Hey pilgrims, welcome, or welcome back. As you can presumably tell from the title, this
is five things that I sincerely believe are worth their weight in gold on the Camino de
Santiago. If you don't know very much about the Camino de Santiago, you can click here.
This is my FAQ, slash basics, slash fundamentals of the Camino. This will be a useful starting
point if you don't quite know what I'm talking about yet. This advice is based on my first
Camino which I did two years ago, I walked from St-Jean to Santiago, and I'm gearing
up for my second Camino, it's T minus 40 days until I leave. Take everything I say here
with a grain of salt: this is what works for me. I'm not saying "this is what you need
to use!" This is just, you know, everyone has their own Camino, and that's what beautiful
about it. You live and let live, these are my things, you may find it useful, if not,
that's fine too! Off we go then. Numero uno... This one is obvious: ear plugs. Bring ear
plugs even if you don't think you're going to use them. They're cheap, you can throw
em away... It was referred to one night as the Superbowl of snoring... It can get pretty
ridiculous, so, it's good to have the option to block it out should the need arise. Also,
plane rides.. ear plugs... they go together really well. Numero dos... little keylight
thingy. This is useful if you figure that you're ever going to be wandering around the
dorm when everyone else is sleeping in the dark. This could be because you kinda go to
bed a little later than other people (although that isn't really much of an option), or if
you have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom; or, if you're one of
"those people" like I am that gets up early while other people are still sleeping. You
need to be respectful of the fact that other people are still sleeping... It sounds really
obvious, but to a lot of people it doesn't seem like it is. This is one step in the right
direction to do that. A lot of people have, like, head torches and flashlights. Those
are really good at findings arrows... they're also really good at pissing people off! This
allows you to see enough what you're doing without distracting and waking up everybody
around you. I usually... I have things like, packed when I go to bed at night, and when
I wake up in the morning, I take it out of the dorm, to like do all my stuff that I need
to do. But I have this like on a lanyard around my neck so that I can just make sure as I'm
picking my stuff up that I haven't left anything behind, cause the first night, I left my headlamp.
That's kind of embarrassing... there's a headlamp somewhere with my name on it in St-Jean Pied
de Port. These would not be very helpful in finding arrows, so bring this as a supplement
to your headlamp. A lot of people would never use something like this, but for me... I am
really not good in the heat, so when it's hot out, I tend to get up earlier so that
I don't have to walk in the worst of the heat of the day. Numero tres... An e-reader! I
can carry like 30,000 books on this, and it can be uncharged for like 40 hours of reading
or something ridiculous like that. I keep it in just a little like foam case... this
is a Kobo, incase you were wondering. I know a lot of people get Kindles... I dunno, I
have a Kobo. I dunno if it's a Canadian thing...? It's really light, and for me it's really
worth it especially considering the 14 hours it takes me to get from Canada to Spain. This
only costs about $100, so for me, I'm not worried about taking it with me because I'm
not worried about getting it stolen. So it's not like taking an iPad where you're kinda
worried about it the whole time, it's kinda in the back of your mind. But for me the negative
of the cost is the actual cost of the e-books. You would think they would be cheaper, but
I find they're not. I can get a physical copy of a book, for the most part, for about the
same price, so that's what I've been doing. But for this, I'm going to splurge cause I
WILL read them. Numero cuatro... Walking sandals. Now, the reason I think these are good is
cause most people take a second pair of shoes as well, usually they're flips flops or crocs...
nice to put them on your feet after having them in boots all day, cause the last thing
you wanna do is put those stinkin' boots back on once you've taken them off and showered.
For me, if you're bringing a second pair, you might as well bring something that could
be useful incase something goes a little wrong. I got a lot of blisters last time, and I bandaged
up my feet and stuff, and put my socks on, and it was kind of hard to fit my feet into
my boots without moving all that around. So I decided to try walking in my sandals, and
I ended up walking in them for about 250 km, until they snapped. They were Nikes, and they
had, like, just two straps across it... they were open-toe... This time I'm definitely
going to go with something with a capped toe so that I don't get rocks in it, and that's
what I'd recommend. And having the two straps, you know, there's two places where it can
break, and that makes it a lot more likely to break, I think, especially when you're
wearing it this much, this constantly. It's not for everyone, they are a lot more expensive
obviously than crocs and than flip flops, but for me, it's worth the peace of mind of
having that back-up. Numero cinco... (I have a really weird pinkie). Shampoo bars! Shampoo,
soap, laundry soap: you're good to go. I'm bringing two, because I have really long hair.
Last time, I used it on my hair and my body every single day and it lasted me until about
the last couple days of the Camino, then I went and bought some shampoo. It's pretty
light; it avoids liquid restrictions on planes, if you carry on your bag. Basically what you
do with it is you get it wet, and you either just rub it on your hair, or you can lather
it up in your hands and use that. It's from a store called LUSH. This is about $10-$11,
and these tins are from LUSH as well and this is how I store them. As you can see, this
one is made for it, but when it's wet and you put it in there, it's really hard to get
out, so I'd recommend getting this square tin (it's for a different product), cause
then you still have room to pry it out. What I do is I line this with like a little piece
of paper towel, and I just let it dry on there. If you put it straight in here like this,
it tends to get stuck to the bottom. This is obviously good for any type of travel,
not just the Camino. If you want anymore tips on how to use this, or how I store it... how
to choose one because there's, like, 10, let me know. And so with that, I guess I conclude
"episode two" of "Lindsey gives advice on the Camino... to people who could use... said
advice..?" I hope pilgrims are finding this video, a lot of people found my last video
just from searching stuff about the Camino, so I'm glad that this is reaching the people
that it's supposed to be reaching! Be sure to subscribe. If you want more Camino tips,
I'll be putting out more, so if you subscribe now, you'll get them. Let me know about your
upcoming Camino, or your past Camino. If you see me on the trail in May, say hello! That
would be really surreal for me... that would be really, really cool! This is when the serious
preparation starts, I'm 40 days away from leaving, and I'm getting pretty jazzed. Okay!
Well, um, ultreia, y... buen Camino a todos... y... I'll see ya later.