You know you are a seasoned pilgrim, when you

[mlhhome]

I believe some of the best advice comes in small terse statements and reflect the lessons learned the hard way. These lessons can be learned in the opening days of your camino or be accumulated over several pilgrimages to Sanitago. Please share the insightful moment when you knew you a seasoned pilgrim.

I knew I was a seasoned pilgrim when I could tread my own blisters with little pain or drama

 

[sulu]

I now know that, how ever bad a day has been I will feel better in the morning

 

[tyrrek]

...can forget about the overall distance and live in the day. Buen Camino!

 

[Kitsambler]

... stop to read the bus schedule and then keep walking anyway.

... ignore the strange looks from other travelers in the airport security line as you remove your boots.

... haven't eaten a potato chip (crisp) for a month - and haven't missed them!

 

[newfydog]

Go to Europe for a month and feel like it was a wasted trip if there wasn't any Camino portion.

 

[nreyn12]

What a great question! For me it was when I started to know some of the albergue hospitaleros by name, and when we remembered each other from when I'd come the year before. I've had some delightful reunions!

Nancy

 

[MoniRose]

.......you're excited to lose the toenail that gave you grief the first two weeks. -M

 

[cedarhollow03]

......put toilet paper in your pocket first thing in the morning before you start walking.

......can't remember where you stayed the night before because you are enjoying the day so much!

My husband and I just finished the camino frances August 1st. It was the most amazing, hard thing I have ever done in my life.

Jamie & Doug

 

[Heikki]

...when you ask for Gaseosa to drink with your vino tinto.

 

[gittiharre]

Take it all in your stride, your body hurts a bit, but you know it is just a phase, when people ask you for advice rather than you asking for advice, when you know what distances and conditions are sustainable day after day, when you have learnt how to protect your body and mind from the vicissitudes of continuous walking, when you get prone to overconfidence, you think you know it all, but discover you don't.....like me at weekend getting almost trapped on rocks on Auckland 's wild west coast, very foolish, just motored on without assessing the tide....anyway, luckily I am still here!
Gitti

 

[mspath]

Look at sea shells or more exactly ribbed sea scallop shells as invaluable markers across time and space which help define a pilgrim. Since the hagiography of St James recounts that his dead body miraculously washed ashore in Spain, scallop shells from the sea are his symbol. Hence, from time immemorial pilgrims have worn a scallop shell (in French, coquille St Jacques)

Margaret

 

[KiwiNomad06]

...when you realise that being thankful for little things is a most important part of each day, whether it be some unexpected little kindness, or a snail along the trail...
Margaret

 

[cvirseda]

...look at your really brown arms and legs and White feet and don´t care.

 

[sternenstrasse]

When the left part of your face is sunburnt and the right part is not.

;-)

 

[dougfitz]

In 2010, I was sitting outside a bar somewhere between Sarria and Portomarin thinking about this very issue, and later wrote:

When a stream of 100km pilgrims began to arrive, it struck me. The new pilgrims were clean, they all smelled of some sort of applied scent, and even the fit ones looked soft. We long distance pilgrims were none of these. We may not have been dirty, but we had been wearing the same walking clothes for the past three weeks, no-one I knew applied scent, and all of us had lost those soft edges.

I realised a day later that it was the brightness of the 100km pilgrim´s clothing. We long distance pilgrims had been doing our laundry with whatever soap came to hand, and had none of the benefits that modern laundry detergent brings to making clothes look bright. Our clothing was dull!

So I think you are a seasoned pilgrim when you no longer gleam, no longer smell and your body no longer has any soft edges.

Regards,

 

[efdoucette]

... when you are saddened that a 800 km hike comes to an end.

 

[kathygpilgrim]

...are able to accept assistance as well as give it...

 

[LTfit]

...when you realise that being thankful for little things is a most important part of each day,

Hear, hear!

...when you feel absolute joy seeing that first yellow arrow.

 

[lovingkindness]

...when you feel beautiful dressed in a rubbish bag...

 

[ksam]

You can allow and welcome someone touching your feet! Without it I might not have been able to continue! I will always be grateful to my friend for this gift. Gratitude!! for everything that comes your way, even the pains. They sometimes lead to lasting friendships!

 

[Vincentayd]

You start and end the walk day with equal amounts of spiritual energy, fueled along the way by the salutations of " BUEN CAMINO". :arrow:

 

[meenas]

You've finished the Camino, but if you see yellow arrows anywhere else, you automatically follow them (aka 'Yellow Arrow Fever'!)

