Hola everyone
I am very new to this forum, but I would like to offer you my thoughts about camping along the camino. First let me say that I am 54 years old, married, and I did the camino a couple of times, walking or cycling during the 80s and 90s (from Belgium-about 2000kms). We live in Portugal now and I plan to cycle beginning 2016 to Santiago (about 400 kms for me), and then from Santiago to Belgium to visit family and friends.
I almost always bivvy in the wild for the night. A bivvy for me is to stop somewhere late afternoon/evening and start again the next morning. Camping is if you plan to stay at least two nights. There are only a couple of "rules" for a wild bivvy. Keep a low profile and don't leave any traces. Don't bivvy in very touristy areas. In natural/national parks, don't bivvy at the entrance gate. If you are in a populated area, just ask the owner (if available) of the land if you can bivvy for the night in the garden/field/meadow. You will be surprised that most people are very hospitable. Just smile and ask politely (in the local language). Don't take it personal when they refuse you permission. I almost always have my dog with me, and she "opens" a lot of doors
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Most of the time I don't even sleep in a tent but in a bivvy bag from the dutch army, even in the winter, and -20C. On the ground I put an isolation mat, and on top of that an all season outdoor mattress. In the bivvy bag is my warm sleeping bag and a silk liner. I usually sleep excellent. If it is really raining very hard, I have an old polish canvas army poncho that doubles as a tent/shelter.
Combining jobs/careers with pilgrimage and/or nomadic wishes is not always easy. Especially if you want to be "away" from the job for more than a couple of weeks. Until I was 35, I enjoyed a carefree life, with little money, combining traveling with study and working the odd job here and there. Then I got a regular, very well paid job for 15 years. It had a lot of material advantages, but I didn't experience "joie de vivre", nor did my wife. 5 years ago we gave most of our material possessions away and bought a small farm in portugal, and now we live off the land. We generate a small yearly income from our farm of around 2.000 euros (2.200us$), and we spent about half that amount per year. And we both feel this is our way! We also have an agreement that if one of us wants to travel somewhere or do something away from our farm, the other one will take care of the farm work, together with some local friends. In 2014 my wife was away for a long period. And next year in january I will cycle to Santiago and then to belgium/ northwest europe for about a year with my dog.
I would like to finish with some quotes of Zhuangzi, who lived more than 2 millennia ago, and whose wisdom was an eyeopener for me when I was a young adult.
"What the world values is money, reputation, long life and achievement. What the world counts as joy is health, family and friends, good food, fine clothes, beautiful things to look at, pleasant music to listen to.
What the world considers misfortune is lack of money, a low social rank, a reputation for being bad, an early death, bodily discomfort and labor, no chance to get good food, not having good clothes to wear, having no way to amuse or delight the eye, no pleasant music to listen to.
If people find that they are deprived of these things, they go into a panic or fall into despair. They are so concerned for their life that their anxiety makes life unbearable, even when they have the things they think they want. Their very concern for enjoyment makes them unhappy.
All I know is that when I consider the way people go about attaining happiness, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness.
My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it. My greatest happiness consists precisely in doing nothing whatever that is calculated to obtain happiness. And this, in the minds of most people, is the worst possible course."
Buen Camino to you all