A newbie bedbug question...

[ScooterB]

Hello! I am contemplating a Camino adventure next April/May and am debating the virtues of Frances vs. Via de la Plata. Frankly the talk of bedbugs is freaking me out. Would I have a reduced likelihood of encountering these pests on the VdlP?
Also, does staying in a hotel or pensione instead of a pilgrim albergue reduce the likelihood? Pls share your wisdom with me!

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi, ScooterB

Welcome to the forum!

There are others on the forum who have much more expert advice and experience about treatment, etc, but I can tell you a few things from my own experience.

I have only gotten bitten once (I have walked a Camino every year but one since 2000), and it was on the Vdlp, probably in the Zafra albergue. There are probably more bedbugs on the Francés than on the Vdlp, just because there are more people, but bedbugs are an equal opportunity offender and you can find them on any camino.

Bedbugs also do not distinguish albergues from hotels, all it takes is one person carrying them to start the problem, no matter what the accommodations. I remember meeting people who got bit at a quite nice hotel in an old monastery in Carrión de los Condes. I had stayed there the previous year without incident, and I'm sure they have gotten rid of them since, so I'm not using this post as a way to say -- don't stay at this place, they have bedbugs -- but merely to illustrate that bedbugs can be anywhere. It is true that there seem to be some albergues whose owners do not seem to care about pilgrim reports of bedbugs and so they are a perennial problem, but most of the owners take quick action. Buen camino, Laurie

 

[Deleted member 3000]

You can find bed bugs anywhere and everywhere. You will have fewest problems if you act as though they are everywhere. Universal precautions. Buen Camino.

 

[jsalt]

does staying in a hotel or pensione instead of a pilgrim albergue reduce the likelihood?

Hi, no. I found a bed bug, in my bed, when I woke up in the morning, in the hotel I stayed at in Le Puy at the very start of my camino last year. Great, I haven’t even started walking yet! I then walked 1,500 kms to Santiago, staying in albergues most nights, and had no other encounter. Just read up on them, so you know what to do if you do encounter them. Jill