 

[mralisn]

...buy an extra orange to hand to a stranger taking a break under a tree on a hot day....offer a piece of chocolate to a peregrina sitting alone with an open invitation to join you and others....save a glass of wine and bowl of pasta for the one last peregrino you know will show up exhausted late in the evening

 

[gittiharre]

Want to kiss the ground when you set off on yet another walk and the path feels like home...

 

[KiwiNomad06]

...when you join the Camino at Pamplona on your second time around, and can't figure out why everyone else is in such a rush, and why they feel obliged to walk 31km days...
Margaret

 

[evanlow]

When failure to complete your planned camino is an option.

 

[franmaryp]

are walking in the Spring and it has rained EVERY day and you casually take your hat off your head, smile, and continure walking enjoying the refreshing cool rain on your face

 

[rgallant]

When you feel more comfortable walking with your backpack than without it. It becomes a part of you

 

[Tia Valeria]

Two of the answers resonate particularly. Following a yellow arrow anywhere even in the wrong direction, and feeling naked without a backpack.
To that I will add:- expecting to weigh our clothes when we pack to visit the family with the car! and being called 'Camino angels' in Coruna, for helping out two other pilgrims when all on our way home.

 

[Jeff Stys]

When asked by a new or inspiring pilgrim "How many Caminos have you done?"

Your answer, "Oh, I don't know, a few I guess".

The absolute last thing you want is to be pegged as the 'camino expert'.
Jeff

 

[scikowski]

When you are driving someplace and you start to figure out how long it would take you to walk to your destination, taking into consideration hills, temperature, eating opportunities and the fact that you probably walk faster without your pack.

 

[marian55]

when walking has become your life...

 

[jirit]

When you arrive at your chosen destination and realize that your journey has just begun.

 

[Tincatinker]

Smile and nod at every answer on this thread...

 

[Telluridewalker]

...think only 10 to a room is luxury. :wink:

 

[Al the optimist]

When the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning (and during the night) is Camino and your dreams are about it as well.

 

[dougfitz]

When the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning (and during the night) is Camino and your dreams are about it as well.

Al, you are indeed an optimist to think that merely dreaming of the Camino is enough to be a seasoned pilgrim

Regards,

 

[Al the optimist]

No I don't think that is all you need to be one. But my feet know what it takes!

 

[grilly]

When you wake up back at home in the middle of the night and can't remember in which albergue you're presently.

 

[Oceanroc7]

Say "Buen Camino" to a weather-beater stranger with a rucksack weeks after you get back home to England. And don't feel foolish afterwards.

 

[Al the optimist]

Too true Grilly

 

[MeganG22]

.....when anything yellow still catches your eye, even after months of being home!

 

[Al the optimist]

If you spend every day remembering the last one, debating what to do next and after only 3 months give in and commit yourself by booking the flights for the next spring, your not seasoned, your just hooked!
allan

 

[AlanB]

.....when you ask which day of the week it is?...and that's a 'normal question

 

[Al the optimist]

Or your Christmas list starts with Pyrethryn!
allan

 

[ffp13]

When you go into a shop to get christmas presants and come out with a x-large quick dry towell marked down from $50 to $15 at Katmandu and pack it away ready for your next Camino. (SCORE!!) Then you leave the store forgetting what your intended purpose of going in there was. :roll:

Katmandu!! Must be a kiwi or or Ozzie

 

[mralisn]

When you check this forum and others several times a day and see if you can extend a helping hand to another about to walk.

 

[Al the optimist]

Not a seasoned pilg yet as I only started walking this summer. But I have every intention of being able to consider myself one at some point in the future. Until It's just day in day out thinking about it, and counting the days until May.
allan

 

[Galrice]

.. when you refuse to use a suitcase to travel (anywhere!) since you just never know when you might have an urge to find a trail.
.. when you have (more than once) made the journey to the cathedral in Santiago, received your Compostela, and immediately went to find the next scallop shell to continue to Finisterre or Muxia, since the journey and adventure simply cannot be over.

 

[Sigga]

...when you realise that being thankful for little things is a most important part of each day,

Hear, hear!

...when you feel absolute joy seeing that first yellow arrow.

I got lost in Logrono for 1 1/2 hours and when I at last saw the yellow arrow on a wall, I threw myself at the wall and shouted out loud: "Do not ever leave me again". It was like finding a log lost friend again, which it is

And when I jumped up and down and called out: "I am so happy" when a man was selling coffee at a resting place after many km and he was not suppose to be there at all. It was the best coffee ever.

 

[Sigga]

Say "Buen Camino" to a weather-beater stranger with a rucksack weeks after you get back home to England. And don't feel foolish afterwards.

 

[gabolga]

Don't care any more if you ever arrive at your destination or not. The true meaning of Pilgrimage is in the walk and not in the destination.

