Camino Finances

[Thegreyfoxfromoz]

My wife and I finished the Camino Frances on April 5th, 2018, in 27 days. We had a blast but I have a few observations on finances. All notes below relate to 2 people and our experience may differ from others. Aiming to give s simple summary of one topic I found confusing on this forum

1. Credit card is usable most places. We found most (80%) Albergues, cafe's etc accepted. But you still need cash and we avoided the municipal and church refuges - I understand they mostly do not take cards
2. ATM is easy to find, we took out 400 Euros 3 times along the walk. Plan ahead, all decent size cities/ towns have them
3. Costs for 2 people in private room averaged EU35 for accomm and in total we were about EU 90 per day for 2 of us
4. The cost no one mentions is pharmacy - we spent about EU30 every 3/4 days mostly on tape, vaseline, bandages, blister packs etc and cold tablets (it was very cold and wet). That worked out at about EU5pp pr day. That was a surprise to me
5. A solo person can easily get by on 30-35 a day. We met a young guy who was walking long distances (40km) to reduce the days and get to donation hostels. He was surviving on less than 25/day and probably finished in 22-24 days based on his daily mileage
6. We had no security issues, I kept our cash on one of us at all times
7. Large cities (particularly Burgos) have fake pilgrims near the cathedrals scamming that they have had their money stolen and no one to help them.

This may not apply to everyone but I think that our experience was different to what others have shared on this forum so thought this might help

 

[Bradypus]

Your pharmacy costs seem staggering. You must have had a very rough time of it! I have occasionally had to buy painkillers, tape or compression bandages on my walks but never in the quantities or at the cost you describe. Unless someone has a specific and serious medical problem then I doubt it would normally be necessary to budget 5 euro per day for pharmacy items.

 

[Robo]

I would have spent close to that I think. Strapping tape is not cheap. And I use non stretch on my Achilles and K Tape on shins .... daily.
I was about to get another roll of K Tape here in Bangkok before we board our flight for Paris tonight. 750 Baht! (A$30). No way. I’ll get it in Spain....

 

[bib]

Thanks for the helpful update

 

[Thegreyfoxfromoz]

Your pharmacy costs seem staggering. You must have had a very rough time of it! I have occasionally had to buy painkillers, tape or compression bandages on my walks but never in the quantities or at the cost you describe. Unless someone has a specific and serious medical problem then I doubt it would normally be necessary to budget 5 euro per day for pharmacy items.

not really. typical for quite a few of the folks hiking around us. Pharmacy prices in Spain a quite high - as is the quality of the products. Mostly paper tape, bandaids and elastopast tape plus vaso, ibuprofen and blister packs - we replaced them daily as they didn't perform as well as promised and they are not cheap

 

[Vacajoe]

Walking right now as a couple and your costs match ours (except the pharmacy because we have fortunately remained injury free!)