Time between idea and start

[Pelgrimpaul]

In a socialmedia group someone asked a simple question, leading to interesting answers.

How long between your idea of walking the Camino
to actually doing it?

Thank you for idea Robert Altenbaugh

 

[Kerstinh47]

Just about 1.5 years from dreaming to walking. Buen Camino!

 

[tyrrek]

About 3 weeks. It would have been less but my passport was out of date. On my second Camino Frances the idea was only to walk as far as Burgos, but I ended up walking to Santiago after missing my flight home. ;-)

 

[mspath]

Forty years elapsed for me; those years were my professional life.
Finally at 65 I first walked the camino and now at 76 I still continue. Carpe diem!

MM

 

[domigee]

Forty years for me too!

 

[jeffnd]

Almost 2 years exactly for me. I can't remember the exact date, but it was sometime in March of 2012 I decided to walk and in March of 2014, I was walking!

 

[Jan_89]

I've started to work in June 2011 and after one year I told my supervisor and colleagues that in June 2014 I quit my job and go to Santiago.. Nobody believed me. But then, two years later I said them - Adiós Amigos! And whole summer 2014 I spent in Spain..

So answer is two years!

 

[Mike Savage]

15-18 months for me.

 

[Tom Leonard]

About 2 years . While on holiday in Northern Spain I passed the sign for Camino in Rioja valley on way to San Sebastian and thought "Why not ?"
Leaving in 10 days

 

[HeidiL]

In 1999 we were living in Spain and heard a talk about the Camino Frances at the Norwegian embassy. That spring we drove a car along as long a stretch of the CF as we could manage, with our 3-year-old in the car.

Five years later we were back, all three of us, to walk. I don't think the kid would have been ready any earlier, but the big ones were definitely ready before.

 

[Robo]

18 months. From seeing 'that' movie.

I needed to get lots of different people to cover me at work, so it took a bit of planning.

 

[MaryLynn]

About 12 years. I had a year off in 2000 and in planning what I might do, I seriously considered walking the Camino, but after a little research I decided that it was far too dangerous for me to walk alone - I would be too lonely and I might fall off a cliff and I had never walked such a long distance before and I would probably get lost many times along the way. Time passes. A friend of a friend asked if I was interested in walking the Camino someday, so in May 2011 we walked from Leon to Santiago, figuring the earlier parts were either too hard (Pyrenees) or too boring (meseta). I returned (alone) in October to walk the parts I had missed in the spring (and fell in love with the meseta), and I have walked the Camino Frances end to end twice more, 500km of the Arles/Aragones, and this summer I walked 300km on the CF and 300km on the Haervejen (ancient trade route and a Camino to Santiago) in Denmark with a friend I met in Navarette in 2011, and I have been a hospitalera twice. I am making up for lost time.
PS. In 2000, instead of walking the 'unsafe' Camino, I cycled for two wonderful months in The Netherlands and on my last day, a motorbike swiped me and I fell and fractured my elbow. I still have occasional pain...and scars to show. But I have had no injuries and only a few small blisters after walking about 3600km on Caminos (and I am not a spring chicken or athletic).

 

[C clearly]

@marylynn - I enjoyed your description. It is quite funny how our perceptions and opinions change with a bit of knowledge and experience!

 

[Robert Corcoran]

About 12 years. I had a year off in 2000 and in planning what I might do, I seriously considered walking the Camino, but after a little research I decided that it was far too dangerous for me to walk alone - I would be too lonely and I might fall off a cliff and I had never walked such a long distance before and I would probably get lost many times along the way. Time passes. A friend of a friend asked if I was interested in walking the Camino someday, so in May 2011 we walked from Leon to Santiago, figuring the earlier parts were either too hard (Pyrenees) or too boring (meseta). I returned (alone) in October to walk the parts I had missed in the spring (and fell in love with the meseta), and I have walked the Camino Frances end to end twice more, 500km of the Arles/Aragones, and this summer I walked 300km on the CF and 300km on the Haervejen (ancient trade route and a Camino to Santiago) in Denmark with a friend I met in Navarette in 2011, and I have been a hospitalera twice. I am making up for lost time.
PS. In 2000, instead of walking the 'unsafe' Camino, I cycled for two wonderful months in The Netherlands and on my last day, a motorbike swiped me and I fell and fractured my elbow. I still have occasional pain...and scars to show. But I have had no injuries and only a few small blisters after walking about 3600km on Caminos (and I am not a spring chicken or athletic).

Wow, very inspiring as I prepare to leave in five days for my first Camino. I don't like to admit it, but The anticipation is making me a bit crazy. A lot of deep breathing. Thanks, Bob. Nine months between that film and leaving.

 

[Bala]

About 14 years since I first heard of the Camino (read James Michener's "Iberia"); 13 years since I decided to do it (spoke with a friend who had already done half and was leaving in a week to finish).

Then 10 years since I decided I wasn't the least bit interested in hiking anywhere with a pack on my back (visited Santiago as a tourist and saw actual pilgrims coming in to town ).

And 2 1/2 years since I decided, Yes! I will do this. A friend who took up marathon running at age 60 told us she was leaving soon to hike Hadrian's Wall across Britian. My husband and I decided that, shoot (well, that wasn't the word we used, but you get the picture....), if Ginny can run marathons and hike Hadrian's Wall, we can do the Camino. We start Oct. 7.

