And perhaps there is some further explanation needed about what kind of Camino I was planning on.
My plans were for a typical walk, mostly staying in our albergues, sometimes self catering during the day and sometimes lunch at a restaurant. Hopefully dinner at night with fellow walkers I meet. Maybe once a week a room in a hotel where I can really relax and really clean up. Plans I made while reading about the various Caminos on this forum and blogs I found.
Except that I had planned a slow one. I’m a lover of stopping and poking around at historical sites and also a sketcher, who would NEED (ha!) to stop and draw things. So I think my
Camino Frances might take more like 45 (or more) days. I’m lucky that I have a lot of flexibility in my life. And lots of airline miles to flexibly fly with from using the same airline credit card for years.
Two years ago before I canceled my flight on March 1, 2020, I was assuming I would spend about €250 - 300 a week, when I was walking.
It seems some people are still walking within that budget, which is encouraging. Others think that just a little more will do. And others think that I better double that.
My real question was whether inflationary pressures over this winter and early spring would push up the prices even higher. And of course there is no real answer to this. Too many variables at work. But I think they probably will.
What I got from all the thoughtful posts was that I better plan on the likelihood that it might cost me between $300 and €400 a week walking. And being naturally frugal, I can probably spend less. It’s still a pretty good deal for me. I live in the northeast of the United States which is one of the pricier regions in North America.
I’m basically a starving artist, although I’ve never missed any meals and am unlikely to. So in the scheme of things on this beautiful planet of ours, I’m doing pretty good.
I tend to take very long journeys every few years. I’m actually planning to spend 3 to 5 months in Spain . After I walk the Camino I want to spend time doing some serious sketching and painting in the region to put together a body of work related to the camino.
Originally during that phase I had planned to rent a car and then rent Airbnb’s slightly off the Camino route by the week. We’ll see how that works out. But you can see with the ambitious trip that I’m planning that costs rising could really impact that. But if I do it, I’ll go all out even if I run up debt.
Any of us who are able to go to Spain for a month or two and just walk because we want to, are probably in the top 10% of wealthy people on this planet (I don’t necessarily mean the country you live in, I mean in the big picture), even if it doesn’t feel that way wherever you live. I find it’s always helpful to remind myself of that, when I feel pinched by money.
And we’ll see what the Covid-gorilla decides to do, and whether God will be laughing at my plans.
[Edit: Globally it seems like the top 10% are people making more than $35,000 a year annually. Most years of my life and (certainly not recently ) I wouldn’t have qualified for that, so I guess I’m not a top 10%er. If you’re only looking at the US the Top 10% makes $158,000 a year. That’s only a dream for me. And of course those figures are fraught with poor information. There’s parts of the world I could live like a king for $35,000. And parts of the world where I would practically be homeless.]
