Some of my greatest moments in life have been walking pilgrim roads and long distance hiking trails. The most memorable ones are:
Inspiration
Are you considering walking a camino? If yes, I can recommend these sites:
- Dutch Society of Saint Jacob – Association of and for Dutch pilgrims
- Santiagoroutes.nl – Interactive map of all camino routes
- Pelgrimroutes.nl – Short introduction of the different caminos
- Camino de Santiago – Spanish website with a lot of up-to-date information about facilities along the way.
Good travel guides for the Vía de la Plata are:
- Via de la Plata – Der Jakobsweg (Outdoor)
- Walking guide to the Via de la Plata – Gerald Kelly
Inspirational travel reports:
- Hape Kerkeling – I’m off then . Very well written, sober, sincere and occasionally hilarious book by a German TV presenter who is going to walk the Camino.
- Cees Nooteboom – The Roads to Santiago . Cultural-historical wanderings through Spain by car. Beautiful prose and a completely different view of the Camino.
- Cheryl Strayed – Wild . The incredible story of a young woman who, at the lowest point in her life, decides to walk the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail completely untrained. Also brilliantly filmed and available as a DVD .
Must-have apps:
- PocketEarth – One of the best navigation apps for hikers, in the pro version you can download topographical maps for offline use and import GPX routes from the camino, for example.
- Vía de la Plata – The best app in English with up-to-date information about the Vía de la Plata and Camino Salabrés.
- Camino – Extensive Spanish-language app with up-to-date information about all camino routes
- Buenkmino – Handy English language app for the most popular camino routes (not for the Vía de la Plata).