiago.

Where Do You Sleep When You Walk the Camino?

In Alberges.

Simply put, Alberge is a shelter. The Camino de Santiago has existed for more than a hundred years, and for a long time pilgrims settled in shelters at monasteries along the way.

It was a rather ascetic dwelling in the best traditions of monastic life.

Albergs are now completely different types.

Today, albergs are more often a kind of analogue of a hostel, i.e., for a modern person, it is also quite ascetic, although the current conditions would have seemed like a fairy tale to a pilgrim even of the last century, not to mention completely medieval pilgrims.

I’ll tell you about the conditions of living in a monastery in more detail.

The internal structure of most of today’s almshouses is still about the same, and here’s what it includes:

Rooms with beds, that is, roughly speaking, bedrooms Most were bunk beds; very rarely did we see ordinary ones. There are rooms for four people, but on average, there are rooms for 10-15 people, and there are rooms for 30-50 people.

Beds are either without linen at all or with reusable linen, so it’s better to have your own, but more often travelers use sleeping bags.

Northern Spain is characterized by unpredictable weather, even in summer, and there is no heating there.

It was cold at night, and it was raining outside the window.

In the evening, I turned on the battery but opened the window so that the air was not dry. I woke up several times either from the cold or from an uncomfortable position, since the bed was short for me.

You also need to change shoes, but we didn’t have any; no one ever said a word against it.

But all the big trekking boots of the pilgrims really stood on the shelves at the door, apparently so that they didn’t smell in the rooms.

Most bergeries have their own kitchen as well as a kind of dining room, i.e., a common table where you can eat. Sometimes, for a fee, hospitalieros (Alberg employees) offer dinner and breakfast.

In some places, we met restaurants near the alps where you can also eat. Sometimes in alpine lodges, there may be vending machines with coffee, chocolate, and various snacks.

Can You Sleep Outside On the <a href=

Can You Sleep Outside on the Camino de Santiago?

Yes, if you are going to sleep outside, you will need a mat and a pillow.

For the cold season, a winter sleeping bag is suitable.

In the summer, take a light, compact sleeping bag that can fit in a small backpack.

Do You Need a Tent on El Camino?

Yes, you can have a daytime nap during the hottest hours of the day in a tent, and for the nights, you can stay in alpine huts…

You can stay in municipal or private Alps.

There is no fundamental difference between them. Often, municipal ones look no worse than private ones. The cost of the municipal one was 5 euros. The cost of private 7-10 euros.

There is no need to look for alps; they are located along the entire Path.

Someone is guided by maps; someone carries with them printouts from the Internet from various foreign sites; someone takes booklets from the information centers on the Camino de Santiago.

We had absolutely nothing. Not a single name or address of the alberg. All this is not necessary. As soon as you enter the town, you immediately come across arrows and pointers to the alps.

In large cities, any local resident pointed his finger in the right direction at the phrase “albergue camino de Santiago.” So my opinion is that it is completely unnecessary to be surrounded by a bunch of informational waste paper.

Can You Sleep in a Tent on the Camino de Santiago?

Yes!

A pilgrimage in the style of a sports hike is also possible. And it has its benefits.

The tent will allow you to stay overnight in nature, and not only at night.

You can arrange for yourself to take a daytime nap during the hottest hours of the day and not be attached to the stages that are oriented to settlements with shelters.

In addition, a tourist tent is your own, individual house, and up to 20 people gather in one room in a shelter.

It’s impossible to fall asleep without earplugs, so yes, take a tent!

Can You Sleep Outside On the Camino de Santiago?
Can You Sleep Outside On the Camino de Santiago?

Do You Need a Sleeping Bag for El Camino?

Yes!

You will sleep in it.

The minimum temperature is not important; hostels are always warm.

A bag is needed instead of bed linen because pilgrim hostels do not have it.

This is how hostels save on laundry and maids, so it’s cheap to spend the night in them.

I advise you to take the most compact sleeping bag.

How Do You Prevent Bed Bugs on the Camino?

Don’t put things on the bed for a minute. Never throw backpacks, shopping bags, gym bags, coats, or other items on the bed.

To be honest, I wouldn’t even have thought about this point before I read some forums.

Somehow in my life, I was lucky in such situations.

But on Facebook, from time to time, my eyes stumbled upon certain discussions in the feed. I remember that it was a discovery for me that there could be bedbugs in alpine huts.

The second revelation was that the girl had contracted scabies in some alberg!

You should not forget about the fungus, which can be transmitted by other people living in Alberga.

Let me remind you once again about wearing flip flops in the shower, which I neglected but was very uncomfortable without.

In general, there is a chance to pick up any skin diseases in places like alpine lodges because you have to sleep and do all the common things among a large crowd of diverse people from different countries with individual characteristics.

I’m not sure that I can give any advice here.

Or try to book hotels with individual rooms everywhere, but they are not available in all cities, only in large ones.

My Story of the Camino de Santiago

Before leaving, I trained a little in my hometown on a treadmill and also learned how to move with Nordic walking poles.

We walked an average of 16 miles a day. It seems unrealistic to walk for almost two months, but you get used to it very quickly.

I generally held on, but a couple of times I had breakdowns. Once I just sat on a stone in an open field and started screaming that I would not go anywhere else and that I was tired of the Spartan conditions, but that passed.

Before going to the Camino de Santiago, I thought that we would have a lot of free time in the evenings. In fact, everything is not as it seems.

Firstly, the estimated time of arrival is constantly shifting: lunch was a little delayed there, then we met a beautiful landscape where we needed to take a million photos, and here our legs got tired and we had to rest.

Upon arrival in Alberga, you need to take a shower, wash clothes, and buy food before the shops close. If the city is relatively large, another hour or two is spent on sightseeing. Then dinner, and then it’s time for bed.


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