Walking with children

[Gumba]

Hi,

My husband and I are planning to take our 9 and 12 yer old sons on the Camino next March - a first for all of us!

I would love to get advice or hear of experiences of walking with children - either your own or kids you have met along the way in your own travels.

We only have a month so are planning on leaving SJPdP around 22 March 2017 and finishing up around the 11th April (give or take a day) so about 21 days in total and hoping to make it to Burgos this time around.

thanks

 

[Kanga]

Here is a thread by our member @shefollowsshells about walking with her four children:
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/com...amino-made-the-local-paper.46323/#post-493927

And a link to one of the best stories in her lovely blog http://shefollowsshells.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/day-45-bidarray-to-ainhoa.html

And if you search you will find lots of posts by Rachael, the mother of @Kiwi-family - like this one
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/spreading-the-camino-love.28726/ - Rachael has walked many of the Camino routes with her eight children, in different combinations and at different ages. She has also answered questions about children in albergues (not a problem) and so forth.

 

[Kiwi-family]

You are sure to succeed - you have a hope but not a set-in-stone plan, so I'm guessing you'll be flexible and see how you go.
My kids of that age loved the Primitivo - they were more interested in amazing scenery than stopping in bars. But you do have to be able to do some longish days. That said, our first walk was from Astorga to Santiago (with kids from 6-18 years) and they enjoyed that too.
There are no bad choices;-)

Are you looking for any particular advice? For general experiences there are more pages than anyone would care to read on my blogs.

 

[Gumba]

Thanks Kanga for the recommendation s and thank you Kiwi-family - The Antipodeans are awake!!!

Kiwi-family, I have touched on your blog but will read in more detail. No specific questions at this stage, general info really. I guess I don't really know yet what I want to know! How did they cope, how far each day did you walk, what can I expect from them? We are planning on having our luggage transported, just with day packs each. They are healthy eaters and don't respond well to junk type food all the time, I am worried about this - will they be ale to eat well on the Camino? How did your children go when the weather was not so great? My (almost) 12 year old will be fascinated by everything - the history, the culture, the people, the countryside etc. The 9 year-old is not into any of that (he is 8 now - he may change by next year, but I think I hope more than expect that!) So how can I keep him motivate? The 9 year old is very skinny and tall, I am worried that he wont have the energy reserves (he likes to eat and snacks a lot but would chose a carrot over a biscuit! Actually he would probably have both!!!)

 

[suil eile]

Hi,

My husband and I are planning to take our 9 and 12 yer old sons on the Camino next March - a first for all of us!

I would love to get advice or hear of experiences of walking with children - either your own or kids you have met along the way in your own travels.

We only have a month so are planning on leaving SJPdP around 22 March 2017 and finishing up around the 11th April (give or take a day) so about 21 days in total and hoping to make it to Burgos this time around.

thanks

Hello, my husband and I and our two children, 13 (boy) and 11 (girl) completed one stretch of the Camino in July- Sarria to Santiago. It was our first time and I had all the 'what if' questions in my head too. What if it is too difficult, they don't enjoy it, it is too hot, etc..
My husband is very overweight as well so there were more 'what ifs' about him.

I was not worried about my son -fit and strong walker - and my daughter is a good walker but does not like to overstretch herself. I have been hiking and backpacking all my life so I felt I was in reasonable shape.

So just to show that best laid plans do not always work out....but yet it all works out .....we had a great, really great time.

Son had infected toenail before we left...first time ever in his life. On antibiotics but noticed it was not clearing so we were in hospital in San Sebastian two days before we left, with a picture of him sitting in a wheelchair! More antibiotics but he did the walk and said his toe did not bother him.
My filling fell out on the plane so I was in the dentist the day before we started walking...but met a woman in the waiting room who said we must go to albergue in Ligonde (where we had a really amazing night).

Bus strike so my son and I had to leave a car back in Lugo and get taxi to Sarria...but within 1 minute of starting our camino we bumped into this young man in his 20's who started a conversation with my son and the two of them chatted and walked for about an hour together -I was amazed that he was so talkative and from there on my son was first to say 'Buen Camino' to everyone. He met this young man again in Santiago and he was really delighted. A lovely positive influence.

Sending the bags ahead (even some of them) is very easy....and can be done on a day by day basis.

We went at the end of June - when everyone says it is very busy. But we had only booked albergue for the first night in Sarria and the first day's walking and then we just did it day by day... Never any trouble booking for 4 people. I had printed off the list on albergues that is available on this forum and it was really helpful. Telephone and email addresses. We stayed in albergues on the route. It just seemed simpler.

It rained in June - I don't mean a drizzle (which I had sort of expected) but heavy rain, the wetting kind, for 3 days. We got wet! We did not have the gear for this but ended up buying a poncho and coats for 5 euro in Portomarin.

The standard of the albergues was high. We were very impressed. The café stops along hte way are very plentiful and again very good.

I suppose I was struck most by the beauty of the countryside and paths....lovely shade, so well marked that my son said he would be happy to walk from Pedrouzo to Santiago on his own. So he felt at home in a strange country, without the language, without a map, and with 5euro in his pocket to take a 20km hike. I loved that.

