A Postcard from the Camino Portuguese
The adventure (and annoyance) of traveling without a cell phone
“Yes, we’re traveling without a phone.” The response was consistent and panicked on our behalf.
“Oh my god, was it stolen?”
“Oh no, did you lose it?”
“But, how are you taking pictures?” (*To clarify, we had a Canon camera with us).
Last October, my wife Kim and I were on a semi working vacation, walking the 320 km leg of the Camino Portuguese coastal route from Porto, Portugal to Santiago, Spain. We kept our eye on the prize. Post Camino, we would do nothing but flop supine on Falesia beach in the Algarve for an indulgent and deserved week.
In 2018, we walked 920 km on the Camino de Santiago from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Finisterre, Spain. Kim and I did this without a cell phone too. It never occurred to us that a phone would be necessary. The very nature of the Camino is to find your way on The Way by intuition (and sometimes helpful yellow arrows and scallop markers) NOT by GPS.
We have always opted to leave our phone at home. Yes, that’s right, phone, singular. Not plural. We share a phone and admittedly, I only call my parents, two siblings and two friends if we are on the highway for a few hours (and I’m in the mood). There’s shit ball cell reception at our house on the peninsula. Sometimes, if a crow flies over just so and we rub two pine cones together, we find a fragment of a signal halfway down our driveway. There’s usually enough of a grainy connection to wait out a caller queue and answer a security question before a vital call is dropped. Wishing family members a happy new year perennially involves blizzard conditions and a hot water bottle stuffed under my puffa jacket in the cloak of our designated Dark Sky Preserve darkness. I’m grateful for all of the above.
In general, I’m not that attached to a phone or texting anyone, ever, unless Kim is driving. When I’m working, social media is a non-negotiable part of my job description at Wild Women Expeditions. I’m a content writer and naturally, I’m expected to write about an experience as it’s unfolding–-not upon returning home, as much as I’d prefer it.
Reservations of a Different Sort
I’m slowly transforming into my great-grandmother, I know. I walked five miles in the snow, up to my waist, to the one-room schoolhouse. Is it so antiquated to still want a phone that stays at home like it did in the landline years? We all survived, didn’t we? There was no caller ID, no call waiting—and certainly no calls to be answered if you were out of earshot of your house.
After being turned away from a dozen hostels and hotels without vacancy in Santiago (because we didn’t have reservations…because we didn’t have a phone), Kim is less inclined to continue on this phone-less pilgrimage. She has reservations of a different sort now because everyday on the Camino Portuguese was sparked with the stress of finding a place to stay.
Once upon a time (2018), in a faraway land (Spain), you could walk under an umbrella of stars until the sun lifted. You would stop for a milky coffee and savoury tortilla at whatever little shop magically appeared on your path. You could walk into an albergue boldly confident that if it met your specs, you could receive a bunk and probably a pilgrim’s meal of spag bol, pork loin, baguette, coffee and a pastry AND half a carafe of wine for 15 euros. These accommodations were only available to pilgrims on a first come, walk-in only, first served basis. No reservations were permitted and those on foot took priority over those who arrived by bike.
Along the Camino Portuguese, dozens of albergues have now adopted a hostel designation which means anyone can book a room in advance. You don’t have to be walking or biking the Camino or be a pilgrim at all. The municipal sites (donation-only accommodations that don’t permit reservations) aren’t found in every village on the coastal route in Portugal. The competition to find a place to stay on this route has become fierce with so many bikers, weekenders and beach tourists pushing the shoulder season up to the neck.
Frayed Nerves and Fretting
Our romantic and nostalgic recollection of 35 carefree, boho days on the Camino Frances are now historical archives ready for a museum shelf. We were totally defeated by technology after the Camino Portuguese. Kim’s nerves were as frayed as my favourite pair of jeans. I cringe to confess that it’s next to impossible to travel without a phone anymore because the Camino has shifted. Pilgrims are pre-booking their stays and reserving bunk beds so far in advance the spontaneity of it has evaporated.
