The harness and waist straps are comfortable even after walking all day, and the extra capacity makes packing up each morning quick and easy. Snacks live in the top lid, so I can easily grab them without having to open up the main bag. The larger pocket on the back is a good place to stow my long-sleeved top when the day warms up, or my wet poncho when the rain stops. There’s a separate section for my hydration bladder, or the side pockets are both big enough to fit a good-sized water bottle. The Osprey Talon 44 is a mid-sized, top-loading pack with a 44-litre capacity. What I Ended Up WithĮventually I bit the bullet and bought a quality hiking pack specifically for long walks. It looks like they don’t sell it any more, and for that, we can all be grateful. It was terrible, with uncomfortable straps, no padding, and a distinctly sweaty odour after three weeks of walking in hot conditions. It never became a major problem, but by the end of the walk I started stuffing a shirt between the bag and my back as a cushion.įor the Camino Portuguese, I bought a cheap pack from Decathlon, the Forclaz 40 Air. It could also have done with being a little longer, as the base of the bag sometimes rubbed against the bottom of my back. Fitting everything into 30 litres was a tight squeeze, which meant packing in the morning took longer than it should. It was slightly too small, though, in a couple of ways. Somewhat water resistant, with adjustable waist and shoulder straps, it held up to the task well enough. Since I didn’t want to buy another backpack just for one hike, I used the 30-litre daypack I already had. When I set out to walk the Camino Frances, I was traveling full-time, with nowhere to easily store excess gear long-term. It’s easy to spend endless hours researching the best Camino backpack, only to come away more confused than you started. This post is broken it up into several sections, so if you’re only interested in a particular part, you can skip straight to it. Walking other routes or at another time of year may have required different gear, especially in winter. Note that this was what I carried on the Camino Frances, Portuguese, Primitivo, and Finisterre routes, between late August and mid-October. These paths are part of a vast network of medieval pilgrim routes across Europe collectively known as the Camino de Santiago. This packing list details what I took with me, what changed from one route to the next, and how well it all worked during over a thousand miles of walking towards that great cathedral in northwest Spain. Three years after that, I spent two weeks hiking up and down the mountains of Asturias and Galicia enroute to Santiago once more. In a little over a month I’d walked right across the top of Spain, starting in a small French border town at the base of the Pyrenees and finishing in the shallows of the Atlantic ocean.Ī year later, I strapped on my backpack again, spending nearly three weeks walking from Porto in northern Portugal to Santiago, and then a loop to Finisterre, Muxia, and back. One fine October day on a beach in Galicia, I completed the most challenging and satisfying experience of my life. The full privacy & disclosure policy is here. Articles on this site contain affiliate links, meaning I may be compensated if you buy a product or service after clicking them.
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