Let's Go, Jane!

I’m sitting in a hostel in Pontevedra, Spain, watching my fellow guests pack up and prepare themselves to walk all day. It’s 55 kilometers from here to Santiago de Compostela, another 2-3 days on foot to receive the certificate of religious piety awarded to pilgrims who complete the Camino de Santiago. Earning a certificate requires a journey of at least 100 km on foot or horseback or 200 km by bicycle (for my fellow cyclists out there, that seems like an unfair advantage, no?).

After spending a week in Portugal (in Lisbon and the lovely Porto, pictured above), I’ve made my way back to Spain for a week before I head to Greece. I remember lying awake in July, back in New York, and imagining my first month of travel. I knew that Carey would be meeting me in Lisbon the second week of September for a wine festival he heard about a year ago, but I was otherwise flexible.

Having spent New Year’s Eve with Carey in central Spain (Madrid), I wanted to also experience the east coast (Barcelona and Costa Brava) and the west coast. We talk about countries as monoliths, but I once watched an Instagram post about how different the 17 autonomous regions of Spain are, and I was intrigued by Galicia (in the northwest corner). Octopus stew and lush green landscapes? Sign me up!

Working my way up the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula, I started in Lisbon, Portugal where Carey and I walked and ate and danced our way through the city. Then I spent two nights in beautiful Porto, Portugal by myself. I loved Porto and would happily have spent a couple more nights there, but I had already booked my next hostel. Now that peak season is over I will endeavor to be a bit more spontaneous, planning things out only a couple days in advance.

When I checked into the hostel in Porto the woman behind the counter asked me if I was walking the Camino. And when I got to my 6-person female dorm room, a roommate asked me if I was walking the Camino. As it turns out, 4 out of 6 of us in the room were just beginning their walk. There are several different starting points, but Porto is a popular one at a distance of 215 km.

If the hostel in Porto was a mix of walkers and non-walkers, my current stop in Pontevedra, Spain is almost all walkers. There are 64 beds in this hostel, and yesterday I watched 62 of my fellow guests pack up and go, as one other woman and I sat in front of our laptops on the terrace. By the end of the day all the beds were full again.

It’s peak finishing season for the Camino, and it got me thinking about how different each hostel has been, based on the type of traveler coming through. Before last month I hadn’t stayed in a hostel in over 30 years, since that summer in college when a boyfriend and I saved up for a trip to Europe. I remember we called them “youth hostels” back then.

In the last six weeks I have stayed in hostels in London, England; Helsinki, Finland; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Barcelona, Spain; Porto, Portugal; and Pontevedra, Spain. I initially reserved an Airbnb for my next stop in Santiago de Compostela, but I changed my mind and booked a hostel instead, one of the few still available with all the walkers descending upon the city.

I’ve realized, as a solo traveler, that there is something heartwarming about being surrounded by other people who have made space in their lives for travel and adventure. If I stayed in a hotel or Airbnb, it would just be me at the end of each day. In hostels, where I usually stay in female dorm rooms, I’ve had the nicest conversations with my roommates. In Porto one night, five of us ended up talking for almost two hours. We ranged in age from 23 to 62. Three were Camino walkers, I was the only American. It was lovely.

I’m fascinated by how different each hostel is. Some have full working kitchens with guest refrigerators, while others have only a coffee shop or bar inside. Some have common areas that resemble living rooms, others look more like cafeterias. They cater to their most common clientele–so the current one is very supportive of laundry with three handwashing sinks and several clotheslines for Camino walkers to wash their clothes, shower, eat a hearty meal, sleep, and then get back on the trail the next day.

With each stop, I’ve been refining my move-in routine. Make the bed (most dorm rooms provide a folded pile of sheets), unpack my pajamas, Kindle, eye mask, ear plugs, and phone charger. Book a walking tour if I haven’t already done so. Figure out the coffee situation for the morning. Find the nearest grocery store. So far this feels sustainable. Invigorating, in fact. I’m in my third week of this 7-month voyage and I can’t wait to see what’s around the corner. I feel incredibly lucky to have this unique opportunity to explore the world. How is this my life?