@Mark Lee, this might have been your experience, but it certainly wasn't mine. My wife and I walked relatively slowly, and arrived quite late in the afternoon on longer days. Other than for a few places, booking was essential for us. I generally booked in the evening for the following day, but after Sarria I did the bookings several days in advance. We departed SJPP on 2 May, and I know that there were members who departed a week or so later who didn't face the same problems we had encountered, and who would proclaim that there was no problem on the CF as if they could see all of it ahead of them. It just wasn't so.
Even on the few days that I walked alone just before Burgos, I was not able to just walk up and expect to find a bed, even early in the afternoon. On two of the four days that I was walking alone, I was not able to get a bed at my preferred stopping point, but had to walk on to the next village. I didn't find that too difficult, but I know that this would have been extremely difficult if I had been walking with my wife.
So far these are facts, not opinions. What follows is advice. Feel free to challenge it or add to it in a constructive way.
Have a strategy, or perhaps one might better call this an escalation pattern:
a. if you are walking without planning to book, give a little thought to the options you will explore if you find the albergue you want to stay at full. Some that come to mind:
- see if the hospitalero is prepared to ring around the other albergues in the town. Let them use your phone for this, particularly if you are at any of the association or donativo albergues.
- be prepared to walk on if there is nothing in the current town.
- alternatively, it might be possible to get a taxi to somewhere that has a space, and return the next day to where you left the path.
- find non-albergue accommodation. It will be more expensive, may not be close to the path, but the owner may be prepared to pick you up and return you as part of the cost. If not, offer to pay or find a taxi.
b. if you plan to book, work out when and where. Invariably, you will be told this is less flexible than walking without a booking. For those that are tempted to repeat that, its been said, and there should be no need for you to labour the point.
- The minimum time that I booked ahead was about lunch time on the day I needed to stay. It was going to be a long leg for my wife and I, and I didn't want to face not finding a place if we walked without a booking.
- Normally we would see how we were feeling at the end of each day before making arrangements for the next day. This retains some more flexibility than booking for several days ahead.
- Clearly it is possible to book further ahead, and we met people who had booked or had bookings made for them for a week or more ahead.
- If you cannot find a place to book where you want to get to, you have to decide whether you have the stamina to go further, or need to find somewhere closer, and have a shorter day than you might have wanted.