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Youngest unaccompanied walker?

Glenshiro

Veteran Member
Time of past OR future Camino
Le Puy - SdC, Podiensis, Frances, Invierno 2012-23
Just returned from a short trip, Roncesvalles - Los Arcos. I met and walked several times with 16-year-old twin boys who were going to Santiago unaccompanied. They were doing very well and are clearly determined young men Is this a record?
 
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I met two young women walking to Finisterre, one of whom had her backpack festooned with balloons. When I asked why, she explained that it was her eighteenth birthday that day. They had started in SJPP, and made it to Santiago while she was still seventeen. By chance, I had some wine with me, so I had the pleasure of providing her first legal alcoholic sup, by way of celebration.
 
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The legal drinking age in Spain is 16
 
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Glenshiro said:
Just returned from a short trip, Roncesvalles - Los Arcos. I met and walked several times with 16-year-old twin boys who were going to Santiago unaccompanied. They were doing very well and are clearly determined young men Is this a record?
Click to expand...

Hi, in 2015 I met a 16 year old German lad walking alone. He attended a Montessori school back home, and he was walking from St Jean to Burgos as a school project. I later heard that he went back to Burgos the following year and completed his camino.
Jill
 
Glenshiro said:
Just returned from a short trip, Roncesvalles - Los Arcos. I met and walked several times with 16-year-old twin boys who were going to Santiago unaccompanied. They were doing very well and are clearly determined young men Is this a record?
Click to expand...
I have to ask, how can someone walking with their twin be unaccompanied?
Do you, perhaps, mean without adult supervision?
 
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dougfitz said:
I have to ask, how can someone walking with their twin be unaccompanied?
Do you, perhaps, mean without adult supervision?
Click to expand...

Dear @dougfitz sometimes, just sometimes, you are splitting hairs just a bit too finely Buen Camino, SY
 
Glenshiro said:
... 16-year-old twin boys who were going to Santiago unaccompanied....
Click to expand...

dougfitz said:
I have to ask, how can someone walking with their twin be unaccompanied?
Do you, perhaps, mean without adult supervision?
Click to expand...

GOTCHA DOUG! The keyword here is were meaning both of them were unaccompanied, not each of them accompanying the other - Buen Camino, SY
 
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dougfitz said:
I have to ask, how can someone walking with their twin be unaccompanied?
Do you, perhaps, mean without adult supervision?
Click to expand...
The definition of unaccompanied is without company or without escort. So you can have lots of company but no escort and you are still unaccompanied!

I love that we, as a society, have words that are defined as one thing and the opposite. English - most insane language in the world! Literally!
 
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Sorry, that doesn't work logically. A common definition (by Google) is 'having no companion or escort'. Here the negative applies to the phase 'companion OR escort', and to seperate them as you have done requires you to use an AND connector, ie the definition would become 'having no companion and no escort'.

So if you apply the rules of logic correctly, the conundrum you propose is resolved, and rationality is restored.

As an aside, the Cambridge Dictionary definition of 'not having anyone with you when you go somewhere' is somewhat easier to use because it contains one simple test, not two tests linked locically by the OR condtion.
 
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The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
Some years ago whilst working as an amigo in the old pilgrim Office I met two 12 year old boys from Madrid who had just walked from Sarria. As I chatted with them I asked if their parents were worried about them being on their own. the answer I got from one was"my mother said it would be safe because it was on the Camino" They were both small 12 years olds. I rejoiced with them that they had parents who would let them spread their winds.
 
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This year on the Portuguese Camino I met two awesome sisters from Switzerland. Both sisters were full of radiance and love . The younger one who is now 20, walked from Le puy, France to Santiago when she was 16, solo. She lives for the Camino and has walked at least four since then. When I met them 6 weeks ago, she was walking with her older sister who is 22, on her first Camino. She shared that she didn't feel her first Camino at age 16, was quite complete because she didn't walk from Switzerland. So this year after finishing the Portuguese with her older sister, she started in Le puy and walked home to Switzerland. Wow! It's a new generation of pilgrims.
 
In the states "unaccompanied minor" means a youth under age 18 who has not been legally emancipated and usually implies a runaway or possibly a youth who has been "kicked out" of their home by family.
 
J Willhaus said:
In the states "unaccompanied minor" means a youth under age 18 who has not been legally emancipated and usually implies a runaway or possibly a youth who has been "kicked out" of their home by family.
Click to expand...
I am not familiar with the use of the term in the USA, but in Australia the term 'unaccompanied minor' is commonly used without any pejorative meaning, eg by airlines in particular, and sometimes during discussion on immigration.
 
Camino Preparation Guide
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
Doug, the term unaccompanied minor is also used inthe USA, without a perjorative meaning for travel!
 
Somewhere on this forum was a link to a blog by two seventeen-year old boys who cycled (part of?) the camino. They also described an invitation to the police station, where they had to explain how two underage boys ended up on the camino. After some schmoozing they were sent on their merry way. But for the life of me, I can't find the link...
 
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