My husband injured himself and found the going tough. So most days we picked a place where he would get a taxi and meet us at the albergue...my daughter was 'willing to go with him to look after him' on one or two occasions. But she was a trooper and really wanted to complete 100km. My best memories are of watching my two children walking ahead of me, chatting away and kidding about - or catching up to them as they had gone ahead and ordered food/drinks for themselves in a café.

Our first night we had a meal with a man who had walked several caminos. His comments are true, I believe. Everyone can do a camino, at their own pace.

We ate out....this was expensive over time. We tried to minimise this but I would certainly try to plan food better if going for a longer time. Cafe stops and meals out add up when there are 4 people.

Things happen...I just never expected for a man to hand me his underpants and shirt and ask me to dry them for him...! This was my first time meeting him but we ended up staying in the same albergue and walking part of the way together after that. His courage as he completed the full camino on one leg will remain with me.

We did not walk too far the first couple of days...great idea - built up everyone's confidence

 

[Gumba]

Thank you suil eile, wow I like your positive attitude to the medical issues you had! I appreciate you sharing your experience waling as a family.

 

[Kiwi-family]

Thanks Kanga for the recommendation s and thank you Kiwi-family - The Antipodeans are awake!!!

Kiwi-family, I have touched on your blog but will read in more detail. No specific questions at this stage, general info really. I guess I don't really know yet what I want to know! How did they cope, how far each day did you walk, what can I expect from them? We are planning on having our luggage transported, just with day packs each. They are healthy eaters and don't respond well to junk type food all the time, I am worried about this - will they be ale to eat well on the Camino? How did your children go when the weather was not so great? My (almost) 12 year old will be fascinated by everything - the history, the culture, the people, the countryside etc. The 9 year-old is not into any of that (he is 8 now - he may change by next year, but I think I hope more than expect that!) So how can I keep him motivate? The 9 year old is very skinny and tall, I am worried that he wont have the energy reserves (he likes to eat and snacks a lot but would chose a carrot over a biscuit! Actually he would probably have both!!!)

This Antipodean has just seen your message! Sorry.
We are a non-junk-food family. We bake our own sourdough bread and crackers with flour we have ground, make our own pasta, kombucha, kefir and raw milk cheese. You get the picture.
I often hear of people guzzling coke along the camino and never seeing a vegetable. It doesn't have to be that way. We had plenty of fruit and veges , sugar-free yoghurt, real bread, fresh cheese - cooking for ourselves most of the time gave us a lot of control over our diet.
We also ate our fair share of chocolate croissants, icecreams - and even chocolate muesli (which we would never have at home).
I would recommend you start walking at home and see what they can manage. What my kids can do may have no bearing on yours!
Bad weather (our worst was seven days straight of rain followed by temperatures that went into high thirties which is just as hard in a different way) can prompt grizzling. It can prompt you all to look for things to be grateful for. It can prompt hilarity when things go from bad to worse. It can prompt practicing Spanish ("Do you have hot water? I need hot water now") It can prompt a game of designing the most amazing albergue.
My kids complain more about walking in the rain at home than in Spain!
Finally, motivation. I'm a big believer in intrinsic motivation and not over-rewarding externally. You may disagree. Occasionally there is a thread about how to motivate kids to walk and people post all sorts of games to play, and suggest counting arrows or collecting stamps etc. I just let my kids walk and let the experience speak for itself. If they get tired we all take a break until the tired one is ready to move on. On a few occasions I stopped with an under-ten-year-old who was dragging her feet, scuffing her shoes, stomping etc until she was ready to walk non-grumpily. No bribing, cajoling, imploring - just waiting.
We allowed a grumpy son who was ambling very slowly to walk by himself and said we'd see him at the next bar.
Mostly they played games together that they had made up, walked with other pilgrims, ran ahead, talked about what they might put in their journals, dreamt aloud, told jokes, made suggestions for dinner.....
Don't underestimate your kids - they may walk farther than you expect, but also in terms of carrying gear, washing their own clothes by hand, cooking meals (or if they don't know how to cook, it's a great time to get them helping). Work them hard enough and they won't need entertaining;-)
By the way, I'm a great believer in boredom being a catalyst for creativity so I don't fear it for my kids, but welcome such challenges.

 

[Gumba]

Thanks Rachael - very helpful. We bought our walking poles last week (1/2 price sale!!) and my 11 year-old has been practicing walking in the gullies on our property, he looks to be in his own explorer world and it is sweet to watch! I agree with the intrinsic motivation whole-heartedly - we asked the children if this was something they wanted to do and have asked them several times since. Perhaps my motives are not pure - if the complain I want to be able to tell them that they had a choice and it was their choice to come! We have watch some of the you-tube clips together so they can get a better understanding. We agree that there is nothing wrong with boredom - gets them to think outside the box - as you say, be creative. 'Training' has been interesting in terms of the dynamics - sometimes we fall in to a walking pattern with one child, later the other child, sometimes the boys together while I walk with my husband, sometimes walking on our own - it is very fluid and really quite lovely. I am taking them out for short 2km walks after school in the cold winter drizzle and so far it is fine. I am sure it wont compare to what we will experience in Spain, but it is a start! I do like the games people have suggested and will suggest them to our boys - whether they take them up or not is up to them. Thanks for your reassurance of healthy food along the way. Much appreciated.