• Get your Camino Frances Guidebook here.
  • 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)
  • ⚠️ Emergency contact in Spain - Dial 112 and AlertCops app. More on this here.

Search 69,459 Camino Questions

Need Help with Post Camino talk

coldweather

Member
Hello my fellow pilgrims (current, past and future):

I complete the Camino Frances starting from Pamplona on May 5 - June 3, 2013. I have been invited to make a 20 minute talk at my Catholic church in 2 weeks. I am struggling. Everytime I talk about the Camino I start to blab on and on and on - with great excitement. I am not afraid of the public speaking but I am having trouble pulling together the key points of the talk.
The talk is to a 50+ singles group. It is not necessarily a "travel" group so they are not looking for packing lists, equipment ratings, etc. The words of a fellow pilgrim ring in my head. She said if she knew how hard it was she would not have done it.
I will concludes with some short videos that my husband pulled together. (Fantastic!)
My talk outline so far is:
1. What is a pilgrimage
2. Why be a pilgrim
3. What are some of the major Christian pilgrimages in the world
4. What is the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compestela?
a. What is it?
b. When did it start
c. What is it like today?
5. My personal experience –
6. How can you learn more….
a. The Way movie
b. Books

I am coming to my Camino friends to seek your advice. What is the important description/background to introduce people to the Camino? What are the important points to share in my talk?

This group helped my prepare. Some provided key info during the Camino. Now I seek your help in my post Camino talk.

Peace to you all. Buen Camino.
 
A selection of Camino Jewellery
Hola. We have done this too. We suggest that you leave 3 out completely and focus just on the Camino de Santiago.
Then 2 minutes (max) each on 1 & 2.
A further 4 mins on 4 - (all sections combined).
That leaves you 10 minutes for your experiences
and then 2 minutes for 6 (a & b combined)

We found that picking out just a few highlights of the journey and then having time to talk about Santiago itself suited our style. If you have video then that might influence your choices. Obviously thanks for the help given by this group, and what it meant as you walked has a place too.

A trial run at home with your chosen material is helpful, and after a couple of disasters we take our own notebook/projector set-up - in case anything provided isn't working. A blank wall can be an emergency screen, so long as it is very pale coloured.

Will you need/have time for questions? If so then the audience/congregation can ask for extra information that they feel they would like.

Enjoy the sharing, it will be a blessing to others.
 
Hi! Twenty minutes is so short! You could fill that just telling them how/why you decided to go.

I was always told that a presentation should only have maximum 3 or 4 key themes. It gives your presentation structure and the audience can remember what you've said more easily. For a talk about the Camino these could be something like the physical, the mental and the spiritual aspects of it. See how many of the topics you want to talk about could fit into broad themes such as these.

You could start by just asking the audience who has heard about it and what they know. This will get some of the basic facts out there and also get them involved from the start. You can then focus in on your perspectives on it.

I'd make it as personal as possible. They can get the rest from books if they're interested, and you can provide handouts with links to help them do that. What did you learn? What did/does being a pilgrim mean to you? etc. They'll love it!

Good luck and buen camino!
 
€2,-/day will present your project to thousands of visitors each day. All interested in the Camino de Santiago.
Perhaps one of your sections will cover this, but I get most curiosity of where we stay.

I've been able to do a few presentations as well, and I simply go over what a "typical day" might be like for me from the time I get up to the time I go to sleep. Of course I include some of what you have as well.

I always try emphasize the freedom we all have while walking. Now that I'm thinking of it, my presentations are not so much about information as it is motivation to have others walk the Way. Hadn't thought about that until now.

Maybe the 20 minutes could gain interest for future discussions to go more
in-depth.


Oh, remind those who want to walk to always have chocolate to share.

I think you'll do great. :)
 
Last edited:
I like slideshows. That way the audience gets to focus on the pictures instead of me.

Most computers have programs built in to show pictures. All you need is a projector that connects to the computer and a screen.

2 minutes: - Introduction: what and where is the camino: A good map.

15 minutes - Body: what you did. Where did you start and how long did it take. What was your daily routine. What did you see and experience. Would you do it again. People like stories.

Show and tell includes your compostela and credencial with all the sellos.

Reference material such as books and movies like The Way only if you need to fill time unless they were really useful in planning your trip.