Kim and I were well-accustomed to the Camino routine of starting with the stars at 6am. We liked to land in a town early and have a full afternoon of wandering and lazing ahead of us. Those who had pre-secured accommodations had the luxury of lingering in bed, enjoying second cups of coffee and stopping for extended boozy lunches and rejuvenating foot soaks in the riverbeds. On the flip side, Kim and I were hustling it, covering 25 to 30km by 2pm. We chugged lattes and wolfed back leftover crackers while on the move to get to our next destination so we could be the first to forage for a bunk in a hostel or albergue.
We left Ontario with just two pre and post-trip reservations in Porto and the Algarve. In between, we were unworried about finding somewhere to sleep on the Camino route. We never had an issue on the Camino Frances as there were always, always beds.
Regardless of carrying a phone or not, there are still logistics and timeframes to observe when a trip is on foot. We had to be in Santiago by October 1st as we had flights to Faro on October 2nd. Is there less stress in walking without a pre-booked flight? Probably. Especially when RyanAir cancels one leg of a connecting flight and you have no idea how you’re going to get to the Algarve or Valencia (the second, shorter flight was still operating) after walking the Camino. Of course we had a non-refundable prepaid villa and car rental waiting and no viable way to get to Faro.
Disconnected from Reality
If we had a phone with us, the solutions may have come faster. Instead, there was a lot of fretting over what should have been celebratory riverside port tastings in Vila Nova de Gaia. The usual “we’ve arrived” thrill was diminished by the uncertainty of, well, everything. For example, we’ve arrived but how would we leave?
Worst case, we knew we could rent a car from Santiago and drive 8+ hours to Faro but it would be a steep price tag as the mileage (of course) wouldn’t be unlimited and one-way rentals are never, ever reasonable. Before leaving home we were able to confirm that there were no flights to Faro from Santiago. Service had stopped on September 30th for the season or there were simply no seats left on carriers like EasyJet or Iberian Airlines. Even if we hoofed it faster and stacked our mileage on the Camino, leaving for the Algarve two days earlier didn’t help matters. I wasn’t game for a 12-hour milk run bus ride, this I knew for certain. Not to be a princes but I knew that much time on a weaving bus would have my stomach equally weaving and heaving.
Without a phone we found ourselves talking to dozens of people in our attempt to figure out the last chunk of what was supposed to be an all-around stress-free, relaxing trip. The only fleeting, minor relief was that we hadn’t decided to go to Tangier post-trip. How the hell would we get there if our flight was cancelled? A boat across the Strait of Gibraltar, eventually, I suppose. At least there were trains in and out of Santiago to Faro and though it would take almost as long as the bus with layovers and transfers, we snapped up the train tickets out of desperation, exhaling (slightly) that we had our post-Camino transport mostly sorted. We still had to get from the Faro train station to the airport to pick up our rental car and contact the rental agency to change our pick-up time so they didn’t discharge the rental. Somehow.
Kim and I figured things out, as we always have. Kindness came in the form of so many locals who were impressed but perplexed by our phone-free ways. There’s such irony. While the notion of travelling without a phone, tablet or laptop is freeing to some, it has become increasingly frustrating since the pandemic. The ArriveCAN app, passenger locator forms, QR codes for vaccinations, PCR test results—maps, menus–and Airbnb door codes, all require a phone. On this trip, we had to beg our Porto Airbnb host for the entry code to his property in advance.
“But I will text it the day of, no problem.”
“YES, problem. We will not have our phone with us.”
Recalibrating
I know, as I type this, it’s annoying, even to me. Why are we so resistant? Life could be so much easier, I know. I’m in my TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Whatsapp prime at 50. I’m not looking for sympathy or a trophy but my stubborn Virgo self is trying to hold strong to a life of my own design. One that doesn’t rely on a phone.
We found it so disheartening to see pilgrims walking with their phones in hand, listening to GPS directions ON the Camino. Yes, Kim and I would have loved to have that security blanket hand-hold as we found ourselves incredibly lost in Vigo. Going into the city and getting out. The city refuses to allow any traditional Camino markers like the scallop shell on the sidewalk or yellow arrows painted on walls but they have agreed to Camino stickers in storefront windows which are impossible to find at 6am.
Not to sound all uppity and purist, but this didn’t happen on the Camino Frances five years ago. No one was relying on their phone to navigate, it was all about gut instinct when waymarkers or arrows failed to appear. There were predictable U-turns and countless choppy conversations with locals tending to their cows or vineyards. They were chronically helpful with an exaggerated point and cheerleading grin in the right direction.
