Camino

When I was 15 I did this thing in Spain called the Camino de Santiago one summer. For those who don’t know it is basically a hike from France to the western edge of Spain. I loved it over there and really wanted to do it again, but this time I wanted to see the rest of Europe as well. I have saved enough money to do so and I am wondering if I should take a year off before I go to college or not. I was thinking that a few days after graduation I would go and do the camino and then just travel around Europe for a bit. Problem is I only think this will be about six months so I don’t know if I should do it or not because when I come back I will basically just be working a job to pay for bills and rent and don’t want to run into that problem a lot of my friends ran into when they took a year off because they were basically too addicted to making money and just kept putting off college. Suggestions?

From the way you word your question I’m assuming you’re from the US, and not from a country in the European Union. If this is the case, you need to be aware that you can only stay in the Schengen Zone (that’s Western Europe and many of the other countries) for a period of 90 days out of every 180 days. So you can’t be in Europe for 6 months, let alone a year. It can be done if you’re able to juggle your time and spend some time in non-Schengen countries, and then to back to the Schengen Zone.

There’s also the question of how you will live while in Europe. Will you have enough money for travel, accommodation, food etc while you are there, because you will not be allowed to work.

Glad to hear you’ve walked the Camino pilgrimage route and want to do it again. You don’t say how long it took you last time, but if you’re really keen to to again why don’t you take 6 weeks to walk from the French border to Santiago de Compostela, and then spend a further 6 weeks wandering around Spain, France, and maybe one or two other countries.