 

[Hammam]

...when you decide to spend at last a quiet night in a nice double room, and find yourself missing all the snorring sounds of fellow pilgrims in the dormitories....

 

[CaminoGen]

Re: Re: You know you are a seasoned pilgrim, when you

...when you decide to spend at last a quiet night in a nice double room, and find yourself missing all the snorring sounds of fellow pilgrims in the dormitories....

That's so true. I could barely sleep in my single room when I got to Santiago:lol:

 

[walkingtotheend]

Don't care any more if you ever arrive at your destination or not. The true meaning of Pilgrimage is in the walk and not in the destination.

So true. Sometimes I feel my whole being relax as I begin walking (anywhere).
Then when I arrive my body starts urging me to move on down the next path

 

[siseale94]

When you realize that there is something very special and different about walking into a town as opposed to entering any other way.

 

[Al the optimist]

"Do not ever leave me again". Love it Sigga!
Is it when you get to Santiago and lovely place that it is it seems noisy and crowded and Finisterra calls loudly?
allan

 

[peregrino_tom]

hear someone honking their car horn a few times and wonder if it's the bread van

 

[shefollowsshells]

When you can eat your dinner with some stranger's blistered feet propped up on the table beside you
When you let a stranger (but a loved peer pilgrim) say, "here (patting her lap) put your legs up here" and she proceeds to Massage them.
When you want to ask anyone sitting by themselves at a coffee house or restaurant to come sit with you...

***and this is a true story!
I celebrated my Camino once home in the United States by going to a local fancy Seafood Restaurant the day after coming home. We had to wait for a table for dinner so they put us at a small table where they hoped you'd buy drinks and appetizers. A man came up to us and asked if the extra chair/seat there at the table was taken (so he could physically move it to a table where they needed another chair) ...and I said, "please come join us!!!!" assuming he wanted company.....this was pretty embarrassing as my non pilgrim hubby looked at me totally perplexed.

 

[shefollowsshells]

Another true story...

When you step in horse S@&# (poop) on trail and you smile...knowing that the precious horse you met in Orisson named "Soul", from Toulouse, is ahead, near and doing well!!!!!

When you find you need to forewarn a gentleman old enough to be your father, " You might want to warn your wife...I really think she is going to find a pair of my black underwear in your clothes"....after sharing a washing machine in Lorca and I was down a pair of undies the next day.

 

[walkmag]

When you are not worried if you have lost the trail , or sign posts .

 

[calgaryterry]

As a pilgrim wannabe, Sept 2014, I gotta say THIS was my favorite thread- I've read this forum day and night since I discovered it Jan 1st. Very addictive! I went test-driving boots today just to make it more real...... T minus 8 months.....
Terry

 

[Icacos]

As a pilgrim wannabe, Sept 2014, I gotta say THIS was my favorite thread- I've read this forum day and night since I discovered it Jan 1st. Very addictive! I went test-driving boots today just to make it more real...... T minus 8 months.....
Terry

Welcome to the Forum. Two years ago I was exactly where you are now - planning my Camino. It's a wonderful journey, and the best part is .... it continues ...

 

[dalston999]

When you see a marker that says 360 km to Santiago and your immediate reaction is 'oh no, it's nearly over' just another 15 days or so, and then laugh when you realise that 2 months ago you would never have thought this possible or measured time in this way.

 

[Keldi]

Love this post, can't wait to start my Camino in May 2014

 

[Al the optimist]

You know when you are a pilgrim when you have days like mine yesterday and today. Yesterday I had to buy a new pair of boots to replace the old faithful ones. After 4 caminos and the training for them it was a wrench, but I am already starting to fall for my new babies. I walked around in them all day yesterday and am sitting looking at them now, itching to go walking. (yes, unusually the sun is shining here in the UK midlands!). I have even weighed them and had my initial impression confirmed - they are 0.2 kilos lighter! RESULT! It has even prompted me, yet again, to pack my bag and weigh it as well. Funnily enough it still weighs 7.5 k without water and food. Strange that as I thought it might have put weight on over Christmas like yours truly. Oh well it looks like only one of us is going to have go to the gym then.

 

[nidarosa]

When you enjoy perusing the travel size products rather than the full size ones.

 

[Tincatinker]

Hi Al, I just bought new boots too. They are still snuggled in their tissue paper in the great big box that boot manufacturers seem to provide. The old boots are on the mat by the door, growling. I suspect the new boots may be as nervous of our forthcoming adventures as the old pair.

Back on topic - you know you are a seasoned pilgrim when it's time to retire your faithful old boots....

 

[greg121]

... when you start your camino and call it Zubiri instead of Z-town and Larrasoaña instead of L-town.

 

[Wotever]

When you walk through pain that would ordinarily merit a week off work.