Camino de Santiago de Compostela

[markvanoss]

OK peregrinos, this first-time pilgrim (leaving SJPdP on May 19) hopes to learn from your experience. What was the SINGLE smartest "unexpected" item you included in your backpack? Keep it to one item, please, and (may I suggest?) skip the basics. I hoping for examples of items I would NEVER have considered taking! Maybe even little "luxury" items that weigh essentially nothing but that greatly enhanced your Camino experience. Be creative, now!

[Anniesantiago]

A bottle of mosquito spray I bought at the farmacia... spray the bed lightly and wait 10 minutes.. .if there are bedbugs, they'll show their nasty little heads....

[sillydoll]

A spiral immersion heater to make tea, coffee, cup-of-soup etc. Never travel without it.

[dutchpilgrim]

Not in my backpack, in my pocket: a whistle.
Weighs nearly nothing, hopefully will never be used.
But if you fall down a ravine, you might be able to shout for an hour or so, leaving you without a voice. A whistle goes on and on.
Or to attract attention in other nasty situations.

Ultreya,
Carli Di Bortolo

[MikeB]

For me, a needle, polyester thread, and a thimble, all in an old film cansiter - total weight about 20g. Saved my pilgrimage to St Davids (SW Wales) when the strap over my left shoulder snapped on my rucksack.

20090523 St Davids 110.jpg (30.45 KB) Viewed 3577 times

Not in my backpack, in my pocket: a whistle.

Totally agree, and on the same day my rucksack snapped, I needed to use it. Why? To scare off a herd of very inquistive, even agressivly inquisitive, bullocks who were only a couple of metres from me as I crossed a field, even by keeping close to the hedge. Waving arms, stick, shouting did nothing - but on the first short blast of the whistle they flinched, the second longer blast, they bolted.

A spiral immersion heater to make tea, coffee, cup-of-soup etc. Never travel without it.

Sorry Sil, but I have taken this on two winter pilgrimages of two weeks each, and used it just once - and that was to try to make Glühwein! Otherwise it was just 125g of weight.


Just my observations
Mike

[sillydoll]

That's OK Mike - I don't drink Glühwein so I wouldn't have used it at all for that!
But, we found it very useful to make a hot drink before we left in the morning, especially in albergues with no electricity or no kitchens. Also when the kitchens were busy with people waiting to use a pot on the stove to boil water. I often had other pilgrims cups lined up next to mine wanting a cup of coffee before they left.
As a vegetarian I often bought a box of soup and heated it for supper, with cheese and bread it made a nourishing meal. And so quick to prepare.
Very countries in Europe provide a kettle and cups in the Hotel rooms (as they do in England) and I have always used it to make my own hot drink when staying in a hotel.
I also carry a whistle - with a little led torch attached.

Queuing for the early morning coffee fix!

Coffee queue .JPG (79.39 KB) Viewed 3579 times

[annakappa]

An umbrella! My poncho ripped open in many places in a storm. I already had a mini super lightweight umbrella with me, but my husband decided that we needed something a bit bigger. It proved to be a god-send - both against the rain and against the sun over a couple of long treeless stretches. Anne

[falcon269]

Twisted elastic clothes line. No clips are necessary; clothes are slipped into the line gaps for drying. There is a lot of competition for drying lines at albergues, and the clothes clips provided are used up fast (and if you supply your own, they will be gone by the end of the trip). In the U.S., AAA stores have an excellent line with suction cups for attaching to windows.

A sink stopper would have been handy in all the places where they were gone. It is hard to wash clothes in running water. $8.50 at Amazon.com.

[lynnejohn]

Falcon, I have this clothesline and it has been invaluable! I use a couple of carabiners to attach it to whatever I can

The sink stopper has been on my mind each camino, then it slips out, but once I'm in Spain, I sure wish I had it in many albergues and hostals. Washing clothes in running water is pretty inefficient alright, but also very wasteful.

To add to the list, one of my favorite items is the cooling neck tie. On 30+ days, this kept me going.

lynne

[Portia1]

A reuseable grocery bag--weighs 2 oz with the plastic bottom removed. I used it to take my stuff to/from the showers, for grocery shopping, for deloading my pack of fluffy items (fleece) so the size would fit in the airline overhead bins with no problems, for taking laundry to the laundromat, and a myriad of other uses. I kept it in my pack lid at the ready. It is washable (though probably wouldn't want to do it too often) as well. I was shocked at how useful it turned out to be!

