This website is for the older set, people who are interested in, and may hope to hike, el Camino de Santiago.

Other sites seem focused on healthy young people. Here we recognize that “senior pilgrims” are different in body, support needs, and preferences to name but a few. At our age, rising at 5 AM to hike 40 kilometers (25 miles) in a day is probably not on the “to do list.”

This pilgrim (peregrino in Camino lingo) was 75+ when my Camino friend Riccardo took this picture. I was saying “Amigo, let’s go!” after finding him sitting on a clifftop taking pictures of the ocean. It was a glorious, wondrous Camino day. I was feeling that power of the day and place.

Today, at 78 and counting, I want that feeling again.

It’s for the first-timer from a “fourth-timer.”

The experts on those thousands of Camino websites seem to be writing for people who are already pilgrims. They seem to skip a lot of fundamentals. They use a language that often seems strange or hard to understand. That’s why I generally include a link to my explanation of an albergue if I mention one in a post.

There are websites for walking and hiking and trekking. Other websites are full of information about camping gear. It is confusing. And little of the information on such sites applies to the Camino because hiking el Camino is special.

Part of my mission it to explain the Camino and what hiking it is like for a man in his late 70s in simple terms.

It’s from a secular viewpoint.

The Camino is, first and foremost, a deeply revered Catholic pilgrimage route. This peregrino, however, is not now nor has he ever been a Catholic. Despite that, El Camino has been an emotional and spiritual journey for me as well as a physical one.

It’s for others to encourage an elderly peregrino.

My planned July 2024 adventure, when I will be “pushing 79,” is daunting and every encouragement from a “cheering section” is MOST welcome!

The beginning.

My fascination with el Camino de Santiago began more than two decades ago when I saw people walking near the road somewhere in Asturias or Galicia. I asked my friend, Julian, why so many people were walking there. His brief response, “they are hiking el Camino de Santiago,” piqued my interest. He does not remember that conversation.

There was one fellow in particular, lanky and perhaps a little on the taller side, who seemed the essence of manhood. He was focused on something I could not see. He was striding along purposefully, but without any sign of pressure or worry. He seemed at peace. Somehow, I saw all that in a second or two as we passed him. With the wisdom of the many years since that conversation, I now realize that I wanted to be that lanky fellow.

That desire, irrational as it may seem, was the seed that with time grew into a wonderful part of my life.

The middle.

We saw parts of the Path marked with shell symbols on that vacation. My memory of Julian being just a bit disapproving of my claim to have hiked a part of the Camino de Santiago as we walked from the hotel to our restaurant one evening remains clear. “The Camino” had a meaning for him that was hidden from me.

In any event, interest in el Camino de Santiago led to study. Study led to fascination with it. Fascination led to more study.

Exactly when I decided to hike a bit of the Camino is not clear to me, but somewhere in 2016 or 2017, I began expanding my exercise to include purposeful walks. Those walks became preparation for at least a tiny test of myself on el Camino in 2018.

That test was a beginners effort based in San Sebastian. It was a tenderfoot’s approach. I planned to, and did, use the local train system sleep every night save one with my Spanish immersion course host family. The first weekend and the subsequent Saturdays of that three-week course were my taste of the Camino.

The most important thing I learned that year was that I was not finished, that “I would be back.”

My hopes for 2019 and 2020 never came to fruition. First there was injury and an old man’s slow recovery. Then there was pandemic and the world seemed to stand still.

Then came 2021. Grand dreams for an extended visit to Spain with friends and family were destroyed by the fates, the United States Department of State, and that relentless pandemic. “My Camino Day the lost years” tells that story. As I went through the stages of grief at this third failure to return to Spain, my wife chose to comfort me. “My Camino Day getting there in 2021 ¡[Expletive Deleted] It!” is my description of what happened next.

My time on el Camino in 2021 cemented the Way as one of the most important, and joyful, parts of my worldview. One could argue that 2022 deserves similar praise for different reasons. I do my best to describe those experiences in my “My Camino Day” posts and on my YouTube channel.

For reasons I do not understand, it takes longer to digest and tell the stories than it did to live them. Please stay tuned.

The end?

I coordinated my 2023 arrival in Santiago with my wife, Janis. Our incredible friends Julian and Mercedes were to be there as well, but the demands of one of Julian’s customers made that impossible. Nonetheless, I arrived at the Santiago de Compostela Archcathedral Basilica and completed the first phase of my incredible journey on el Camino.

¡No!

I am not finished.

My passion for el Camino grew with each leg of my Journey along the Way. It burns strong today. If hard work and good doctors can allow me to return to el Camino de Santiago in 2024, return I shall.

Please join me in my journey.

If I can do it, YOU can do it. If you want to do it, if not now, when?

You are NOT too old!

As I tell my Camino stories to people, friends and strangers alike deliver a common response. “I would love to do that, to hike el Camion de Santiago. But I’m too old.” This from people in their 50s and 60 said with a straight face to a man of 77.

Too old at age 55. Why? Why would anyone feel that way?

Ageism is real. It permeates our world and what people think. Our doctors, or friends, our family all begin to treat us as terribly weakened before we reach the prime of our lives. As they treat us that way, we absorb their doubts about our abilities. Then we withdraw from doing things we want to do.

The result is something missing on el Camino: people who “look like me.” Yes, I’ve seen a few including this fellow. He’s in his early 70s, Japanese, and a Camino veteran. He told me he may be getting too old for the Camino.

Sigh.