I bought my plane ticket today! For the first week of June. So this is happening.
Although La Coruña had tricked me into thinking it was spring and now has decided to play winter for a few more weeks, somehow it is now mid-March. Upcoming weekends have been penciled in with hikes, adventures, my dad’s visit, and then suddenly it’ll be the beginning of June. And after a week of hitchhiking and seeking out mountains across the north of Spain, I’ll be flying out of Barcelona.
So in the meantime, I’m going about, in what seems like a bit of hopelessness, trying to find accommodations along the paths that will let me camp out for free. Right now I’m researching the Southwest Coast Path, which will take me about a month to walk. I read that most landowners along the path will let you wild camp if you ask politely and leave early in the morning. That’s all fine and good, but I’ll still need a few places along the way to take a shower, wash some clothes, and use some wifi.
The first email reply I received back apologized that they wouldn’t be able to help me, because they receive many requests from other charity walkers requesting free accommodation. Well of course, there must be tons of other people walking for charity. And we all have the same idea of asking for a free place to stay. Suddenly, the whole idea seemed a bit naive and I felt silly for spending all that time collecting names and addresses.
Then I got a second email from YHA Minehead, which read that I might indeed be able to camp for free, and my hope in humanity was again restored. After all, I told myself that even if I found only a few places allowing me to camp for free, that those dollars/pounds/euros really add up.
Here’s hoping for more friendly strangers!
Cheers
Marisa
Marisa Walks Across 