[Sheesh]

My top picks have already been mentioned, so here's another little item that I liked: A sheet of sticky labels, pre-printed with my name and email address. I carried them in a plastic sheet protector and the weight was 10g. Made it very easy to share my information with all the kindred spirits I met on the trail. I can't claim this as my own idea though, I'm sure I read it on this forum in the year I was preparing for and dreaming of and longing for my journey to begin.

Sheesh

[markvanoss]

Great suggestions so far, pilgrims! Exactly what I was hoping to see. Keep 'em coming!

[mrbillyto]

Out of all the items listed so far, for me Portia's reusable shopping bag would have been an excellent item to have had. I saw other pilgrims with them and although I have tons at home, it's something I never thought to take and quite honestly didn't see them in Spain. They were no doubt there, I just failed to find them.
My 2 "must" items that some folks might consider the basics were my Spork and my trusty Swiss Army knife. I learned about the Spork (from this forum) just before I left on my Camino and I had planned to take my basic Swiss Army knife but I upgraded it just before I left with several more accessories (that corkscrew on the new one came in handy many times along the way). These are 2 items were very useful and I carry them both on my daytrips even now.
Bill

[vinotinto]

Maybe even little "luxury" items

I brought a tin of Romeo y Julieta small cigars that were quite soothing after a hard day's walk when I couldn't find any puros de habana for some stretches...

VT

[lynnejohn]

Well, if we're talking luxury: a small tube of eye cream. Every camino it has soothed me morning and night and made me think/hope that I wasn't turning into a hag from the ravages of daily sun and wind.

lynne

[Jacki Dufty]

For a universal sink stopper my husband cut a 75mm diametre circle out of a piece of heavy duty innertube - in fact we took a few to share around. They weigh practically nothing and work a treat.
Jacki.

[falcon269]

Nose plugs for the cigar smoke.

[JohnnieWalker]

For a universal sink stopper my husband cut a 75mm diametre circle out of a piece of heavy duty innertube - in fact we took a few to share around. They weigh practically nothing and work a treat.
Jacki.

I think this is a fantiastic idea. Simply taking a couple of "squares" would work then cutting them to size would also work too.

Thanks.

John

[Mountainman]

I keep thinking what my favorite item was... I have taken and will take again, both the spork, a kind of shopping bag and needle and thread without question.

I guess my favorite item would be my pair of crocks!

Weighing virtually nothing, they keep my feet clean in dirty showers, quick-dry and serve as shoes for walking after hours in the towns, so your feet can air out when not carrying a backpack.
Off course, the downside is they are butt-ugly, but then, who cares when you are a pilgrim?


[Edit] PS Look, I just saw them in my picture after pressing 'Submit'

[TerryB]

The USB lead for my camera - other things already mentioned on this thread (spork, Crocs etc)

[falcon269]

Hand Wipes by Purell. I have a supply of small but sturdy Purell hand wipes from Chick-fil-A that weigh less than the ones found in pharmacies. The hand wipes from KFC are a bit too fragile, but are still light weight. They work on a lot of body parts, are invaluable when the toilet paper supply is inadequate, can clean hands before and after a trail-side lunch of hand food, and 50-60 of them only weight about seven ounces. I use Breathe Right strips to control snoring, and they adhere better when I clean away the nose oils with a wipe. Of course, dispose of them in the next garbage can, not on the ground. They are not biodegradable or septic tank friendly.

[Bridget and Peter]

Falcon's hand-wipes made me think of something - although I would not consider it a luxury - a good sturdy flannel (facecloth). When cycling we hang it on one of out front baskets with a spring clip so it dries without going smelly. Neither of us really feels clean if we haven't had a good scrub with a flannel - wipes just wouldn't have the same exfoliating effect. And if you want to wash up during the day there it is, all ready to take into a loo with a hand basin, or to wet from the water bottle.

So no you know how to recognise us - we're the ones with the grubby looking facecloth.

[lynnejohn]

I am so with you on this. I took one of those little baby face cloths - I love to wash with it, and it went quite a long ways on the Madrid, but alas I left it drying in some little corner somewhere. I will take another one on my next camino though! And oh yes, they do get quite grubby after awhile when we don't have the advantage of super-detergents. bleaches or soda washes.

lynne

[Sansthing]

Babies safety/nappy/diaper pins (I'm trying to cover all optional names in English!). Use them instead of clothes pegs for drying your washing, also for pinning damp washing to your pack so it dries as you go along.
Sandra

[JohnnieWalker]

I alwys have two or three of these mini clips in my pack to attach clothes to my rucksack or to seal food closed etc.