Travelling is painful

“What the heck are you talking about Heather?”, you say. “How can travelling be painful?”

Well..I am very glad you asked.

Travelling first class is not painful. Checking your bags is not painful. Paying $5000.00 for a direct flight is not painful. Travelling with your family or a companion is not painful.

TRAVELLING ALONE IS PAINFUL!

• No one ever tells you how hard it is to travel alone with all your possessions in one bag
• No one tells you how hard it will be to lug an 18 lb/8 kilo back pack through seven airports
• No one tells you that learning the language of the country you are travelling to is way more important than physical training prep
• No one tells you how many times you will have to put on and take off your back pack in a 36 hour period before you even hit the trail
• No one tells you that your back pack may get lost in transit if you do not keep it with you
• No one tells you that it is not safe to sleep while you are waiting for a flight – your bag has to be watched at all times
• And finally…No one tells you how hard it is to go to the wash room in an airport with a back pack in tow (can you think of any more?)

Ok…so you get it the drift now don’t you? I will tell you that I cried more tears getting to and from my destination than while I was on the actual Camino. The travelling 3 days through various airports getting there and the two days getting home, almost killed me.

Back packs actually BITE! and here is the proof.

This is what taking on and off my pack did to my hands. The strap kept scraping me.

This is what taking on and off my back pack did to my upper arms on the first few days travelling through the airports. I actually had one of the people I walked the Camino with express that they were worried that if someone saw my arms they would think that I had been beaten up. It looked like that for weeks. The problem was, it was too hot to cover up and my short sleeves were really short. Oh well, another funny Camino adventure story.

Here is a video on how to take your pack on and off                                                  What are some thing that you learned along the way?