The Camino de Santiago – Introduction and Day 1

How To Walk The Camino As a Solo Female With No Plan In 2025 In 12 Easy Steps

Just kidding. I did walk the Camino solo in 2025 with no plan, and I am a female (which actually makes no difference by the way), but there are no “12 easy steps”. This is the story of my Camino, not a formula for anyone else’s. There is no formula, no “right way” to do it. On my journey I saw every method from having no plan whatsoever and no foreknowledge of what was ahead—me—to fully scheduled and pre-booked with luggage service and a daily picnic lunch sent ahead—definitely not me.

I kept a daily journal which I’m using as a reference to write this blog. I’ll start off with a little bit of background information and then tell you about all 47 days, hopefully in an entertaining way. It was an amazing experience, but be forewarned, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. I mean, sometimes it literally was sunshine and rainbows, but other times it was thunder and lightning. I don’t intend to sugarcoat or romanticize the times when things got tough. Not even the time I had to sprint into the woods with diarrhea.

I’ll include the number of kilometers traveled each day according to the Buen Camino app. It’s almost certainly not completely accurate. When pilgrims compared the distances according to the various Camino apps (which are all slightly different) to what was recorded by tracking apps and smart watches, nothing ever quite added up and was sometimes off by a pretty significant margin. That said, it’ll give you a rough idea of the distance traveled each day, or at least the distance I thought I was traveling when I bothered to check.

What is the Camino de Santiago?

The Camino is a traditionally Catholic pilgrimage with many paths that lead to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. The most common route, and the one I took, is the Camino Francés, also known as The Way of Saint James. Don’t expect to learn details about the routes or history of the Camino from this blog. I’m far from an expert and almost everything I do know I learned while I was walking it.

At a fundamental level, the Camino is a journey. It is a challenge, physical, mental, and spiritual. It is an escape, a way of freeing oneself from the world while at the same time immersing oneself in it completely. It is a way to bide time without wasting any—procrastination with meaning. It is a path that many walk and yet no two journeys are the same.

Who am I?

Good question. I had hoped to figure that out on the Camino, but (spoiler alert) it wasn’t that simple. Here are the basics so you can get an idea of where I was when I started walking:

I’m an American, born and raised in San Diego, California. Female. 27 years old. (None of those things are my fault.)

I quit being an aerospace engineer a few years before and spent the interim wandering, learning, getting certifications, and being a general disappointment to my family. (That is my fault.)

I consider myself proficient in the realms of water and air. I’m comfortable diving deep in the ocean with or without a scuba tank and flying in the sky with or without an engine. Land, on the other hand, is a realm that I haven’t quite mastered. I’ve always enjoyed the occasional day hike and I taught myself to ski, but I’ve never backpacked or hiked a long distance. I have short, stumpy legs that, I think it’s accurate to say, couldn’t run to save my life.

I had never been to Europe before but I do speak Spanish and have been to other Spanish-speaking countries so I wasn’t intimidated by that aspect.

While the Camino is technically a Catholic pilgrimage, I’m not Catholic or religious.

I have many, many allergies. (Trust me, this is relevant to the story.)

Why did I decide to walk the Camino?

I first heard about the Camino de Santiago less than two years before I would do it myself. My aunt wanted to do it and invited my mom to go with her. They went in September 2023 and walked the Camino Francés. A year later my sister did it and a few months after that I found myself with a lot of time on my hands and no idea what to do with my future, so I figured it was my turn.

Pre-Camino Preparation

To prepare for the trip I did virtually no research and very little training. I went on daily walks in the few weeks leading up to the trip, but never more than 10 km and never carrying a backpack full of stuff. My family gave me a packing list and I borrowed most of the items on it from them. They also gave me a book that I didn’t read, a map that I didn’t look at, and recommended an app that I installed but didn’t open until much later. They told me to make a reservation at Refuge Orisson, which I did, not even fully understanding what that meant. That was the only accommodation reservation I made. The availability of the reservation determined the start date of my trip, which happened to be April 20th, 2025, Easter Sunday. Other than that, they told me to start in a French town called Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and follow the yellow arrows. Sounded simple enough.

Other, more cryptic advice that somehow managed to penetrate my half-closed ears and lodge itself in my memory long enough to be followed included:

“Buy the dry ham sandwich.”

“If you see a man at the top of a mountain selling cheese, buy some.”

Getting to the Start

I left San Diego on Friday morning and arrived in Paris on Saturday morning. Somewhere in the travel across time zones I supposedly “gained time” but definitely lost one full night of sleep. I landed in Paris armed with a train ticket, the knowledge of exactly how to get to the train station from the airport via the metro, and only two words of French. The metro wasn’t running. No need to panic, I thought to myself. I’ll just rely on the kind assistance of the Parisian people.

