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Thanks for your concern, and I appreciate your intentions. No feathers are ruffled.Hi Paul, at the risk of ruffling some feathers, have you ever embarked on this kind of physical trek before with five children in the dead of winter? I live in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains in NY. For those of us you hike and do outdoor winter activities here, the safety considerations are very different as seasons change toward colder, harsher conditions. As familiar as I am with Camino walking, undertaking a winter Camino just for myself is something that I would have to think very seriously about before venturing out across Spain. That said, the welfare of taking a child, let alone five, makes me very hesitate to even encourage or support that this is a good idea. The possibility of various kinds of problems seem to increase many fold when your party is as large as it will be and consists of five children. I offer these these thoughts with the very best intentions. But, please rethink whether a winter Camino is really a very good idea for you and your family.
Thanks! We all walked SJPP to Santiago in 2015, and in 2020 we started in Pamplona but only made it to Logroño when the state of emergency was called and we had to return home.Hey Paul, thank you for the additional information. Wow, your kids have already walked the CF! What an accomplishment for the entire family. With your experiences, You will undoubtedly have another great Camino!
I have walked in November December my last 3 caminos. In 2019 I walked the CF and in 2021 I walked the VDLP. I intended to go all the way but there were so many closed albergues I decided to walk to Astorga and then take the CF the rest of the way. I have learned from my caminos that no one website or app is more than 65-70% accurate on albergues being open or closed. I learned to just call ahead usually the night before just to see if an albergue was open or closed in the town I was thinking of going to the next day. If during the course of the day I knew I wanted to walk a shorter or longer distance again I would confirm to be on the safe side. I used a combination of 4 different sources just to cover my bases.Does anyone have a rough winter albergue guide that we could use to sharpen our thinking?
For what it's worth, I walked Burgos to Rabanal in late March 2022. In some some villages where I wanted to stop everything was apparently closed, but when I went into a bar, they either had a room or found me one. I had no reservations. I was the only guest in the inn at several. And one day I saw no other pilgrims and one day, I saw only one. It was a great solitary walk. Buen Camino.Hi all,
Excited to be back planning now after our 2020 Camino ended abruptly after walking for only 1 week.
We‘re looking at walking the Francés from mid January next year, going slowly. Our walking party this time round will be my wife and 5 of our 6 children. The youngest will be 4, so we will take our hiking stroller, at least for rests, making a warm cocoon for our little’un and in between when he can walk we’ll put our packs in it.
We are a little concerned about how far we’ll have to travel between albergues in January- February. Does anyone have a rough winter albergue guide that we could use to sharpen our thinking? I know it won’t be 100% accurate this early, but I’m not really confident about anything that may have changed over the last couple of years, so we have to start somewhere.
Thanks!
Sounds wonderful.Thanks for your concern, and I appreciate your intentions. No feathers are ruffled.
When we walked our first Camino in 2015 our kids were roughly 2, 8, 10, 14, 16. We were given similar advice to not walk with kids, , to consider the impact on them and to rethink the imposition of our will as the parents on our children who were not choosing the venture. We knew (and know) our family, and went anyway. It was one of the best experiences of our lives together and yes, there are difficult moments as a family, but there are difficult moments in any family's life. I learnt quickly that the daily difficult moments are still there just more public (like when Mr2 had a tantrum in the snow next to a highway!).
Miss 16 will not be joining, but all others will and our party will not be just young kids (well be 4, 10, 16, 18, 21 plus us two oldies). All of us are excited about the Camino, and we have experience walking as a family (although mainly in hot conditions in Australia).
We have good winter walking equipment, and are allowing plenty of time so we can choose to not head out when needed, have rest days and walk shorter days whenever we want to.
We did our camino ending Oct 30 last fall. Cold inside buildings was a real issue. Some had no heat, or no finances to turn on the heat. It was not cool being cold all evening.Also, at least that time of year, the places we did stay often were not heated. We didn't mind the cold weather when walking but it was hard being so cold inside the hotels and restaurants.
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