1 minutes - Closing

2 minutes - Questions. If there is anyone interested in walking the camino there will likely be lots. Bring a friend to sit in the audience with some questions to plant.
 
St James' Way - Self-guided 4-7 day Walking Packages, Reading to Southampton, 110 kms
Timely. I will be giving a talk about the Camino in about 3 weeks and didn't know where to start. All the advice here is wonderful. I will be talking to members of a hiking club. The talk is limited to 15 minutes "We don't want to bore people." YIKES!!
 
I recently gave a talk and many people were intrested in why I decided to do it. Think about your audience and what they might want. What woud you have wanted to know before you knew a lot about the Camino?
 
I was asked to do something similar, although somewhat shorter. I have also been at a presentation where someone tried to cover a similar scope to yours in about 30 minutes and was still going an hour later! Its just so difficult to be disciplined if you are trying to cram so much in.

One approach would be to have a single page handout with some of the intro and conclusion material in it, and just concentrate on the Camino today and your own experiences. So S1-3 and 6 in a simple handout, and then focus your talk on what you are proposing in S4 & 5. It will allow you more time to speak (enthusiastically, I hope) about your experience rather than get lost in what could be relatively dry historical and philosophical background matter.

Regards,
 
€2,-/day will present your project to thousands of visitors each day. All interested in the Camino de Santiago.
Who, What, Where, Why, How.. the old standard headings but they're standards for tried and trusted reasons.

1: Who: Introduce yourself briefly
2: What: What is the Camino and a brief history of the meaning of pilgrimages.
3: Where: Where is the Camino/s - start points etc.
4: Why: What drew you to undertake your Camino.
5: How: How did you prepare ( training, equipment, travel to your start point, cope with the challenges on the Camino etc. )

As others have suggested, bring some of your Camino gear, compostela and credential so people can browse at the end of your presentation and have a little Q and A session.

Works for me when I've had that butterfly in the stomach feeling when asked to talk about the Camino to a group of relative strangers.

Seamus
 
Thanks all. Seamus I am going with your outline. I like it and it works well for me.

Is anyone willing to share some photos of alburge accommodations and pilgrim meals? Somehow in my photos I don't have any of these. Ironically, they are the 2 topics people ask me about the most..... Where did you stay and what did you eat?

Thanks again..... Buen Camino.... the Camino continues on....
 
Transport luggage-passengers.
From airports to SJPP
Luggage from SJPP to Roncevalles
Some images. Right-click and save to your computer:

choose_bed.jpg

dormitory.jpg

camino-frances.jpg

DSCN0004.JPG

DSCN0036.JPG

Me with a blue T-shirt I got from Rebekah ;)
 

Attachments

  • choose_bed.jpg
    choose_bed.jpg
    22.4 KB · Views: 8
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
IMG_6070.JPG IMG_5708.JPG
 

Attachments

  • IMG_5575.JPG
    IMG_5575.JPG
    3 MB · Views: 11
  • IMG_5575.JPG
    IMG_5575.JPG
    3 MB · Views: 9
Hope the albergue shots are ok, the top one is the Benedictine Monastery albergue in Samos and the other is the Cistercian nuns albergue in Santa Domingo de Calzados and the 'thumbnail' is the parochial albergue in Trinidad de Arre.
 
IMG_5550.JPG IMG_6029.JPG IMG_6316.JPG
 

Attachments

  • IMG_5827.JPG
    IMG_5827.JPG
    710.8 KB · Views: 9
  • IMG_6240.JPG
    IMG_6240.JPG
    1.5 MB · Views: 9
St James' Way - Self-guided 4-7 day Walking Packages, Reading to Southampton, 110 kms
The communal dinner is at the albergue in Ruitelan and the others are at various cafes with one D.I.Y alfresco meal on the Calzada Romana to vary the tone.
 
Alex, is your group dinner taken in Cirraqui - Albergue Miraltox? Had a lovely dinner there but saw later in Los Arcos a notice that it was up for sale.
 
