Is the Camino Worth It? My Honest Experience

People ask all the time, especially after I tell them I've now walked three Caminos: 'Was it worth it?'

The short answer is yes. The honest answer is more complicated.

It is not worth it if you go expecting an Instagram-friendly transformation. The trail does not deliver epiphanies on demand.

It is not worth it if you can't accept being uncomfortable for weeks at a time. Wet socks, snoring strangers, dorm beds, your own legs hurting.

It is not worth it if you go for the pretty photos. The Meseta is beautiful in a way that doesn't photograph. Galicia is in fog half the time.

It is worth it if you want to discover what your life is when you remove almost everything from it. Phone use drops. You eat what's in front of you. You walk until you arrive. You sleep when it's dark.

It is worth it if you want to be reminded that strangers are mostly kind. The hospitaleros, the locals, the other pilgrims — almost without exception, kind.

It is worth it if you want eight hours a day to think, uninterrupted, for several weeks. There is almost nowhere else in modern life where this is possible.

Three Caminos in, I can say with full honesty: it changed my life, and not in the way the brochures promise. It changed my life by being slow, hard, and ordinary. By the time I reached Santiago I'd forgotten what I'd come to figure out, and figured out something else instead.

Go. You'll be fine.