#the camino I thought about other routes but tbh there's so much I want to do again on the SAME ROUTE lol or things I missed bc of time etc

[aprillikesthings]

OKay so what I came here to post about is that while ONE trip to another country is just going to that country, now that I've done TWO international trips everyone (including myself) sees me as A Person Who Travels and I keep getting asked where I'm going next

And on the one hand it's a weird question, because both previous trips were just--

Iceland: Icelandair advertised a huge discount on direct flights on my facebook wall and made a thirty-year dream suddenly seem possible

Spain: I saw like an article? somewhere? about the Camino, read one memoir, then suddenly had a new hyperfixation and I proceeded to read fifteen more (barely exaggerated y'all) and watched a bunch of youtube videos and then asked for the time off and started training

So in neither case was it like, "oh where do I want to travel," it was like "the need to go to this specific place is suddenly consuming my life"

But on the other hand, I mean, I'm kinda thinking England a year from now? But those plans are REALLY hazy past like, "lol the British Museum has an Ea Nasir tablet gotta get a selfie with it" and "I hear Durham cathedral is gorgeous" and "Norwich is a short train ride from London and then I can visit sites associated with Julian of Norwich!!--what do you MEAN there's a three-day pilgrimage route to Walsingham??? 👀" (what can I say I'm a sucker for pilgrimages now)

TBH I just want someone else to arrange one of those multi-day bus tours of churches/cathedrals in England but for LGBT+ Anglicans!! Someone get on this!! (Jay Hulme has other things to do or he'd be perfect for it. God knows some of the churches on my list are because of his photos.)

Anyway.

I have to keep reminding myself that Spain is a huge outlier in Europe for being so inexpensive on a daily basis, plus being a pilgrim means my daily costs were literally food/bed in a hostel/a few euro for church donation boxes.

And I get that Iceland is well-known to be on the opposite end of that scale, but it still boggles the mind to compare them (all approximate):

Iceland for eight days

Flight: $500 Guesthouse room: $700 A few bus day tours + Blue Lagoon + bus to and from airport: uhhhh I think like $400 added up? Daily expenses of food/museums/souvenirs for eight days: $50/day on average, so another $400?

Total: $2,000

Spain:

Flight (into Paris, out of Lisbon) + insurance: $800 Daily cost, including hostels, food, souvenirs, sightseeing: averaged about $50 a day for 42 days total, so about $2100 Add another $100 for train/bus tickets (...I think it was more than that)

Total: $3,000

NINE DAYS in Iceland versus FORTY TWO days in (mostly) Spain.

(Okay, this is admittedly ignoring the fact that 1. I had to buy things I didn't already own for my Camino, like a backpacking backpack and a summer weight sleeping bag and TWO pairs of pricey hiking boots; OR 2. that I absolutely spent like $1,000 on physical therapy while training for the trip.)

They are just such wildly different countries. Museums in Iceland were all (US) $15-25. The cathedral's museum in Santiago (where I spent at least as much time as any of the museums in Iceland) was normally €7 but I got a discount for being a pilgrim. I think I paid €4, which is like $4.30.

Anyway none of this is about whether or not England is expensive, but I do assume it's closer to the Iceland end of things.

Especially since it's one thing to stay in hostels the whole time when you're on pilgrimage and everyone else at the hostel is too and everyone is in bed by 10pm because you're all exhausted. (Also because that's when they all lock their doors. No, really.) It's another thing to stay in a hostel in like...London. But the alternatives escalate in cost rather rapidly, especially when you're traveling alone. Oof.

ANYWAY ALSO the fact that I can afford to travel AT ALL is like 90% due to my having cheap-ass rent, no car, no kids, no student loans, and all my healthcare issues being relatively inexpensive. I've worked the same meh-paying job long enough for my hourly wage to double and to have fuck-tons of PTO. I'm 43 and I live in a run-down townhouse with three other adults and most of my furniture is all ten-year-old Ikea and I don't eat at restaurants hardly ever.

Any one part of my life could change and I would never be able to afford to do this kind of shit again.

Which is why I'm doing it now.

#my life #at some point I do want to do both Iceland and the Camino again lol #but in Iceland hopefully w/ Daci and a campervan and doing the ring road #the camino I thought about other routes but tbh there's so much I want to do again on the SAME ROUTE lol or things I missed bc of time etc #but that's definitely several years away #Anyway also I need to do more local-ish trips ffs I haven't been to the Oregon coast in AGES and Daci hasn't seen Astoria yet #or Seattle!! #gotta fix that #if you're new here and want to see my posts etc about those trips the tags are: #april goes to iceland #april does the camino #(the iceland trip was two years ago this week!)