Tips for pilgrims
Tips for pilgrims
Create your own Ignatian Way
Before your pilgrimage, be sure to touch base with one of the organizations that can provide your “Passport” or “Credencial del Camino” for the Camino Ignaciano. By presenting your pilgrim passport, you will be eligible to lodge at the various pilgrim hostels made available along the route.
Use this website guide to plan your pilgrimage, taking account of your specific physical, financial, and time constraints. In this website’s detailed description of the “etapas” or daily “stages” of the Camino Ignaciano, you will find a directory of shelters and other resources town by town. Many of the pilgrim hostels listed in this guide primarily serve pilgrims on the Camino Santiago: in 2010, there were about twenty Camino de Santiago hostels or shelters spread from Montserrat to Logroño. You should keep in mind that while we believe and hope that Camino Ignaciano pilgrims will also be allowed to use these hostels, we cannot guarantee this as of the current edition of this website (we will post updated information on this point as we receive it). But pilgrims will also note that there are many private hostels available along the Ignaciano route, and proprietors will typically welcome pilgrims in good standing for a small fee.
One critical advice for all pilgrims to bear in mind is the lack of hostels across the long stretch between Zaragoza and Fraga, the so called “desert of Los Monegros,” which will be the loneliest and most difficult part of the pilgrimage, as it was for Ignatius.
You may choose to walk or cycle the Camino Ignaciano, as you wish. Though a walking pilgrimage may sometimes feel a long and hard journey, we happen to believe that walking pilgrims will be very richly rewarded: a profound “internal dynamic” often develops during long days on the road. The world slows down, and the walker begins to pay attention to the rich movements going on inside his or her heart.
If you choose to cycle, enjoy it! But bear in mind that a pilgrimage is not a race! Don’t become so preoccupied with speeding along that you miss the chance to come to slow down your life enough so that your pilgrimage is also an interior journey, not just a blurry ride through towns and countryside.
Bear in mind that most municipal and public hostels will typically offer shelter to pilgrims for only one night (barring illness or other special circumstances). If you wish to stay in a town for longer than one night, you will be better off checking into a private hostel or small hotel. The organizers of this website have not visited all of the hostels listed herein; we can neither vouch for the quality nor guarantee the prices, which can change according to the seasons or for other reasons. For that reason, we maintain on this website the evaluations uploaded by pilgrims who have visited each hostel, and we encourage you to contribute your own evaluations so that each passing pilgrim can do his or her part to improving the experience of pilgrims who will follow. The Camino Ignaciano will thrive over time if we, the whole community of pilgrims, together build up our knowledge base about this new route.
PRACTICALITIES
CREDENTIALS
CERTIFICATE
TRANSPORTATION
LODGING
The Ignatian Way
History of the Way, Pilgrimage to the past, the Spain of Ignatius, Acknowledgements…
Pilgrimage in our life
The Spiritual Exercises and the pilgrimage on the Ignatian Way, the option of four weeks, guide for the Way, breathing the Way, the introductory prayer, the Spiritual Way…
The Pilgrim’s Office
Experiences, activities, agencies, credentials, associations, path of respect…