Outside Magazine notices the caminos

Hmm, I kind of cringe when this magazine describes the Camino as "Medieval Europe's version of the thru-hike." In my mind, people who do thru-hikes and people who walk the Camino are two very different types of people. Of course there is some overlap, but in broad strokes I think they have very different ideas about what they want to do.

Thru-hikers hike the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail, they are hard-core outdoorspeople and they enjoy long remote stretches and very basic facilities. Camino-walkers are there for a variety of reasons but they tend to be less interested in camping, in lugging huge packs and in cooking over a bunsen burner. I'm not saying these are two rigid mutually exclusive categories of people but the focuses do seem different.

We saw this difference a year or so ago when that guy from the US posted his many reasons why the Camino was a terrible hike. All of what he noted about the Camino was perfectly accurate information, and it was the kind of stuff that thru-hikers wouldn't like -- roads, lots of people, not many remote stages, etc. But many of us Camino-lovers were up in arms about how he was slandering our Camino. I think that many people who read Ourside Magazine will have similar reactions to the Camino as that guy if they decide to walk it.

Buen camino, Laurie