03 – What to take?

What to take to the Camino is always a good question that will be determined by personal lifestyle and also by weather and gear that you have.

I strongly recommend you have the most technical and ultralight gear, but of course they are expensive. The more you get lightweight material the more expensive it gets.

In this Camino i had the probability of light rain. So i choose not to take heavy waterproof clothes. I only took a kind of “poncho” with 2000mm of water column resistance. Not much but it would do for light and occasional rain.

The rest is presented in the photo.

02 – Travel planning

Camino Inglés/ English Way – Santiago de Compostela – Map Overview from Ricardo Dias on Vimeo.

Going from Porto to Ferrol

I had to travel from Porto (Portugal) to Ferrol (Spain) that is one of the starting points of Camino Inglés (in spanish). The other one is A Coruña but you will do less kilometers (around 75km vs the 120km of Ferrol).

There are 3 major options to arrive Ferrol from Porto: BUS, train or by car. So, which one should i choose? Let’s analyse it in the cost/ benefict perspective.

Car

I’ll use the ViaMichelin website to analyse the costs of going from Porto to Ferrol and i’ll compare it with BlaBlaCar prices.

BlaBlaCar didn’t have any travel available for the day i wanted to go to Ferrol. Of course, i hadn’t the opportunity to find a travel to Ferrol. I was searching for a travel going from Porto to A Coruña. I had one travel one day before for around €20/ person. So, in my case it would be around €40 (two persons) + the travel between A Coruña and Ferrol. This travel is around €8,25/ person in Arriva. In this case, the sum of the travel between Porto and Ferrol (without any certainties of dates) would be €40 + €16,5 = €56,5

Using ViaMichelin the travel between Porto and Ferrol would be 318km and would have the total cost of €52,10 with diesel at €1,15/ liter. Of course, that also would arise the problem of parking the car in Ferrol for one week. Not a good option for us.

Train (CP and RENFE)

The experience of previous years (the last 2 years i did the portuguese way to Santiago on bike) i knew the train is the best way to transport the bicycles but also the more expensive. So, i didn’t care comparing the prices. They would be greater. But let’s see.
Going from Porto, you only have the Celta train (€14,75/ person) and you have to go from Vigo Guixar to Santiago de Compostela (€9,25/ person) and from Santiago de Compostela to Ferrol (€14,55/ person). So, for two persons the total price would be €77,1 and you needed 2 stops!

Bus

Porto – Santiago – Ferrol

The BUS option is the best one but you don’t have many schedules. You only have 2 options for Porto-Santiago de Compostela directly: ALSA and EUROLINES. The price is €34/ person. And i still needed to go from Santiago de Compostela to Ferrol via BUS (http://www.monbus.es/es). The price is €10,35/ person. So, the travel for 2 persons would cost €88,7. Grrr! Too expensive.

Porto – A Coruña – Ferrol

Price from Porto to A Coruña is €40/ person. Going to Ferrol in Arriva (http://www.arriva.gal/#home) is €8,25. For 2 persons the total price would be €96,5. Worst option!

Porto – Vigo – Ferrol

Going from Porto to Vigo in Autna or Eurolines or Alsa is €12. Going from Vigo to Ferrol in Castromil bus (www.monbus.es/es) is €18,35. So, for 2 persons the total price is €60,7. The cheapest option available and i would arrive earlier than previous options! Great! The cheapest option would be going by car, but i would need to park it one week in Ferrol and adding the price of bus or train from Santiago to Ferrol to pick it up and the returning price would be higher. Not an option!

The difference between the higher option available and the cheapest one is €18/ person. It is huge, considering the distance.

Castromil bus that took us from Vigo to Ferrol. Great service and great price!

Returning from Santiago to Porto

Like the previous options, the best one is going from Santiago to Vigo in Castromil buses (€8/ person) and in Autna for €12/ person. For 2 persons is €40 total.

If you consider doing directly in Alsa you will spend €34/ person, which means €68 for 2 persons. €28 difference in the same travel!!!

So, if you choose the cheapest option (the schedules are better too!) you save €32/ person only in transportation!