Camino Solo After 40: The First-Timer's Camino Frances Planning Kit

Available in 7 languages. Choose yours from the selector above.It was four in the afternoon in Sarria and there were no beds.Not "no beds in the nice albergue". No beds. The municipal was full by two. The private places had the shutters half down and that apologetic face they make when they've said it forty times already. A woman from Cork sat on the kerb outside the Mercadona with her boots off and her phone at nine percent, ringing numbers off a list that everyone else had already rung.Twenty metres up the road, another woman walked straight past her, into a place she'd booked eleven days earlier from a bench in Ponferrada, because she'd been keeping a running list of where the pinch points were.Same route. Same day. Same weather. One of them had a plan.That is the whole difference, and it is the only reason this kit exists.More people are walking now than at any point in the Camino's history. Over half a million reached Santiago last year and this year is heading past six hundred thousand. September has overtaken August as the busiest month on the trail. Nearly a third of everyone who finishes starts from Sarria, which means the last hundred kilometres now fills up in a way it simply did not five years ago. Nobody hands you that information at the pilgrim office. You find it out at four in the afternoon with your boots off.What this actually isI walked the Camino Frances alone at forty-five. I was not fit. I had never carried a pack further than the car park. I cried outside Pamplona on day four over a blister I could have prevented in about ninety seconds if anyone had told me how.This is everything I wish someone had put in my hands before I booked the flight. Not a guidebook, there are plenty of those and most of them are excellent. This is the planning layer that sits underneath a guidebook. The decisions, the numbers, the timings and the honest bits.Get the kit in English, £29.99Other languages: pick from the selector above, then add to cart. Instant download after checkout. Secure payment. Free updates for life.The five filesThe Guide (PDF, 40 pages). Choosing your start point, including a straight answer on whether starting in Sarria is "cheating" (it isn't, and here's what to say to the man in the bar who tells you it is). The stage plan, with the specific places where you should book ahead and the long stretches where you genuinely don't need to. Training when you're starting from nothing. Your feet, which is the chapter that will save your walk. Money, and where it actually goes. Walking alone as a woman, written plainly, without either scaremongering or pretending nothing ever happens. And the last chapter, which is about the fact that most people fall apart somewhere around day eleven and nobody warns you.The Stage Planner (spreadsheet). Your route, editable stage by stage. Daily distance, cumulative distance, a running budget total that updates as you type, and a booked or unbooked column so you can see your gaps at a glance instead of finding them at four in the afternoon. Works in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers.Packing List by Weight (printable). Every item with its actual weight in grams, and a total at the bottom that turns red past ten percent of your body weight. The reason people give up is almost never fitness. It's carrying eleven kilos of things they didn't need.The 12-Week Training Plan (printable). Built for someone who currently does nothing. Three walks a week, building. No gym. No running. The back-to-back weekend days are the important part and most plans leave them out.The Feet and Blister Card (printable). Fits in a hip pocket. Prevention, and what to do the moment you feel a hot spot rather than the evening after. This is the single page I'd want if I could only take one.Free updates for life. Albergues open and close, the Sarria crush gets worse, the pilgrim office changes its rules. When I update the files, you get them. You paid once.A page from the guideThings you're probably thinkingI'm not fit enough. Almost nobody is when they book. Twelve weeks is enough time and the plan assumes you're starting from the sofa.I don't want to walk on my own. You won't be, and that surprises everyone. You'll be alone when you want to be and there'll be a Dutch woman taping your foot up when you don't. The safety chapter is there because it should be, not because the trail is frightening.I'm too old. The average pilgrim is nowhere near as young as Instagram suggests. There are people in their seventies doing it every single day.Can't I just wing it? You can. Plenty do and most of them are fine. But the bed situation in the last hundred kilometres has genuinely changed, and winging it in September now costs people days of their walk.What you get, again, plainly40-page guide, stage planner spreadsheet, weighted packing list, 12-week training plan, feet and blister card. Instant download. Seven languages. Free updates for life.You are going to remember this walk for the rest of your life. Spend thirty quid making sure you remember the right parts.Get the kit in English, £29.99Other languages from the selector above. Instant download. Free updates for life.Roots & Routes makes honest, practical guides for real places and real decisions. Browse the full range.