Bringing your Day on the Camino to A Blog Post

Writing about the Camino de Santiago – how a post comes together

Well hello there. Thanks for dropping by. The evenings are drawing in and you can feel the first signs of winter in the air. I am just home from a looped walk in my estate, which is my typical walk, around 5 km or so. I have a large park (Newbridge Park) at my door step and that has a few trails so that is useful too. So I have many opportunities around my area to get training in when a Camino approaches. Plus being out in the open is good for a clear mind. Also, thanks for reading my posts from my Meseta Camino to date. There are more to come.

Introduction to blogging

Anyway, I am not here to natter on about walks in my area. I want to write about how I manage to put my experiences into words after coming home Spain or Portugal. There are many pilgrims out there who blog or write about their experiences after a Camino. I happen to be one of them. I have been doing writing since 2013 – when I walked from Logrono to León – 10 years. I can’t believe I am putting my thoughts online for a decade. Initially, I decided to write because I was writing in a hardback diary while walking from León to Sarria in 2012. I still have that particular journal (it is somewhere in my apartment, battered and worn). A few months after returning from Santiago in 2012, I set up a WordPress account – this very one. I promised myself that I would write each day while on the Camino. I did this via an Android app on my old phone, which allowed me to upload photos and a few notes. I got great feedback from the posts I wrote and it gave me such motivation that I kept doing it. The only problem, I found, is it took a huge amount of my time from my day and I could have been doing other things – like mixing with other pilgrims or visiting the various sites in the towns. So I decided to change things around for the next year.

A little change in 2014

I walked from St Jean Pied de Port in 2014 and brought a journal again. It wasn’t a heavy book – but rather a light copybook, and rather than writing essays each day, I was writing prompts that would help me remember happened each day. Taking photos helped me remember the day as well. I promised I wouldn’t spend more than 20 minutes per day writing. Yes, I know it’s not a great amount of time but missing the 20 minutes meant that I might forget a day or a person or something. I did this for a couple of years and I enjoyed the way I blogged. Everything was going well.

2017 and to the present

Moving on to 2017 and phones gradually became more smart – smarter than me, some might say. This was an important year for me as I had started to volunteer with Camino Society Ireland. I had been planning this particular Camino for some time, only to put it off from May to September. Regarding my notes, I decided to switch things up. I still brought the light copybook for brief notes but supplemented that with an App called Voice Notes. There are a load of apps that can record your voice so if you can’t find it, don’t worry. Some mornings I leave a one minute note, while other mornings, I speak for up to ten minutes. Yes, the voice note will sound cringe later on but who else is listening to it? I like this app as it allows me to set a reminder each morning. I generally talk about the previous day, who I met and basically anything that was on my mind. I still use this to this day and delete the voice notes when I write a post here. It’s handy!

Recommendations

So what would I recommend for those looking to write about your experiences on the Camino?

Well it all depends on how much time you want to put into it. If you want to give an hour per day, then writing in a journal or via a bluetooth keyboard to your phone, might be an option. If you want to give a little less, give yourself prompts and take voice notes, but don’t spend less than 20 minutes by yourself to pen your thoughts.

Share your own experiences or thoughts about writing about the Camino de Santiago. Happy writing and Buen Camino!

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