The Whims of the Way
Arriving in Santiago at this precise time last year, we nursed pints of beer and watched pilgrims filter in from the Portuguese route. We were hopeful that we’d see Bonnie from the UK or Sara from Germany or “Poncho” who we’d met on day one, struggling with her poncho in a wicked Atlantic wind tunnel. If we had a phone, we’d know exactly where they all were and could have arranged for beers together. Instead, relying on our Camino Frances memories of whimsy and serendipity, we knew we’d cross paths with those we were meant to. That is (was) the way.
Along the Camino Frances, we walked for 33 days in the company of a truly Great Dane named Gudrun but failed to see her on the very last monumental day in Santiago. There was no reason to exchange emails or phone numbers as we had seen each other every single day at some point. We missed seeing the five comical Brits we’d knocked back beers with on a few afternoons past Sarria. Same with the gals from South Africa we met in Foncebadón. And yet, the South Korean girls kept appearing, despite their lingering cafe con leche and croissant stops between bus rides.
This time in Santiago, a Danish woman waved to us as she approached our sidewalk table. We hadn’t talked to her until that day but her face was familiar from the trail. She pulled up a seat to watch the people parade by with us and couldn’t believe that we had walked the Portuguese route without a phone.
“But, how did you find where to stay?” She pulled out her phone, annoyed at her reliance on it and showed us her phone screen. “See this? I have 56 unread messages from my daughter’s elementary school already. This is just from being away for two weeks.”
While Kim has conceded to taking a phone with us after this harrowing experience, I remain in a disillusioned, disappointed state. I don’t want a QR menu. I want an old skool blackboard version with cocktails in chalk.
Lorraine, a woman we walked in stride with from the Yukon for several days poked fun at my old-timey ways, carrying a real camera. “Oh, and how cute! Pen and paper even!” I showed her the slim Camino Portuguese guide book we carried with us and her friend Peggy said, “you know, there’s an app for that.”
Sleeping Bagged
Despite lugging our compact (but still 2.2lb) sleeping bags in our packs, we only unstuffed them four times. The rest of our Camino Portuguese was spent in dated, bare-bones 80 euro-per-night hotels. One night we slept in a two-bedroom “bungalow” at a seaside RV park out of sheer desperation and in a 3-bedroom apartment in A Guarda on another. On the flip side, in Caldas de Reis and Padron, we lucked out by finding bunks in the very first hostels we stopped at.
In the end, walking the Camino de Santiago without a phone was a genuine working holiday. Kim and I were working every single day to find accommodations, coffee, BEER, patience, supermercados, arrows, waymarkers…
In a world that encourages everyone to disconnect, distill in nature and nurture mental health by turning off phone notifications and leaving cell phones out of the bedroom to reestablish healthier sleep patterns, it’s a nearly insurmountable challenge. But we did it.
And we caught that silly train to Faro and a bus to the airport and eventually found our way to our villa in Albufeira relying on a crude map with no street names, just three roundabouts and a squiggle drawn by a taxi driver eating prawns at the only bar open somewhere along the way.
I do wish I could phone him to say thank you.
This post originally appeared (with a few twists) on JourneyWoman. There’s an endless resource of stories, destinations and travel hacks for indie travelers about beekeeping, overtourism, Tanzania’s first Indigenous safari company owner and hiking in the Himalayas on this site. Kim and I are currently bouncing around Madagascar but I wanted to send you a postcard. Expect full-on crickets until we return on October 24th because we’re still not traveling with a phone. I know, didn’t we learn ANYTHING? Please share your thoughts, love + hate, for traveling off grid or not! Have you walked the Camino? Do tell!
This gave me all the feels. I completely Camino Frances this year and every day I think about putting the pack back on. I followed my Camino with hiking the Malerweg in Germany but, while beautiful, it just didn't carry the same punch. I believe the difference is the people you meet along the Way.
I was in Europe in 2007 and 2010 (no cellphone) and then again last year (with a cellphone). Getting around was so easy last year it felt like cheating. It made me kinda sad :(