The first teacher on the Camino is not a person. It is the pack.
Everything you carry, you carry up every hill. There is no porter, no trunk, no “I’ll deal with it later.” By the third day, every pilgrim has the same quiet reckoning with their bag: the extra book, the just-in-case jacket, the third pair of trousers — each one suddenly, obviously, too heavy. The road has a way of editing your choices.
Veteran pilgrims will tell you the number: somewhere around eight kilos, not counting water. But the number is not the point. The point is the practice of choosing. Lay everything out on the bed. Pick it all up, piece by piece, and ask of each thing the only question that matters: will I carry this up a mountain? What survives that question is what you need. Almost everything else is fear, disguised as preparation.
There is a reason this feels spiritual and not merely practical. The pack is the one part of the Camino you assemble before you go, and it becomes a small, honest portrait of your attachments. Walking light is not about deprivation. It is about discovering how little you need to be fully equipped — and wondering, on the long climbs, what else in your life might be that light if you let it.
A PRACTICE FOR THE PACKING
Lay out everything you plan to carry. Now remove three things. Sit with the lightness. That feeling is the beginning of the Camino.