Camino de Santiago | The first time on my own
After Vera and I started the Camino together and walked for two weeks, I continued the route alone after a one-week break in Burgos. As a solo pilgrim, I have now covered 244.5 kilometers on the Camino.
Daily stages
Burgos - Rabé de las Calzadas, 13,5 km
Rabé de las Calzadas - Castrojeriz, 28,7 km
Castrojeriz - Boadilla del Camino, 20,3 km
Boadilla del Camino - Carrión de los Condes, 26,1 km
Carrión de los Condes - Terradillos de los Templarios, 28,1 km
Terradillos de los Templarios - Sahagún, 13,5 km
Sahagún - Reliegos, 30,4 km
Reliegos - León, 25,2 km
León - Villar de Mazarife, 21,7 km
Villar de Mazarife - Villares de Órbigo, 17,5 km
Villares de Órbigo - Murias de Rechivaldo, 19,5 km
The second adjustment
After resuming the Camino alone following our break in Burgos, I first had to figure out how far I actually wanted and was able to walk each day. There were several stages where I rushed through simply because nothing and no one was stopping me, and moving forward was the only task at hand.
When walking with a partner, you can coordinate well and take each other into account. Being alone means making every single decision by yourself, structuring your day independently, managing your own energy wisely, and being responsible for reaching a place where, ideally, dinner and a bed are already waiting.
Fortunately, I already knew how things worked on the Camino. I was familiar with a pilgrim’s approximate daily routine, planning daily stages, and finding accommodation.
Now the real experiment began: I stopped pre-booking the albergues. Well, not always. But some of them simply couldn’t be reserved in advance. So I had to set out on a wing and a prayer, hoping I would find a bed in the town where I wanted to stay for the night. Believe me, it didn’t always work! I had already heard from some pilgrims that they had to keep walking to the next village and the next available albergue.
This meant that one day I walked more than 30 kilometers, and the next day 25 kilometers, just to reach the next free accommodation. Since I reached the city of León a day earlier than expected, I enjoyed a second wonderful rest day there—something my feet desperately needed.
With daily stages over 25 kilometers long, I began testing and expanding my physical limits, and I’m quite proud of that. But whether it always has to be that way is certainly debatable. One lesson for me: just because I can, it doesn’t mean I constantly have to push to or beyond my limits. The Camino is long enough to keep challenging me.
Walking alone—and yet never truly alone?
Honestly? I thought that for me, going solo would become little more than Eat, Sleep, Walk, Repeat. I imagined I’d just stubbornly push through on my own, without looking much to the left or right.
But even when you walk the Camino alone, you’re rarely truly alone. I noticed that now I was approached by other pilgrims much more frequently. So during the first few days of my solo journey, I was actually rarely by myself. I walked and talked with people of all ages from Australia, the USA, Ireland, Taiwan, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and England. It was fascinating to hear about their reasons for walking the Camino, their stories, and previous experiences. And it was a comforting way for me to slowly settle into the solo pilgrim status.
Still, I increasingly longed for peace and solitude while walking. Fortunately, almost all pilgrims here understand when someone wants to walk alone. Because one thing I quickly learned: only in the solitude of my own thoughts can I truly think, feel, and reflect freely.
As for the fact that my journey wouldn’t remain entirely solitary, you’ve probably already seen hints of that on my Instagram. More about that in the next blog post.
Drinking and eating – Pilgrim menus and vegetarianism
I had anticipated that eating vegan on the Camino would be challenging. What I didn’t expect, however, was that it would sometimes be almost impossible to even find vegetarian dishes in the bars and restaurants. Salads, sandwiches, pasta dishes—plenty of options, but almost always with bacon, beef, tuna, eggs, and rarely with vegetables. A supposedly vegetarian sandwich might consist of a slice of bread, a lettuce leaf, a slice of tomato, tuna, and a boiled egg.
Vegetarianism hasn’t really taken hold in rural Spain yet, which became apparent in the occasionally hesitant responses from waitstaff when I asked if anything could be served completely without meat or fish. Most of the time, it worked out fine, though. And the further west I went, the more diverse and better the vegetarian options became.
The first two weeks, Vera and I mostly took care of our own meals. Once I was traveling alone, however, I often felt like having company and conversation in the evenings, so I frequently joined the communal dinners.
The typical pilgrim menus are served in local bars or the albergues. They usually start with a soup or salad as a starter, followed by a main course of meat, fish, or eggs prepared in various hearty ways, accompanied by salad and either fries, potatoes, or pasta. Bread, water, and wine are served alongside. For dessert, there’s ice cream, cheesecake, flan, or fruit. In terms of quality and portion size, the meals range widely—from greasy fast food to excellent home-style cooking made with great care. Prices are generally between 10 and 15 euros.
The real highlight of these dinners, though, is the lively gathering and exchange with the other pilgrims.
Frequent reunions with familiar pilgrims
While I increasingly enjoyed walking alone at my own pace during the day, I also grew to look forward to seeing familiar faces upon arriving at the albergue. It was not uncommon to coincidentally end up in the same albergue evening after evening with acquaintances I had met in the previous days. Or suddenly to run into people I hadn’t seen for what felt like an eternity—hundreds of kilometers earlier.
On the Camino, it doesn’t matter who you were before, where you live, how much money you earn, or what clothes you wear (we all end up looking like extremely sporty Flodders anyway). What matters is why you’re here, where you started in the morning, where you want to go, and how your journey is going. These conversations serve as perfect icebreakers and quickly open the door to deeper discussions.
Not infrequently, I found myself engaged in profound conversations about myself, God, and the world—with people who had been complete strangers until recently and with whom I probably would never have exchanged a word outside the Camino. The shared experience of walking the Camino really bonds people together.
By the way, English is the main language spoken here, simply because it’s the language that most people can understand and speak at least at a basic level.
City and Countryside – As Far as the Eye Can See
West of Burgos, the landscape changes noticeably. The region of the Castilian highlands between Burgos and León is called the North Meseta. It is almost desert-like in its dryness and flatness, and except for a few exceptions like the Alto de Mostelares, there are hardly any hills. You can see as far as the eye can reach over brown fields and meadows. Even the path ahead seems endless.
After only a few days, this landscape offers the eye nothing new. You are gradually forced to turn inward, to focus on your own thoughts, because distractions only appear when you reach the next village. And the villages increasingly begin to resemble one another. Eventually, I lost track of the names and appearances of the places where I stopped to rest. What stood out, however, was that some of these small settlements seemed extremely backward—or even completely abandoned and in ruins. Yet this never made it difficult to set out again each morning. No place, landscape, or albergue is so beautiful that it could keep you from walking.
The cities of Burgos, León, and Astorga, however, offer a contrast. To be honest, the noise, the crowds, the abundance of shops and restaurants—essentially, all of city life—quickly overwhelmed me. While these cities were certainly convenient for rest days, I was always glad to leave them behind and return to the peace and quiet of nature.
From León onward, the landscape gradually becomes greener. The Maragatería region starts to stretch beyond Astorga, marked by lush green strips that reminded me of the countryside in northern Germany. I almost felt at home.
A sense of well-being settled in; I felt as though I had truly arrived on the Camino. I began to enjoy the time alone, the walking, and the surroundings more and more, learning to embrace the new situation as an opportunity for myself.
I am now enjoying an opportunity to experience my very own Camino with all its highs and lows. Because here, an unwritten rule applies: the Camino doesn’t give you what you want, but what you need.
What else are you curious about regarding my journey on the Camino? Let me know in the comments – I’m excited for your questions and experiences!
