Taking children 15 and 11 on the camino

[douglasbank]

I need to find the best route for children of this age. I would like to find a route that was not has steep as some are if thats possible. any help on this would be great I just want them to do the 110 km to get the cirtificate at the end.
thanks

[HuskyNerd]

Hi Douglas ~
Definitely you would not want to do the Via de la Plata, since the route (in order to get the mileage necessary) takes you on the extraordinarily steep climb from Ourense to Cee. The route from Sarria to Santiago on the Camino Frances has some undulations, but I do not find steepness to be an issue in this stretch. The 114 km distance allows you to get the compostela, which is why many people begin their caminos in Sarria.

On this Forum we always caution parents about taking their young children. The most important issue is that a pilgrimage requires a high level of commitment to put up with the grinding ordeal of daily walking. Not too many kids have the endurance necessary to put up with an ordeal like this, and who could blame them for preferring instead to kick a football around a field? In three lengthy caminos I have seen very few children -- perhaps 4 or 5 total -- walking with their parents. It's not uncommon to see Spanish schoolchildren of 15+ years old walking with their classmates for the last stretch. But I'd have an honest conversation with my kids before committing to this if I were you.

[joe]

As Sandy said, you need to be absolutely sure that they'll be committed. Saying this, I saw a Korean mother with her two daughters who seemed to be around the ages of your children, and they were very pleasant... they walked from Leon as well. So it is possible... if you're Korean at least

[grayland]

I don't think that you will have any problems with children of that age. They can easily do the Sarria to Santiago stages. It is only about 5 days....so hardly time for problems to develop.
I have seen many children in these ages on the Camino much further back and they were handling it very well. I would not worry about it.
Just go for it. It will be an adventure they will not forget...and they may return someday to finish from St. Jean.

[Covey]

Having recently returned from the Camino Portuguese, we had a father and son from Sweden traveling in our "group" from Porto to Santiago. The father Thomas was an author and his son Hugo was around 14. The interesting bit was that it was Hugo who was pushing his father to up the distance walked each day!!

Walking with kids is potentially difficult as their motivation might be different than that of the parent, but if they want to do it, then go for it and enjoy the experience.

Sarria to Santiago is the basic 100kms or Porto to Santiago if you feel a longer camino(250kms) might be OK.