Someday (in November)

By Mike Luers — Ten November Caminos across fourteen years

The honest answer is that it started as a scheduling accident. What it became was the best decision we never actually made.

In 2011, three of us decided we were going to walk part of the Camino Francés as my 50th birthday celebration. By the time we got organized: flights, hotels, the research, vacation days — my birthday is in late September - the earliest we could realistically go was November. We booked it without much thought about the season.

We have walked in October and November every year since. Ten trips on five routes over fourteen years. And we have never once considered walking at any other time.

Here is the fact that surprises people most when I tell them about November on the Camino Francés.

The Camino Francés carries tens of thousands of pilgrims a month in peak season. In November, walking fast with day packs, we would sometimes go the entire day — six, seven, eight hours on the trail — and see perhaps two to five other pilgrims. Total. For the whole day.

"An ancient road built for thousands, and for hours at a time it belongs entirely to you."

That is not an exaggeration, and it is not an isolated experience. The Camino in November is not a quieter version of the summer Camino. It is a fundamentally different experience — solitary, atmospheric, and in many ways closer to what the original pilgrims encountered than anything the summer months can offer.

The weather nobody warns you about

When people hear November in northern Spain' they imagine the worst. What they get, most days, is something far better than they expected — and occasionally something genuinely extraordinary.

The meseta in November is cool, clear, and walkable. Not the brutal summer heat that makes the central plateau a test of endurance. The Cruz de Ferro in snow is not the same place as the Cruz de Ferro in August sunshine. The fog at O Cebreiro in November is ancient and atmospheric and the kind of thing you remember for the rest of your life.

Snow flurries on the climb to the Cruz de Ferro was not an inconvenience. It was the Cruz de Ferro as it was meant to be experienced — a high mountain pass in winter conditions, a place that demands something of you before you arrive. Leaving your stone at the base of the cross in the snow, in silence, with three other people — that is the full experience.

The evening community

Here is the paradox of the November Camino: it is the most solitary way to walk the route and simultaneously one of the most intimate community experiences you will have as an adult.

You spend the day alone, or close to it. You walk fast, you find your rhythm, you have hours of uninterrupted quiet. And then late afternoon, you arrive in a small town — the same small town that the other twenty pilgrims are all heading to, because there is nowhere else to stop and the bar owner knew you were all coming.

You have spent the day in your own silence. They have spent the day in theirs. You compare notes. You eat the pilgrim menu — three courses, ten euros, the same in every town and somehow always exactly right. And then you go to sleep and do it again tomorrow.

Twenty people who barely know each other, bound by a shared day on a shared road, meeting most evenings in a room that smells of woodsmoke and red wine. The locals playing cards (loudly) or watching a small TV in the corner of the ceiling and walls. That is the November Camino's community. Smaller and quieter than the summer version — and in our experience it runs considerably deeper.

The symmetry that makes it happen

People talk about the Camino for years before they walk it. They mean to go. They will go. Someday. The problem with someday is that it has no date.

Every November had a date. Same month, same commitment, same friends. We didn't have to re-decide each year whether we were going — we just had to book the flights. The annual rhythm turned a single trip into a five-year journey.

"Someday has no date. Every November does."

If you have been thinking about the Camino — if you have watched The Way and felt something, if you have been carrying the idea around for longer than you want to admit — November is worth serious consideration. Pick a year. Book the flights. The symmetry will take care of the rest.

Note: The Camino is equally rewarding in every season. This piece reflects our personal experience and preference — not a suggestion that other seasons are lesser. If your window is spring, summer, or autumn, walk then. The Camino will do its work regardless.