 

[Peter Fransiscus]

About 14 years since I first heard of the Camino (read James Michener's "Iberia"); 13 years since I decided to do it (spoke with a friend who had already done half and was leaving in a week to finish).

Then 10 years since I decided I wasn't the least bit interested in hiking anywhere with a pack on my back (visited Santiago as a tourist and saw actual pilgrims coming in to town ).

And 2 1/2 years since I decided, Yes! I will do this. A friend who took up marathon running at age 60 told us she was leaving soon to hike Hadrian's Wall across Britian. My husband and I decided that, shoot (well, that wasn't the word we used, but you get the picture....), if Ginny can run marathons and hike Hadrian's Wall, we can do the Camino. We start Oct. 7.

Have a great time on your Camino , Peter.

 

[Bala]

Have a great time on your Camino , Peter.

Thank you. I know it will be both fabulous and not remotely like what I expect. Trying to prepare to accept whatever comes our way.

 

[Peter Fransiscus]

In a socialmedia group someone asked a simple question, leading to interesting answers.

How long between your idea of walking the Camino
to actually doing it?

Thank you for idea Robert Altenbaugh

Hi, for me it started with the preparation with my wife for here Camino in September 2013. Last year we walked together from Sarria to Santiago to Finistere. And this year I walked the Camino Frances in April / May. In the coming years I planned to walk each time a different Camino. Wish you well, Peter.

 

[MichaelSG]

In December 2010, the vague notion of a Camino caught our attention when we saw a documentary about it while on holiday in the U.S. It explained why a Thai friend was sending us postcards from different towns in Spain every day for several weeks, nine months earlier. In November, 2011 we saw "that movie" on the plane back to the U.S. and took it as a sign that we were supposed to walk. We quickly did some research and planning for an April Camino but my mother passed away in March 2012 so we put off the walk until September. I guess that means about 10 months for us.

The Camino Portugese idea started the day we got back from Santiago in 2012 so that one was two years in the making.

Our most recent walk, I only learned of the Camino Ignaciano about 1 March 2015 and we were on the plane to Barcelona on 14 April.

 

[jirit]

First time - a few months

Second time - one week

 

[momof34man]

It will be 1 1/2 years from when I heard about it - to actually walking it. Someone I knew walked it and said that thought of me when they did it....I then started my research. I had never heard of it before and the more I learned, the more I was convinced that I had to do it. The first camino movie I saw helped fuel my interest in walking - "Walking the Camino - Six Ways to Santiago". I was bitten by the camino bug.....along with many of you! I'm looking forward to our camino starting in April 2016.

 

[2travelingsisters]

It was 2 years from the time we watched THe Way, to our departure. My sister and I waited till we both retired. We also needed time to research and buy our gear, plan things out somewhat. We both loved every minute.

 

[Camino2010]

"How long between your idea of walking the Camino to actually doing it?"

The first time, about 10.5 or 11 months.

The second time, about 2 weeks (I was already in Europe, visiting and hiking in Hungary with a Camino friend from my first time, and he dropped me off in Barcelona on his way to Morocco after getting a surprise job offer there).

The third time, about 4 weeks (it was the first week of May and I'd been thinking about going back to walk again in September, when suddenly one day I had the spark of inspiration to book my ticket for the first week of June instead!).

And this year, the fourth time, about 7 weeks. I would have gone sooner but I'm a teacher and the school year wasn't finished yet.


But actually, as I think about it now, writing this, I could say that between the first and second was 1 year, and between the second and third was 7 months, and between the third and fourth was 3 years... because as soon as I got back from each Camino I was already thinking and planning and dreaming about the next. And the idea (or the knowing that I'm going ) for a fifth one is already in place.

Ahhhh... Camino bliss, is this.

Thanks for asking!

Buen Camino!

Rachel/Caminoheart

 

[Stivandrer]

Around 1968 and still in school, I learned that a classmate of mine that had fallen into drug abuse, was taken by a author/ physiotherapist to the Camino to get away from influence. Asked my father if the ´ Jakobsvej´ / Way of Saint James still existed !?
We both thought thought the route had fallen into disuse. When in fact this is about the time when renewed interst was formed, as we now know....
After hiking all and about the British isles when at university, I thought that some day I would have to do the Way...

When I turned 50, I planned doing the Camino before I hit the 60 yr mark.
In between came prostate cancer, a voluntary weightloss of 30 kilos and as the T minus 10 months was reached I started to walk to my workplace instead of using the bicycle

- and THAT has made all the difference: never using the bus but to walk and using every opportunity to use my body.

From then on there was small steady trades of the good gear and the necessary new backpack to replace the old Fjällräven frame one.
I completes the walk to Santiago May 2014 = so in anwer to your Question that would be 46 years. But I wasn´t ready until I actually did walk the way.

Collegues and locals have long since ceased to offer med lifts as they whizz by, because I am true to my resolve of enjoying nature and its whims

This morning, in the pelting rain and the coming of first cold lows in September, I had all my gear out and walked the relative short stretch to my 24 hours watch at the small institution where I work.

And you know what - I loved it, every step of the way. It is catchy, it can be done by everyone......

Best of luck with your enquiry......

 

[tomnorth]

3-1/2 years for me. I was in intensive physical therapy in February of 2012, recuperating from a ruptured quadriceps tendon, when I watched "The Way." I figured if I ever made it back to 100% I would walk the Camino. I set out on September 24, 2015.