Supersullivan, I am not sure: Either there or in La Faba on the way up to O'Cebreiro: I think the latter. Edit: It is the latter. Anyway: Communal dinners are great, but the very best ones are where pilgrims go out and shop together, cook together, and eat, drink and talk together. Those were memorable evenings on The Way :) But I also frequently cooked for myself in the albergue kitchens: I kind of liked it: I liked to explore local produce and see what I could make of it. And now and then I invited people to share for free what I could not take in myself :)
 
Last edited:
€2,-/day will present your project to thousands of visitors each day. All interested in the Camino de Santiago.
Hi everyone -

All the advice on this thread has been fabulous. I did a presentation on the Camino Frances recently. I kept to my running sheet and finished the talk with a wonderful quote by Mark Twain (kindly posted by Nicole Fisher on her blog of her Camino this year). The quote is ...

“20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”.

I wanted to end the presentation on an inspirational note. I also included the quote in the handouts I distributed, which I tied up scroll-fashion, with ribbon in the Camino colours of blue and yellow.

Coldweather - the very best of luck with your presentation -

Cheers - Jenny
 
Hello my fellow pilgrims (current, past and future):


My talk outline so far is:
1. What is a pilgrimage
2. Why be a pilgrim
3. What are some of the major Christian pilgrimages in the world
4. What is the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compestela?
a. What is it?
b. When did it start
c. What is it like today?
5. My personal experience –
6. How can you learn more….
a. The Way movie
b. Books

20 minutes will go surprisingly fast. This is what I would want to know.

Brief introduction
What is the camino
How you learned about the camino
Why you decided to go
Fears/challenges on the way
What you learned/gained/overcame
Conclusion
Further information books/movie/forum
Questions

Let us know how it goes :)
 
The 2024 Camino guides will be coming out little by little. Here is a collection of the ones that are out so far.
My experiences with relating your own travellogues is the KISS principle - keep it short and simple. Tia (post answer 1) has covered the important features. If you have a computer you could run a slide-show of your better shots operating behind you whilst you talk. Allowing time for questions is probably the most important part - this is how you sell others on your experiences and why they "should go". Cheers ;)
 
The most important thing about a presentation is the audience; WHAT do they need to know? If the people in your audience know about pilgrimages, etc, why are you telling them something they already know?

My advice to you is that your presentation be based solely on your experience. Sure, you can introduce a brief factual background to situate everybody, but tell them what it was like for you. Topics can include: 1) how do you got there, 2) how were your first 5 days physically, 3) Regions of Spain you visited and what was special about each one, 4) Top 5 towns/villages you loved, 5) spirituality along the Camino, 6) who you met, 7) favorite albergues, 8) favorite food, 9) what you didn't like, 10) Top 10 Things I learned while walking the Camino. Prepare a Powerpoint presentation to help you stay focused.

Twenty (20) minutes is not a long time to summarize such an experience, so make an outline, prepare slides, pick some pics, and let it roll! good Luck!!
 
Get a spanish phone number with Airalo. eSim, so no physical SIM card. Easy to use app to add more funds if needed.

Most read last week in this forum

When I hiked the Frances Route this happened. I was hiking in the afternoon just east of Arzua. I was reserved a bed at an albergue in Arzua, so I had already hiked all the way from San Xulien...
I am finalizing my packing list for Frances, and do not want to over pack. (I am 71) I will be starting at SJPdP on April 25th to Roncesvalles and forward. I was hoping on some advise as to...
First marker starting from Albergue Monasterio de la Magdalena in Sarria (113.460 km) Start: 2023.9.29 07:22 Arrival: 2023.9.30 13:18 walking time : 26 hours 47 minutes rest time : 3 hours 8...
A local Navarra website has posted a set of photos showing today's snowfall in the area around Roncesvalles. About 15cm of snow fell this morning surprising pilgrims on the way...
Hi! I’m a first time pilgrim. Is it possible to take a taxi from Astorga to Foncebadon? Thanks, Felicia
HI all, I will be starting my walk on March 31, taking the Valcarlos Route, and am having trouble getting in touch with the albergue in Valcarlos (tried email and what's app - no luck!). Does...

❓How to ask a question

How to post a new question on the Camino Forum.

Forum Rules

Forum Rules

Camino Updates on YouTube

Camino Conversations

Most downloaded Resources

This site is run by Ivar at

in Santiago de Compostela.
This site participates in the Amazon Affiliate program, designed to provide a means for Ivar to earn fees by linking to Amazon
Official Camino Passport (Credential) | 2024 Camino Guides
Back
Top