I walked the
Camino Frances in July and August as circumstances allowed me enough time to start at St Jean and walk through to Santiago in one go, something I didn't expect to be able to do before retirement.
I stayed in a mixture of albergues although the municipal and Xunta ones were closed. I have stayed in these on other routes and on the last stretch into Santiago when i did the Primitivo.
I have had plenty of time to reflect on the experience and what the ongoing impact is likely to be. For what it's worth here are some of my thoughts.
Sadly many businesses on all Camino routes will not survive the effects of the pandemic, even if widespread vaccination allows some return to normality in time for the celebrations next year.
I think that the projected numbers for 2021 now look unrealistic even under the best case as all forms of travel will take time to recover. If there is another year like this one then the damage to the local economies is likely to become permanent.
I don't think anything I have written above is particularly original or controversial. Where I do think there will be more change is in the behaviours and attitudes of different pilgrim segments to the albergue experience. I think it can be summed up as "never glad confident morning again".
Older pilgrims with health concerns who are more risk averse are unlikely to relish the full dormitory experience in future, with the maximum number of bunk beds crammed into the available space. The municipals and Xunta albergues will become the preserve of younger pilgrims and older people of lesser means on a genuine Catholic pilgrimage. Public health concerns are likely to require some increase in the spaces between bunks in these.
At the same time I think this will drive an increase in the shift from the bunk to the "pod" in private albergues. Some of the best places I stayed in already had these, and it brilliantly combined the communal albergue experience with increased space and privacy. This will require investment and reduce the number of spaces in each albergue and I think will result in the price increase seen in 2020 becoming permanent at the very least.
In summary, the accommodation will be more segregated on grounds of age and income and the private options will be a bit less "albergueish" but hopefully not too much.
There will at some stage be a new normal but the Camino will, like everything else, not be quite the same as before.
On a lighter note I have been passing some of the time watching old camino videos on Youtube and I am frankly appalled at the lack of masks and attention to social distancing in the ones from 2019 and earlier.