Five days on the Camino, three people met, very little phone use-and a quiet realisation that we might all be doing life a bit… loudly
I didn’t go on the Camino to find myself.
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I went because I was tired of drifting-and it felt like a better use of my time than another few days of half-paying attention to everything and fully committing to nothing.
So, I flew to Seville and started walking.
The Camino, for all the talk around it, is very simple.
You get up.
You walk.
You arrive.
You eat something.
You go to bed.
Then you do it again.
There’s no “what’s the plan?” because the plan is always the same-get to the next place.
It’s actually quite hard to overcomplicate it, which I’m sure disappoints some people.
This time I went on my own. March. Off-season.
I met three people in five days.
Three.
And honestly, that was plenty.
The route itself is quiet anyway, but in March it’s nearly suspiciously so. Long stretches where it’s just you, your thoughts, and the sound of your own footsteps wondering how they’ve ended up here.
Some people would hate that.
I loved it.
I decided before I started that I wasn’t going to use my phone unless I absolutely had to.
No Google Maps. No checking. No standing at corners refreshing my location as if the road might have moved.
Radical, I know.
Instead, I followed the yellow arrows. And when I wasn’t sure, I did something quite old-fashioned-I looked around, or I asked someone.
Usually with very broken Spanish and a level of confidence that wasn’t entirely deserved.
And do you know what? It all worked out.
Which is mildly inconvenient, because it suggests we might not need to check things as often as we do.
The walking itself is a mix of everything.
You leave Seville-a proper city-and pass Roman ruins just outside Santiponce, then industrial estates, then suddenly you’re in olive groves, then solar farms, then a national park where you don’t see a single person for hours.
At one point I climbed for nearly 2km straight. One of those climbs where you tell yourself it must be the top now, and it absolutely is not.
Character building, apparently.
There are also the unexpected additions.
A “short” day that quietly becomes an extra 7km. Always at the end. Always uphill.
At one stage I had almost no battery left and stopped into a tiny shop where two women, both well into their seventies, were sitting inside smoking.
My kind of place and people. Although I don’t smoke, I adore those that do.
I bought an ice pop and a Fanta Lemon- arguably the highlight of that day-and in exchange they charged my phone while I sat there for half an hour doing absolutely nothing.
No scrolling. No updates. Just sitting.
That evening, I stayed in what was essentially a petrol station because the reviews said it had “the best shower on the Camino.”
I took that seriously.
€35. Brand new. Spotless. After crossing two motorways and being beeped at by truck drivers who were, I assume, delighted to see me willingly walking alongside them, I arrived and felt like I’d won something.
And that’s the shift.
Your standards change entirely.
You’re not looking for “the best place.” You’re just delighted to have a place. A shower. A bed. A cold drink.
I met one Camino walker in the national park.
He opened by asking my star sign, which is always a strong indicator of how the next while is going to go.
Forty minutes later, I knew everything about him-his life, his journey, his thoughts, his feelings-none of which I had asked for.
And then I had a small but very useful realisation:
I didn’t have to stay.
So, I didn’t.
I walked on.
No dramatic exit. No overthinking. Just… kept going.
He saw me again later and was absolutely delighted, which says a lot about how little people actually register these things.
We think everything is a moment. It isn’t.
One of the best afternoons I had was in a small town celebrating jamón.
Packed bar. No English. Everyone looking at you because you’re clearly not from there.
Perfect.
I went in, ordered a drink in Spanish (confidently, if not accurately ), said “Hola chicas” to a group of women in their seventies, and just stood there.
No phone. No distraction.
Just watching.
Families eating together. People calling across the room. Long conversations that didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular.
Time being spent, not managed.
You think people are watching you. They are-for about ten seconds.
Then they go back to their own lives.
Which is a useful thing to remember.
There were moments of complete stillness too.
Towns with nothing open. Nothing happening. Nowhere to go.
Just you, a book, and whatever snacks you had the foresight to carry.
I read, I walked, I sat, I thought.
Not in a dramatic, life-altering way. Just… quietly.
It took me five days to walk to Monesterio.
The bus back to Seville took one hour and fifteen minutes. €6.
I sat there watching the route in reverse-places I’d struggled, places I’d stopped, places where I thought will I ever actually get there?
And now I was flying past them.
There’s probably a metaphor in that, but I’ll leave it alone.
The only thing I will say is this.
At no point did I feel the need to tell anyone what I was doing in real time.
No “just landed.”
No “on the way.”
No updates from a bar while half-paying attention to the people in it.
I just… did it.
And it was noticeably better for that.
On my last day, I had one final challenge.
Still not using my phone properly, I needed to figure out where the airport bus left from in Seville and what time it was.
So, I walked around. Looked at signs. Used a bit of logic. Eventually asked a man selling boat tour tickets.
Between his lack of English and my very ambitious Spanish, we somehow confirmed what I already suspected.
We both laughed.
He still tried to sell me a boat tour.
I declined.
I walked 130km.
Solved absolutely nothing.
And yet, things felt a lot clearer.
Make of that what you will.
Bon Camino.
