032: Café con Leche Beats Bears: Why I’ll Always Choose the Camino
What one blind date taught me about the kind of walking I love
Hello Camino friends! Here’s what’s in this issue:
☕️ “Café con Leche Beats Bears: Why I’ll Always Choose the Camino”
📸Scenes from the Camino: Oh, The People You’ll Meet
🎥Live from the Camino! October 4, 5, and 6
🥾How to get help planning your Camino.
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“What’s the Camino?”
❓Not even sure what the Camino de Santiago is? Start here.
🤔Heard of the Camino but not sure if it’s for you? Read this.
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Café con Leche Beats Bears: Why I’ll Always Choose the Camino
A couple months after returning from my first Camino, I was set up on a blind date. “He just finished hiking the Appalachian Trail. I’m sure you guys will have plenty to talk about!”
I should have known better: the person setting us up had walked neither the Camino nor the Appalachian Trail.
But I was single. And had just moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where I knew hardly anyone. So off I went.
I knew some basics about the AT:
It took about 6 months to complete.
You were in the woods most of the time.
You had to carry a tent, food, and something with which to cook that food.
There were bears.
And I’d read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in The Woods, which could have been subtitled, “Why Rebecca Will Never Walk the Appalachian Trail.”
But having just returned from a one-month hike across Spain, I thought, “Maybe I’ll feel differently now.”
The thing I loved most about the Camino were all the people I met—from all over the world, all walks of life, all ages. Some where doing just a week or two, some had already done a Camino (or 6 or more), everyone had a story and I was intrigued to learn them all.
So I said to Mystery Man, “Tell me about the people you met on the trail. Were there people from all over the world? Different ages?”
“Not really. Mostly people in their twenties and thirties. Though there was one guy in his 60s. And there was one guy from Germany. But everyone else was American.”
So far, he wasn’t selling me on it. “You guys must have had plenty of time for great conversations,” I said.
“Well,” he explained, “there’s kind of an order of topics you talk about when you meet someone on the AT. The first thing you talk about is how hungry you are. You’re always hungry. Unless you just got a restock of food. Which is the only time you’re not hungry, in which case you quickly move on to the second topic: what gear is working and which isn’t, which you’re going to try and get replaced and where and how and when.
“And if by some miracle, you’re feeling satiated and not having any problems with any of your gear at that moment, then maybe you start to get into why you’re actually walking the Appalachian Trail.”
And now there was absolutely no question in my mind: I would never walk the Appalachian Trail.
I’m not a nice person to be around when I’m hungry. I don’t even like being around myself when I’m hungry. I know how lucky I have been to grow up in a family where hunger was never a concern. And I wasn’t particularly interested in trying out a different experience.
And here’s a thing about hiking gear: I pretty much didn’t own any at the time of this date. On my first Camino, nearly everything I had was either borrowed, bought used, or gifted to me. Because I was not a hiker. And so saw no point in investing any money into an endeavor I was planning to do just once.
Dry wicking shirts? Received from my marathon-running sister Jessica when I was helping her clean out her closet a month before the trip.
Hiking sticks? Borrowed from my friend Kate. Because I thought they’d be a good thing to have—though I had no idea how to use them.
A fancy hiking hat? Borrowed from my friend Elizabeth Anne. Who definitely wanted it back when I returned. “No problem,” I said. “I can’t think of any other occasion where I’d wear this post-Camino.”
My backpack? Bought at a used gear sale two years earlier from a guy who had no idea what the Camino was but assured me a 45 L pack should be sufficient. Note to future Camino walkers: a 45 L pack is way too big.
Hiking was not something I did much of; actually, hiking was not something I did at all. Except for a date I’d been on a couple years earlier with a guy I met online. I showed up in jeans—because as far as I was concerned, a hike was just a walk in the woods. Why would one buy special clothes just to go for a walk in the woods?
And Mystery Man wasn’t really doing a great job of selling me on quality hiking gear. If people who were intending to complete a six month hike couldn’t even manage to find gear to last them that long, this supposed “hiking gear” was not worth my investment.
