It’s the number one question you get when you’re hiking the Camino. Why are you hiking? What is your motivation? Everyone seems to have a story. They just broke up with their significant other. They’ve been diagnosed with a terminal illness. They are trying to lose weight or just quit their jobs. They are trying to find God or restore their faith. These are all people that we actually met on the Camino. But my family didn’t have a grand reason to hike the Way of St James. Nothing dramatic or life changing was happening and we aren’t particularly religious. Initially our motivation was unclear and when ever we we’re asked this question we responded with jokes other meaningless answers.

Our initial exposure and desire to walk the Camino came from a movie. If you know anything about the Camino you know the movie – The Way. It’s the Eat, Pray, Love of the Camino. Its about a father whose son dies on the Camino so he decides to walk it in his memory. Everyone on the Camino knows it, everyone takes photos at the important scenes or spread rumours about local people who appeared as extras. Well that is where it all started, my family sat around a tv. That is where we made the decision to walk across Spain. That was over 5 years ago. 

Might seem a little strange to base a month long hike on an hour and a half movie, but its not entirely out of the ordinary for us. My family travels a lot and as every one who as ever travel as a family there is a certain amount of skill required to resisted the urge of ripping each others heads off mid-flight. Well my family has mastered that skill. My family travels together like its our day job. Everyone knows there role, everyone knows when to leave each other alone or when to bring coffee. Although the inevitable middle seat on the plane still causes us issues. A month long hike seemed like the ultimate adventure, the ultimate challenge to our travel skills developed over the years. 

But did we really hike the Camino because a Hollywood movie told us to? Or as a final test of our travel skills? I don’t think so? I think these are the things that inspired us, but not the actual motivation behind the hike. My parents say we did the Camino because its our last chance to travel as a family before we’re too old or start bringing boyfriends along. But I don’t buy that. My family will always travel together, we’re too good at it to stop. No, I think we hiked the Camino because our priorities are in order. While most people hike it to discover or change their prioritizes, we hiked it as a celebration of the fact that we all had the same priority. Family.