09/10/2025
👣❤️ If you’re considering walking the Camino next year, this might interest you👇🏼
My first Camino-related paid job! How much would I earn?
I didn’t know — and I was fine with that! 👣🤓
This photo shows Kelly’s group of seven, in a private apartment I booked for her family and friends on a Portuguese Camino stage this late summer.
They were full of joy, energy… and I was smiling from home, feeling like I was walking beside them.
How did they get there?
🔹After walking my long-dreamed, meticulously planned 779 km Camino, I kept missing it.
The spirit, the people, the rhythm of walking, even the sound of my backpack.
I wanted to stay connected to it somehow. That’s why I started this page, and never thought it would have more than a 100 followers (thank you!)
Then I also thought:
💡 Why not help others plan their own Camino?
Not as a travel agent, but as an assistant/friend — a Camino companion — someone who understands the fears, the excitement... Everyone has their own story, goals, insecurities, budget, and pace, right? I would simply help them figure out their Camino — their way.
🔸Of course, most people don’t need assistance — but some do. And some end up paying a fortune to agencies or giving up their dream because planning feels overwhelming.
🔹 To test my idea, I invited five volunteers to be helped for the 2024 season — three Americans, one Canadian, one Australian showed up — ages 40 to 70. I didn’t charge them a cent; I just wanted to see if I could deliver.
They trusted me, and it worked beautifully.
We shared the planning, the worries, the laughter.
Some became real friends — one of them I’m even helping now on a trip to Japan!
🔸 When it came to pricing, I decided something simple to the future “clients”:
💰 No price tag! (just like a donativo)
Each pilgrim decides how much my help is worth — AFTER the Camino, if they feel it made a difference.
It’s a matter of trust, heart, and gratitude.
🔹 Due to other commitments, I wasn’t planning to take anyone for 2025, but one day Kelly asked in a Facebook group if someone could help her organize a Camino for 7 Americans — part biking, part walking — without using a travel agency.
And then Maria, one of my first volunteers, saw her post and said:
👉 “Talk to Daniel.”
And just like that, a new journey began.
It was a perfect match, and it led to that beautiful photo in Redondela.
👣 ❤️ If you feel I might help you with your planning, schedule, reservations, preparation, training, anything… let’s talk 🙂
I would love to work for 4 or 5 pilgrims for the 2026 season. No more than that. Could one of them be you?
This will ALWAYS be a small, personal project.
I don’t want as many “clients” as possible.
And if you think this could help someone you know, it would mean a lot if you could share this post. 🙏
The Camino never ends… it just finds new ways to keep us walking.
Buen Camino!
Daniel Castro ❤️👣