And if conversations were going to be dominated by hunger and equipment talk, forget it. On my Camino, I’d met a girl who was on a year-long around-the-world-trip focused on her love of the harp. She’d just made a small one in Germany and had it attached to her pack. She’d delight us with her music each evening. Mystery man, on the other hand, told me about his evenings in communal lean-to’s listening to rats that may or may not crawl over him at night.
Most of my Camino days included views of the Spanish countryside: farms, Spanish-tiled roofs, cathedrals and churches. Mystery Man told me about the Green Tunnel: basically you can walk for weeks on the Appalachian Trail without seeing anything except for the tunnel of trees.
No Spanish countryside? No Pyrenees mountains? No stopping for a café con leche every day? Or twice a day? No warm showers at night? No bed to sleep in?
And then there were the bears. “Only black bears,” he said. Having lived in the mountains of western North Carolina for less than a month at that point, I had no idea what the color of the bear had to do with anything.
Yeah. No. Never. Doing. The. Appalachian. Trail.
Turns out I didn’t have much in common with someone who liked the challenge of carrying a ridiculous amount of weight on his back, sleeping outside, and seeing only a handful of views on the whole trip.
Luckily for me, within a week of moving to Asheville, I met a group of Camino aficionados. Every Tuesday, we’d gather at a coffee shop to trade stories and answer questions from those who’d heard about our group and came to seek our Camino wisdom. I was the youngest one in the group. By at least 25 years. Everyone else was either retired or nearly there. So I never saw Mystery Man again. But that Camino group? Still going strong. And in a few weeks, I’m delighted that I’ll be back amongst them once more.
With love,
Rebecca
📸Scenes from my First Camino (Camino Francés, 2012)
🎥Live From the Camino
On Friday, October 3, I’m meeting my first group for my first Camino Walk With Rebecca. We’ll start our walk on the Camino Inglés from Ferrol, Spain. I’ll be doing daily live videos at 12 ET (6 pm in Spain) on Oct. 4, 5, and 6.
If you’re a subscriber, you’ll get an email with the link and then another email at the moment I start the live conversation.
🇺🇸Come meet me in the USA!
I’ll be in the US for a few months at the end of 2025. If you’d like to have an in-person Camino planning session, I’d love to meet you! Click here and I’ll be in touch.
Asheville, NC (Oct. 15- Nov. 4; Nov. 24- Dec. 12)
Poughkeepsie, NY (Nov. 10-14)
Columbus, OH (Nov. 20-21)
Also, on Nov. 5, I’ll be giving a Camino talk at REI Asheville. It’s free but registration is required. I’ll post the registration link on the newsletter once REI publishes it.
🥾Ready to start planning your Camino?
Rebecca Weston
Camino Planning & Preparation Guide (for People 45+)
Rebecca@TheCaminoCalls.com
Your Camino adventure should feel exciting, not stressful — here are some ways I can help you get ready:
Watch Camino Conversations for practical tips and advice from my guests who have done the Camino (or more than one!).
🗓️ Camino Planning Session (60 min): Get answers to your top questions and a notes doc created during our call.
📞 Full Camino Experience: 6 coaching calls with detailed notes to plan your trip with confidence and ease.
🥾 Walk With Rebecca: 7-day hybrid Camino walks — 3 days guided, 4 days independent, private rooms, preparation classes, and optional check-ins. Click here to be the first to be notified about my next trip.Rebecca Weston is an American who walked her first Camino in 2012.
About me: I’ve walked more than a dozen Caminos since my first in 2012. I’ve spent many days volunteering along the trail, and if I’m not walking one now, I’m planning the next—and would love nothing more than to help you plan yours, too. Originally from the US, my husband and I live in a town of 6500 people on the Camino del Norte.
Even as a fairly new hiker, I can say with certainty that the A. T. is not for me. Inns and coffee shops and lunch? I'm in!
People should do the A.T. [always with periods in between the A and the T] in their twenties and thirties. You can do it as a through-hike or as my husband and I did as section hikers on our vacations. We were "punching a clock" and it took us decades but we did every inch of the trail.
As people have more resources, they should hike hut to hut in Norway or Iceland.
In their sixties, when they may be retired or are no longer punching a clock, they should do the Camino. OK, this is the Danny theory of hiking life.
Looking forward to seeing you in November in Asheville. You will have a standing room crowd.