| For 2024 Pilgrims: €50,- donation = 1 year with no ads on the forum + 90% off any 2024 Guide. More here. (Discount code sent to you by Private Message after your donation) |
|---|
The primary concern is your airport security screening. Most airports will not allow trekking poles to be carried on board an aircraft. They will require them to be checked luggage. This applies regardless of the poles ability to be collapsed or not.
That is not correct. The regulations about carriage of poles on aircraft are made by the national air safety regulators, not by the airlines. They are banned as cabin baggage around the world in the national legislation or regulations of the US, EU, Canada, Australia, etc, etc, etc, so you are breaking the law to carry them on as cabin baggage. However, this seems to be a bit like speeding or taking small amounts of illegal recreational drugs, and some forum members have a cavalier attitude to compliance - if you don't get caught, don't worry.
I, too, am having the same problem. I'm considering not taking poles at all, since my camino is short, from Sarria to Santiago. This is my first camino, so I'm not sure - Are poles that helpful to your walk?
They are helpful, and they are available all along the camino (not sure about Sarria, sorry). We brought one set from US checked in a mailing tube inside a duffle bag and bought another on the camino (Leon). If you are picky about the kind you want, I would shop at REI or the equivalent before leaving. I would be lost without mine, specially on he downhill bits (knee issues) but I've seen plenty of pilgrims without them.
I agree with this 100%. I'd even take it further by saying I always check my bags (and poles if I'm going trekking somewhere) and only take off my back pack lid with my camera, passport and such for a carry-on. In 15 years of work travel I've only had my bag not show up 1 time (it did arrive later that day on the next flight). I use a lockable airporter bag which helps with outside of the pack items like poles but am ready to upgrade to the Z Poles so they fit in the pack too. Why go through the hassle of fighting for overhead storage space with everyone else who is trying to jam all their suitcases up there?
So you are claiming your poles are an essential medical aid needed to walk down the aisle of the plane when you are on your way to undertake your pilgrimage? I don't think I would want to start my pilgrimage with a lie, but if you think that's okay ...
. . . . . . . . .I agree with this 100%. I'd even take it further by saying I always check my bags (and poles if I'm going trekking somewhere) and only take off my back pack lid with my camera, passport and such for a carry-on. In 15 years of work travel I've only had my bag not show up 1 time (it did arrive later that day on the next flight). I use a lockable airporter bag which helps with outside of the pack items like poles but am ready to upgrade to the Z Poles so they fit in the pack too. Why go through the hassle of fighting for overhead storage space with everyone else who is trying to jam all their suitcases up there?
I am not sure that I understand now what you intended with your earlier post. In the circumstances where you didn't suggest that there was a genuine medical reason to be using the poles, it is reasonable to infer that, at least for Canadians, you are suggesting the use of this as a gambit to get past the security checkpoint and take the poles into the cabin. Are you now saying that this was not the intent of your first post?
At @Kanga (the sage)'s suggestion, we bought the cheapest largest $2 shop zipped carry bags with handles and put our stuff/packs in them and checked them in, taking the front packs of the Aarn packs on as hand luggage with our few essentials required on the long flights from Sydney to Madrid. If I used a different pack without front packs, I would be a' plastic bag pilgrim' and take hand luggage requirements on board in a cheap smaller plastic bag. My Pacer poles did just fit in the pack but this way if your poles didn't fit, you could just attached them to the pack and throw it all in the cheap carry bags. Our 'luggage' was so easy to spot on the carravelle, and although the original plan was to bin these bags, we found people eager to re-purpose them at the airports both ways. There was obviously something enticing about two senior pilgrims wearing back packs, waving huge bags above our heads spruiking them in 'Aussie' language! "G'day mate! Wanna freebie bag? Used once by lady owner, log books kept - free to good home!!!"
There is a nice little sporting goods store in Sarria. You can probably buy trekking poles there. But you can for SURE buy one of the very nice handmade walking poles for under €8 - a nice memento when you return home.
I envy those small enough to get everything into a bag that can be carried on. For those of us who are somewhat larger, or who walk in spring and autumn, it is often not practical to achieve that.
Personally I wouldn't bother about poles from Saria to Santiago. I never used mine on that leg at all. The stages are reasonable and the walking is undulating but not difficult. The bits that aren't easy are through what I have now learned to call eucalypt forest (intead of gum tree plantation) where chances are, if necessary, you will find fallen branches to use as walking poles.
The thing about walking poles is that they can be 'all things to all people', or none.
