Walking the Camino Frances Backwards

[Oak Hill Walkers]

My wife has a notion of walking the Camino Frances backwards, starting in Santiago and finishing up in SJdP. Has anyone heard of or seen anyone doing this? Of course, we would not be able to get our compostela in Santiago, but would the proprietors at the refugios smell a rat and refuse to stamp our credencials?

You see, she's looking at taking a cruise from Galveston, Texas to Barcelona (departs 1 May, 2011 and arrives 15 May, 2010) and then we could take that nice train connection from SJdP to Paris for our return flight home to the USA. She also reasons that arriving in SJdP in late June of early July would mean that we would not have to face cold weather conditions in SJdP if we start in mid May.

What about the notion of doing this pilgrimage in reverse?

[Sil]

My wife has a notion of walking the Camino Frances backwards, starting in Santiago and finishing up in SJdP. Has anyone heard of or seen anyone doing this? Of course, we would not be able to get our compostela in Santiago, but would the proprietors at the refugios smell a rat and refuse to stamp our credencials?

Sue Kenny from Canada has just done that - walked from Santiago to St Jean. You could contact her at kenneysue (at) gmail . com for info.

If you have done the camino before you could use the same credencial - just add a few pages for new stamps.

[ajahnchah]

No you would get your credentials stamped - I met someone who was doing this - no problem - or at least shouldn't be - the abundance of yellow arrows should be easy enough to navigate...but for anyone thinking of walking from Muxia back to Santiago - please think twice!
I would encourage anyone to visit Muxia - it was the best place on the whole camino - such peace and tranquility - so nice!!! BUT the following day my exit to Olveria - on route to Santiago was anything but nice - the lack of signs was very very very stressful - where there were markers (all for Santiago to Muxia) they seemed placed at junctions - sometimes of 3 roads so you had no idea which of the 3 roads to go down - even walking sometimes a km down the roads you wouldnt find a sign ... I asked where there were people - I always found the Spanish very nice and helpful - but sometimes/often there is no-one and occasionally I was given one direction by someone , only for this to be refuted by (a very kind ) man calling from his house 1/2 a km into the route ...some periods of being very lost and as I was the only one doing it, I did get very stressed .......perhaps others were still lost .....

[bj the shrimp]

How did you go walking it backwards? We are hoping to do the same from Pamplona to SJdP and wondered about how clear the marking would be

[grayland]

I met many people doing the Camino from Santiago to SJPP. They were a great source of infomation of what was ahead of us and great for sending info and messages to friends behind us. Not as unusual as one would think.

[Covey]

Just follow the BLUE arrows!!

[Gerrym]

When I saw the title of this thread, I thought, wow a difficult pilgrimage walking backwards

[zzotte]

I think would get old very fast you know with other pilgrims telling you "You are going the wrong way, Santiago is that way" LOL

[Covey]

A couple of years ago I met a Swiss couple who had walked to Santiago from Switzerland, and were walking back to Switzerland. The albergues are quite happy to take in Pilgrims walking "backwards"

[bj the shrimp]

I think would get old very fast you know with other pilgrims telling you "You are going the wrong way, Santiago is that way" LOL

. you could have something there!

[Oak Hill Walkers]

We've abandoned the idea of walking the route in reverse.

Now mulling over to do it in sections or to skip around and do the 'highlights'.