MY PACKING LIST

So you want to join the legions of the Camino de Santiago addicts?  Here is what I have to say about the material needs, that is the stuff of your burden that you must carry day in and day out on your back.  Unless you walk with a lama or a donkey or a mule or a horse or a camel, or if you are a one to bike.
First, consider your weight.  The packed backpack's base weight should never ever exceed 10% of your body weight.  Then you add several pounds of water, and some grub, and you will curse your fate.  And in most probability, you will continue walking.  With your backpack.
Second, put out all the things you are going to carry out on your bed.  Take a kitchen scale, and weigh every item.  To me, metric scale is better - I can scale down grams, not ounces! Yoohoo!
Calculate the total.   Try to decide against certain items.  File off a handle of your toothbrush, do anything to rid yourself even of tiny tiny things.  Because right now you think your backpack weighs nothing at all.  But after a couple of days on the Camino, you will want to kill your backpack.  Slaughter it and feed it to hungry dogs.  Or hogs.
There are people, who travel with unusual animals to help them carry the load.  Then there are people, who carry unusual items.   Like a hairdryer.  Or a paella pan.  Or a set of chef's knives (that would be a chef, right?).
And there are people, who travel with a bottle of water, a pilgrim's staff, and a credit/ATM card.  People, who send their underwear and socks in small packages to themselves to cities along the Camino, and never wash their socks nor underwear, just dispose of them.
This is a guaranteed thing: you will meet plenty of characters along The Camino.  And the more, the better.

Your backpack must be chosen for its weight and carrying comfort. Smaller does not necessarily mean easier to carry.  I carry my Osprey 50-liter pack, even though 44 liters would be enough.  Ghadi carries a 42-liter one, and she is super happy with it.  Tiana and Kim have Deuter packs of around 44 liters, and those are great for them.  I tried all of them, and the one I have is the one that is most comfortable for me.
Right now, I  am packed and ready to go on the Via de la Plata.  My pack weighs (backpack, and all the things in it, with a filled 3-liter Camelback bladder in it) 23.8lbs.  That is 17.2 lbs without the water.  Too much, of course.  I will work on it.  I still have time.  Except this time I will not have my companions, into whose backpacks I may secretly put some of my things.  I am going to walk alone again, like in 2003 (I walked Camino Frances in 2006, and Camino de la Costa / Camino del Norte in 2009 in teh company of my daughters).

So, here is my list:
EARPLUGS!
Passport pouch with: passport, credit and ATM cards, credencial de peregrino (remember to write your passport number in your credencial, then most of the time you do not have to show your passport to anyone)
Camelback, plus a spare tip
spare bootlaces
Glasses, sunglasses, contact lenses plus cleaning solution and container
Toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss
Soap/shampoo/conditioner (I will test-drive the little packages of those in small boxes of thin foils)
SUNBLOCK, also for lips
Cream of lotion
Some laundry detergent (lots of washing machines in Spain have their own detergent system connected and included in the price of a load)
Anti-chafing stick (I buy mine in Spain, and use it on my feet before putting my socks on in the morning)
Compeed - buy in Spain; any other product, even seemingly the same and made by the same company, that you buy Stateside, does not work well on sweaty pilgrim-feet)
Deodorant, the regular one you always use
Supplements, electrolytes
Ultra-light towel
Ultra-light umbrella
Hat, netting (against annoying bugs and flies while walking)
Feminine napkins, tampons (or a shaving kit for a man)
Rain jacket
RAIN COVER FOR YOUR BACKPACK
Baby safety pins - for attaching wet socks etc to your pack so they can dry during your walk
A whistle
Some tissues
Sleeping bag, ultra-light (in summer even just a liner might be enough)
2 changes of clothing (one on you, one in the pack):
- shirt
- hiking skirt or pants
- underwear
- socks (I use only sock liners, and use soft insoles for extra padding in my boots)

Sarong, super light shorts
Swiss Card
Celtic salt (when I walk, all the food is not salty enough for me)
Toe separators
Small bottle of sanitizer attached to the backpack
Analgesic (a few tablets)
Hiking poles, lightweight
Some ziplocks
A guidebook or a map or both or none (Camino Frances is marked so well you will not really need anything)
Perhaps some Spanish frasebook
A notebook, a pen, a sketchbook, pencils
Flip-flops, sandals, or such (for walking at the albergue and when not carrying backpack)
YELLOW ROAD-SAFETY VEST (drivers will really appreciate you having one when walking along the roads, and this adds a lot to your safety without adding much to the weight of your burden; really)
Jetlag Tabs!
Entirely optional:  a camera, memory cards, mobile phone, chargers

I think I might not have omitted anything.

Ultreia!  Buen Camino!

I Love Shopping?

Even I do need some stuff sometimes. So why not have the most useful, lightest (oh that wonderful heavy backpack that seems to weigh more every day, even when the scales say it weighs less; not a very wonderful magic?). I don't want to say I hate anything, but so far I have not been able to find a different word to describe my relationship with shopping. There are exceptions, however. Bookstores, and backpacking stores. Summit Hut, REI, Montbell, Campmore are the ones I know and love. There was Turecek & Hof in Vienna, Austria. They introduced me to many many great things. And the greatest one of those was a car-top tent. Oh, how I loved our tent! Thanks to it, we traveled far and wide with our children, and I think there are many people until this day who think we spent a fortune on our long road trips around Europe. In fact, we spent very little. We could probably count less than dozen times we actually had to pay for sleeping our family anywhere during all those years (some 8 years).
Backpacking takes a different kind of packing. No car to carry our household needs. So I prefer to pack ultralight. It hardly is ultralight, anyway. I always feel like a turtle that has to carry a disabled turtle on its back anyway. Walking the Camino de Santiago is easy, in a way. You basically need very little supplies, light sleeping bag, you don't have to carry food (some snacks are all you need, and dark chocolate and nuts fill the bill in the best possible way, to me at least), you need water at most for a day, no tent, no cooking utensils, no camping mat. Paradise! A hike in the US is so much more difficult than in Europe: no mountain guesthouses, no food, no drink, if there is water available than at least you must carry a good water filter and some other method of killing living organisms in it, at bare minimum you must have a GOOD sleeping bag even when hiking without a tent. But then at least a ground cloth, if you decide against carrying a sleeping mat. So even on a quite an easy hike, comparatively speaking, like the basic hike down to Grand Canyon, your backpack must contain not a small number of supplies. Oh yes, we do have a bible here that teaches a greenhorn how to's of American backpacking: Colin Fletcher's Complete Walker. Walking on American continent is a completely different experience than in most places on Earth, and particularly in Europe. Just a look at a population map of the world will show you the reason why. We are lucky this country is so sparsely populated. But for the likes of me (read: lazy), it is so tempting to backpack in Europe. Unless I can have some Gurkas to help with my burden. Richard would be ideal, but he is not the biggest fan of backpacking in general. Lamas, donkeys, mules. Hmmmm...