Unplugging for a Long Walk

Excerpted from Quick Prep for a Slow Walk on the Camino de Santiago by Leslie H Cole

Published by Armchair Dreams Press © 2020 Leslie H Cole

Photographs © 2020 Leslie H Cole

All rights reserved. This ebook or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the author, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

This blog post is an excerpt from my mini-guide to preparing for a long walk on the Camino de Santiago. For the full free content, download Quick Prep for a Slow Walk on the Camino de Santiago.

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Our 2013 Camino was much quieter than our 2018 Camino for one  reason: In 2013, Europeans were charged cell phone roaming fees outside of their own country, so no one risked the expense of talking on their cell phones while they walked outside of WIFI range. Instead, pilgrims lined up each night for the  two or three albergue computers that cost a euro for 20 minutes or a two euro coin for an hour.  

A pair of brothers from Mexico brought their laptops to work on their business from the Camino. They were the exception the summer of 2013 and their laptop use did not stop one of them from falling in love with a German woman he married a couple of years later. I do adore a Camino love story.  

By 2018, the European Union no longer charged roaming fees and it was not uncommon to hear the voice of a  pilgrim a half mile ahead on a lonely dirt road on the meseta.  

I don’t begrudge anyone chatting with family, but I have to admit I preferred the absence of cell  phone chatter five years earlier. Whereas that pilgrim on the phone might have interacted with  me on the dusty pilgrim road in 2013, the year 2018 found him too busy engaging with someone else to exchange a greeting with me when I walked by.  

Technology does have its merits though, and one might be that now you can avoid carrying a  guidebook altogether. Some mobile apps such as Guthook and Wise Pilgrim allow you to track your route without WIFI. Handy on the occasions when WIFI is in short supply.  

I wrote daily in a hard-bound journal during my 2013 Camino. During my 2018 Camino, I  posted photos to Instagram on the evenings I had WIFI and caught up later on the nights I didn’t. I wrote less and took more photos with my phone, and I even made some audio files. That worked for me.

For my next journey, I’m considering going completely unplugged and carrying a very small  journal and pen. I might use my phone to take photos and make audio notes or collect sounds of the Via Francigena.

For the tips that I included with Chapter 8, download the full free mini-guide: Quick Prep for a Slow Walk on the Camino de Santiago.