Ah-ha! Gotcha! You think you know where this is going, don’t you? “The kind assistance of Parisian people”? You’ve never heard of such a thing! Surely this is going to end in disaster! Luckily for me, it turns out stereotypes aren’t always true. Perhaps it was my method of asking for help that got me through. I decided to “follow the Tao”. I found a transit employee, held up my train ticket, and pointed to the name of the train station. They silently pointed the way and I obeyed. When I lost the trail I found a new transit employee and did it again. Using this method I managed to get all the way to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port via replacement bus, metro, train, replacement bus. Was this some kind of synchronization with the cosmic forces of the universe or just plain dumb luck? Either way, it worked.

The second replacement bus was for the train from Bayonne to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. I never got an explanation for what happened to that train, because, as I believe I mentioned before, I don’t understand French. Although I wasn’t technically on the Camino yet, when I look back this feels like the real start. I noticed immediately that the other people waiting for the bus were also dressed in hiking gear and carrying backpacks. For the first time, I was completely surrounded by pilgrims. I wanted to meet them, but I felt too shy. A bus arrived and people quickly crowded in. I hung back, not wanting to push or be pushed; they said another bus was coming in a few minutes anyway. I got on the second bus, little knowing that I was riding with some people who would become a very important part of my Camino. The first bus broke down in front of us and we went around them. Cosmic forces? Luck?

I drank in the view from the bus window like it was the last water in the desert because I didn’t want to miss anything of my first real glimpse of Europe. We passed by fields of shockingly bright yellow which someone later told me was saffron. Eventually, in the dimming light of evening, we rolled up to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the base of the Pyrenees.

I had no idea where to go from the bus stop so I followed the crowd and eventually wandered into an albergue (hostel for pilgrims) with a group of Italians and a South Korean guy named Eunseok (pronounced more like “unsung”). We had missed dinner, but the proprietor was nice enough to go to the restaurant across the street and have them stay open late so that we could eat. I have no idea what the name of the albergue or the restaurant are and I don’t think I ever knew.

Sleep was difficult that night. My body couldn’t figure out what time it was supposed to be. I slept, woke for hours, and slept again.

Day 1: Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port → Orisson (7.7 km)

When I woke up it was around 8 am (very late for a pilgrim), and the Italians were long gone. I never saw any of them again. Eunseok and I had a quick breakfast of bread and jam in the albergue and then went to the Pilgrim Office. It wasn’t hard to find; the town is small and everyone else was going there too. All I knew was that I was supposed to register as a pilgrim and get a pilgrim passport to collect stamps in. I registered, but the lady at the desk didn’t give me a passport. I had to ask for one and she seemed reluctant to give it to me for some reason. Your pilgrim passport is the most important thing you carry on the Camino. Without it you can’t check into albergues. The stamps you collect in it are required to prove that you really traveled the journey to Santiago. I still don’t understand what happened in that interaction, but I made sure I got my passport and my first stamp.

There was also a hanging scale in the office to weigh backpacks. Mine weighed in at about 7 kg (15 lbs).

Once that was taken care of, Eunseok and I headed off to look for the start. This was when I made my first mistake. I had been told by my family of Camino alumni that I would need to buy trekking poles at the start. I saw the store with the trekking poles out front, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t buy the poles. This decision probably impacted the course of my Camino more than anything else, and not for the better. Another thing I regret is not getting a picture with Eunseok at the start. I wanted to ask but I was too shy and embarrassed.

The weather was pleasant and the scenery beautiful. The distant sound of cowbells came through the air which was a lovely alternative to the freeway noise that I’m used to hearing constantly at home. We passed lots of sheep and horses grazing. I even met a tiny horse who reached over his little fence like he wanted his nose rubbed, so I rubbed his nose. He loved it!

The trail was steep and very windy in some places. Large birds of prey soared around in the air currents. As we walked, Eunseok told me about himself and his dream of opening a Korean tapas bar in Spain. Along the way we met Michelle from Oregon. I recognized her from the bus—she had sat in front of me. She’s an intrepid through-hiker, and talks about the Pacific Crest Trail a lot like my mom does. She seemed to be having a little trouble with her lungs on the steep climb, but she said she was ok so Eunseok and I went on ahead. We got up a particularly steep section and looked back down the trail. Michelle was resting down below us, sitting on her pack. I tend to take people at their word and I genuinely thought she was ok, but Eunseok was worried. He decided to go back down to check on her. I sat down on a rock to wait and munched on some cookies my mom had packed for me.

While I waited, I gazed out over the mountains and appreciated the relative silence of this place. There were no cars going by, no freeway, no sirens. There were no skyscrapers or ugly apartment complexes in sight. Not even airplanes flying overhead. (I’m used to having Top Gun in my backyard.) Just a little town with a name longer than its main street and farm houses scattered through the foothills. Other pilgrims passed by and we greeted each other with the phrase we would repeat hundreds of times over the next several weeks, “Buen Camino!”

