"What now?..."

 Today might be a bit of a boring read, but I need to start thinking of the logistics of it all. If any readers have any thoughts or tips please comment below at the bottom of the post. Actually please comment regardless as I am going through a very hard and shitty time and could use the moral support.

I am experiencing a lot of self-doubt at the moment, like can I actually do this? Can I move out, be single again, train, save a bunch of money and walk the Camino? I asked my ex. “Am I crazy to think I can do this? Maybe it's just my bi-polar brain saying I should and can do this when in actuality it's a bad idea.” to which she replied “I don’t think it’s your bi-polar brain telling you, you can do this, I think it’s your bipolar brain telling you, you can't do this! ” Which helped a lot. She may be my ex, but it doesn't mean we don’t want the best for each other.

Anyhow back to the task at hand.

I know what my end goal is....the Camino.

So now how do I make that happen? I would love to walk it this September. I would leave Canada in late august and return in early October. That would give me a little bit of time at the start and end to relax and site see. However, it's January now I don’t think that is going to be enough time to plan and raise the money. I should be buying my plane ticket 2 months in advance at least so that would mean I would have to buy my ticket in late May or early June and tickets are not cheap. Really the planning is fine, I can accomplish that... it's the money. I have to come up with a big chunk of change as this will not be cheap.

Here is a basic breakdown. Keep in mind these are rough estimates and they are overestimated as I would rather have extra money than not enough.

Depending on what I eat and where I sleep, it looks like it's going to cost between €30 to €40 a day. That will cover my stays in all the Albergues..which are hostels that are only open to people walking the Camino. It will also cover day-to-day food costs, laundry, etc. Plenty of people do it with less, but as a first-time pilgrim(one who walks the Camino is referred to as a pilgrim) I have been told to pad my numbers as much as possible. So I will go with the €40($57 CDN) a day estimate and I am going to estimate 40 days. The routes I am looking at say 30 to 35 days but some people take longer, A round-trip plane ticket is going to cost on average from what I can tell $2000. I am going to guesstimate $1000 for gear. Now I may not need all the gear just for the Camino, but I have places I would to go and hike so I may as well buy all the gear at once. A couple of items not included in the gear estimate are expensive and would be considered luxury items, like a Garmin GPS watch. I would also like to have a buffer of $1000 in my bank, for taxis, train tickets, etc.

So...

40 days @$57 = $2280.00

Plane ticket= $2000.00

Gear= $1000.00

misc= $1000.00

Grand total = $6280.00

That means I would have to raise around $1000 a month and still pay my daily bills back here in Canada (rent, food, etc).

Now I can cut that down some if I go with the €30 ($43) a day budget, walk faster and do the hike in 35 days. Cut my gear cost down to $750 and instead of having $1000 cash for misc get a credit card(which I really do not want to do).

That makes it...

35 days @$43 = $1505.00

Plane ticket= $2000.00

Gear= $750.00

Grand total = $4255.00

So between $4255.00 and $6280.00

I may have to wait until spring(or later) of 2024 and take over a year to save up. If I could save $10,000 then I could hike around Europe for a few weeks and then ship any gear I don’t need for the Camino back to Canada and continue onto the Camino.

Either way, it's a lot of money.

Maybe I should contact a few gear suppliers and/or travel magazines and seek sponsorship?

Start a “go fund me” page?

Fuck I don’t know...

Am I crazy?

Comment and tell me what you think?

R-