Customer Reviews

Walking the Camino de Santiago

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This 2006 new edition of Walking the Camino de Santiago is now 7 ounces and 182 pages easy to read, fact filled guide with sketch maps, elevation profiles, and something about the history, and the flora and fauna of the trail. It covers the trail from St. Jean-Pied-de-Port near the French border to Santiago de Compostela and on to Finisterre.

Walking the Camino de Santiago is a route oriented guide. It does have information on where to stay, but most of the text is still on what happens in between places to stay. You get a flavor of recent and ancient history as well as current conditions.

The original sketch maps have been augmented with more comments, symbols showing vegetation, revised symbols - overall easier to look at. The accomodation list has been updated, so for the moment is reliable. Refugios appear and disappear, so in 2007 and beyond you will still need to supplement this with more current information, either from the internet or the current Confraternity of St. James guide below.

When walking the Camino, the mandatory guide for English speakers is the Confraternity of St. James Pilgrim Guides to Spain I. The Camino Frances. This is a barebones 76 page guide focused on pilgrim food and shelter - how far is it, how many beds available, what does it cost. A very brief guide is the Camino chapter out of the Lonely Planet's Walking guide to Spain - about 35 pages.

I definitely recommend Walking the Camino de Santiago for anyone starting at St. Jean or in Spain. I still say that getting the current confraternity guide is mandatory, because it gives you a great level of comfort about how far, what to expect, and cost of the next place with food and/or shelter.

If a pilgrim starts in Le Puy en Velay, then Alison Raju's the Way of St. James: Le Puy to the Pyrenees would have to be used until you reach St. Jean. It is a more terse, difficult to read guide than the Davies and Cole guide.

We had a difficult time finding information on the Camino before doing it in 2001. Now there is a lot of info on the web - just check the online forums of gocamino or santiagobis or google for camino santiago, or even backpack45 and you will get a wealth of information.

When it comes to what guides to carry, my recommendations have not changed. Always carry the Confraternity guide and either this guide (Davies and Cole) or the John Brierley guide. For before the trip reading, the large Gitlitz and Davidson's The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago gives you more than you may want to read on the history of the route. Also read some of the personal experience books such as Susan Alcorn's Camino Chronicle: Walking to Santiago, or Joyce Rupp's Walk in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons from the Camino.

Excellent guide for the English-speaker walking the Spanish Camino. Davies and Cole balance wealth of information with the obvious weight restrictions to come up with a book which was helpful, interesting, and often very funny. The remarks about the towns and the available Auberges were so helpful that pilgrims of other nationalities walking the camino at the same time as I would often make a point of asking me what my book said about what they could expect in the day ahead.

I also appreciated the advice on the special things to do and see. The Best of the Camino list was right on target and we were very pleased on the occasions when we took this "best of" advice.

As the book was written in 2003 and a great deal was changed on the Camino for the Jamesian Year in 2004, I recommend annotating your copy with updates which can be found at the publisher web site.

I rode the Camino de Santiago in September of 2003, and while this book is, obviously, for people interested in walking the Camino, it is equally useful for people who ride bicycles. All the information I used was accurate and helpful. Riding on a bike, I took two books (the other being the Confraternity book mentioned below), but if I was limited to one, this would be it. The directions are clear, the maps are accurate, and the brief section on flora and fauna a nice addition. Buy this book and go. Buen Camino!

This travel or walking guide to the "Camino de Santiago" represents the best of small publishers or self publishing. The author and her husband researched the area by walking the Camino several-times - developing good and valid information.

Bethan did a good job on a "shoe string" {probably a broken shoe string} budget. As a small business owner I am impressed with Bethan's ability to develop a small business {in a foriegn country} and than to produce a good product/Book.

As a treker and walker I also appreciate the small size and light weight of the book.

I have just returned from walking the Camino from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Finisterre, and I used this book as my travelguide. I know that only one star is a tough judgment, but this book has too many inaccurate kilometers, and too many failures about which cities who has/has not alberques (the places where you can overnight as a pilgrim). When you walk the Camino, you certainly need to have a very accurate guide with you, and therefore I can not recommend this out-dated one.

My wife Julie and I used this guide when we walked the Camino de Santiago in 2007. For North American English speaking readers this is probably the best overview guide to use.

Though the guidebook might be a bit outdated, it is easy to read, and it has great information about places to stay.

If you a new to the Camino this is the first guide to consider. If you are an old pro, then I would consider purchasing their maps only guides and using these instead

Although this guide is written for walkers, we also found it an excellent guide for cycling. The authors' evident enthusiasm for flora and fauna adds an enjoyable aspect to the excellent cultural descriptions and practical details. I would also recommend the slim book of maps "Camino de Santiago" by John Briarly for cyclists (and perhaps walkers as well).

This book and duct tape is all you need for a successful pilgrimage on El Camino de Santiago! I bought and studied many books before I left for Espana, but this is the one that stayed with me. (Others were dumped en route - poor utility-to-weight ratings.) This informative book however, was referred to frequently. I bonded with several other pelegrinas because we were carrying the same book. My secret to success? Before I left home, I carefully cut out all the pages that I didn't need. I removed the first half of the book because I started walking in Leon. Then I taped the rest of the book together with duct tape. OK, so I actually used clear packing tape ( a little lighter in weight and I could still enjoy the graphics on the front cover).

I recommend this cleverly written and organized book - and don't forget the duct tape!

Collaboratively researched and written by Bethan Davies and Ben Cole, Walking The Camino De Santiago presents an ancient pilgrimage route across northern Spain that was once used by Celts and Christians, and is now available to contemporary travelers wishing to share and partake in this historic route. Extensive directions, detailed sketch maps, medieval history, tips on identifying local flora and fauna, information concerning pilgrim hostels, and much, much more pack the pages of this detailed "must-have" travel guide for anyone seeking to embark on the Camino De Santiago pilgrimage. Also very highly recommended is the newly revised and expanded second edition of Bethan Davies and Ben Cole's Walking In Portugal (0952266814).

I had read elsewhere that the only thing to recommend this book was the fact that it was light. I have to agree. I would have been upset carrying any more weight especially as the info was often wrong. If one is able to read any other language there are much better books in almost every other language.I would suggest that the hiking section on Spain in the "Lonely Planet" is all one actually needs. As an aside, the comments on the local birds would not pass any children's needs. Example- they comment that we are now obviously nearing the coast as we now start seeing seagulls.The graphs for distance and elevation are not nearly as accurate or as detailed as those available for free at many of the hostels. The info is often so poor that I have serious doubt that the authors walked yhe Camino before writing the book. they definately did not spend many nights staying in any of the refugios.