I’d almost forgotten I was supposed to be going somewhere when Eunseok and Michelle found me. Michelle was ok, as I’d thought, but nonetheless thankful to Eunseok and impressed with his kindness. That hill was no casual walk in the park and he did it twice. He’s certainly a better person than I was, sitting on my butt eating cookies.

It wasn’t very far to Orisson. I had assumed that Orisson was the name of a town but actually the albergue/restaurant is the only thing there. It seemed like a great place and everyone was glad to have the opportunity to relax and eat lunch. I checked in and received my first in what was to be a long line of disposable sheets. Everyone also received a token for the shower, which was a system I never saw anywhere else. Eunseok and Michelle didn’t have reservations but were still able to get available bunks. Not everyone was so lucky though so I was glad to have made the reservation. Apparently it was a long way to the next possible place to stay, and I later found out that those who continued on Easter walked into snow.

A lot of other pilgrims continued hiking (many by choice), but the group I ended up chatting with were all about taking it slow and enjoying it. My kind of people for sure. This is when I met another important member of my “Camino family” who I would learn a lot from, Kim Kimmy. Kim Kimmy and her family went to the US as refugees from Vietnam when she was a kid and now she lives in France. She told us about how they don’t record birthdays there and everyone turns one year older on the lunar new year. This was an entirely new concept to me. I’m used to only sharing my birthday with my twin sister. When Kim Kimmy’s family went to the US, they had to invent birthdates for everyone. Her father made them up and put her in charge of remembering them for all 10 kids, but she immediately forgot the ones he’d told her and had to make up new ones. Kim Kimmy also made up a good way to help everyone remember how to pronounce Eunseok’s name. His name is Yang Eunseok, which sounds almost like “Young Unsung”. So we could think of him as the Young Unsung Hero who went back to help Michelle. And if we still couldn’t remember that, he said to call him by his “American” name, Jacob. He told us how he taught himself English by memorizing 200 sentences. Evidently this was way more effective than school. He speaks well with a good accent.

Naturally, Day 1 introduced me to many things that I would encounter over and over along the Camino. One of the things that I hadn’t expected was what I like to call “Camino Repeaters”. The first Camino Repeaters I met were Bob and Mark, a pair of retired American brothers from North Carolina and Tennessee (I think) who had done the Camino three times already. Why? They gave the unsatisfying answer that so many others would give later, “You get addicted to it.” This would rack my brain for weeks.

After chatting for a long time I went and took a token-operated shower, during which I managed (barely) to wash, not only myself, but also my dirty clothes. There was some debate over how much time you get for your token. 4-6 minutes? Either way the time ticks whether the water is running or not, and you have to keep pressing the button to keep it running. This constant button pressing in the shower would prove to be common along the Camino. Figuring out how to hang the clothesline from the beam over my top bunk was more complicated than anticipated, and I hadn’t done a good job wringing out the water, so there was dripping that had to be intercepted. I moved around so much during this process that I all but tore off the disposable bed sheets. What a rooky I was back then!

Next was the group dinner and it was so much fun. I sat with my new friends and made even more, including Alexa from Perth, Australia, and Dana from the Netherlands. Three Taiwanese ladies who were enjoying the wine came over to pay their respects to Bob and Mark in honor of their experience. The proprietors welcomed everyone first in French then in English and had everyone take turns standing up and telling everyone their name, where they came from, and why they decided to do the Camino. Mark from Canada kicked things off by standing up on the bench in his bright Hawaiian Easter egg shirt. Others followed his lead. One of the Taiwanese ladies even sang a song. People came from all over the world for lots of different reasons. Some had just retired or graduated, some were going through a midlife crisis (or a quarter life crisis in my case), some had lost someone or were on a personal soul journey. Most people came for adventure, a good time, and to clear their heads.

I wish I could remember everyone’s names, but I didn’t see everyone again. Some of the cool people in these photos who I did see again are (in no particular order): Alexa, Perth, Australia; Geraldine & Troy, Australia; Kim Kimmy, Vietnam/USA/France; Michelle, Oregon, USA; Eunseok, South Korea; Sarah, Emma, Andrew, & Gillian, Newcastle, Australia; Teresa & Archer, Australia; Carrie, Arizona, USA; Dana, The Netherlands; Fiona & Evannah, Australia; Julia, Texas, USA; Bob & Mark, USA; Mark & Perry, Canada.

Mark and Perry recorded short but detailed daily video logs of their Camino for YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@markdalbianco

The welcome at Orisson was the best possible introduction to the Camino I could have asked for. Being introduced to a lot of other pilgrims helped to relieve some of the shyness I felt. From here on out anyone who I recognized from Orisson, whether we’d had a conversation or not, felt automatically like a friend. I can say without hesitation that the Camino would not have been the same without this experience.

I turned in for the night feeling happy and excited for the journey to come. That said, my body still hadn’t figured out the time zone, and it was a rough night’s sleep on the top bunk under my dripping socks. The room was entirely female which was nice but that’s not the norm along the Camino, as I would come to learn.