A Village to Village Guide to Hiking the Camino De Santiago: Camino Frances: St Jean - Santiago - Finisterre Paperback – June 30, 2014

I may be one of the first people to use this new book, because it was released just days before my wife and I started our own Camino. We did the first 11 days of the Camino de Santiago starting in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, and ending in Nájera, Spain. We'll continue from there next year. I liked this book so much that I decided to take it with us as our only guide book, and I was glad I did.First impression: it's beautiful! Stunning photos, great maps, and directions that make sense. I especially like the detailed list of albergues in each town, complete with prices and icons showing their amenities. The book covers the entire route all the way to Finisterre and Muxia, with daily stages of around 25km (15.5mi) per day. You can, of course, finish your day anywhere you like, but the stages often end in the larger towns with more options for places to stay and eat, as well as resources such as pharmacies, ATM machines, etc.Each stage begins with an overview including the distance, difficulty, average number of hours, and a breakdown of the percentage of time you'll spend on paved vs. unpaved pathways. It then includes a description of what you'll be facing that day, along with an elevation chart and a map showing all towns and the amenities you can expect to find there (albergues, food, shopping, etc.) It then walks you through each town you'll be visiting, and describes points of interest as well as warnings for things to watch out for (like the lack of water between Valcarlos and Roncesvalles). Each town has a sidebar with a listing of places to stay, each with its price, contact details, and amenities (food, washer, dryer, kitchen, WiFi, number of beds, etc.) Maps are also included for the larger towns, with all places to stay marked on the map. We always found it easy to understand the differences between the albergues, and to find them once we arrived in the town.The book also includes a lot of nice information in the introductory chapters, including a history of the Camino, when to go, how to get there, visas, the various types of places to stay and eat, costs, safety issues, packing lists, and lots more. This information is expanded even further on the book's extensive web site, including links to many of the sites and places to stay that are listed in each stage.Since many people seem to be using John Brierley's book,  A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago , I'll make a few quick comparisons.The distances between places are different than in the Brierley book. This book resets the distance to zero at the beginning of each stage, and then shows the cumulative distance until the end of the stage. 0.0, 3.2, 6.8, 12.0, 18.5, etc. Whereas Brierley shows the distance from place to place and not the cumulative distance. 0.0, 3.3, 1.5, 2.7, etc. I like this book's way better, at least if your stages mostly line up with the book's. If you end up staying at a town that's not at the beginning of a stage though, your numbers will be off a bit the next day. That happened to us occasionally, but it wasn't a big problem.This book is 2.8 cubic inches (46 cu cm) larger and 3.4 ounces (96 g) heavier than Brierley's. Partly because it includes Finisterre and Muxia, but mostly because the general tone of the writing is much more relaxed and less terse, with larger pictures. Although it's a bit wider than Brierley's, I had no problem carrying it in a side pocket of my pants so it was always available. And since we were only doing the first 11 days, I removed the last two thirds of the pages to cut down on weight -- the authors suggest doing exactly that actually, for pages you've already used along the way. I carefully compared the directions for the multiple paths leading into Burgos, and both books cover all the details about equally well -- I feel certain I could find my way with either one. But there's no question that I prefer the tone of this one.One of the best items on the book's web site is a downloadable GPS track of the entire Camino, including alternate pathways. I imported the data into the fantastic "GPS Kit" iPhone app and then cached the maps near the paths. I was then always able to see at a glance where we were in relation to the marked pathway, as well as the distance and direction to any point on the map -- all without a data connection.Overall I was quite happy with our time with this book on the Camino, and I'll be taking it next year when we continue. I definitely recommend it.

I used this guide to walk the Camino Frances in May and June of 2018 - the busiest time of year for walkers traveling the full length of the Camino Frances. I would definitely use it again for a future walk and would seriously consider other guides by this couple.Pros* Great overview information - from packing and planning to the page or two of simple Spanish phrases. (Granted Google Translate outshines anything in print, but there were times those couple of pages really came in handy.)*Nice suggested route. Some guides are less suggestive about stopping points, but these folks picked out towns that had a lot of accommodations. Many stopping towns were offset from the other big English guide (don't remember the name offhand) so as to spread out walkers along the Way. Nonetheless, it was easy to adjust stopping places so as to have mornings in very small towns where there was no morning herd to contend with.* Realistic elevation maps. Some other maps I saw with elevations for certain sections set up the height/length measurement so that climbing 1000 feet over 5 miles practically looked like you were trying to summit Mt. Everest. This one did not.*I really appreciated the bit of tourist information about towns along the route and the small maps of mid to large size towns. It was so handy for experiencing the culture and finding my way through some of the bigger towns. Most other guides I saw didn't have those, so I often could share bits of history about towns that other were unaware of.Cons*It's a little heavy. No, I'm not going to rip the pages out as a walk, which is a common suggestion for people obsessed with weight. It was my "journal" of my days and route - every day I made notes about how far I went and where I stayed. Lighter paper would be nice, though. Or at least make it water resistent so the weight is a little more worth it.*None of the guidebooks I saw or heard about from others while on the Camino seem to give more than a passing mention of rest days. This one did mention it, but still, walking for 30-40 days is actually best on one's body when there are some rest and reflection days included. (I'm an Appalachian Trail aficionado, and yes, it is standard for long distance hikers to plan for rest days - typically also resupply days.) While the Camino is about the journey, there is a tendency of pilgrims once they are actually on the walk to think too long on how far and how hard they can go. Friends of mine who walked the Camino about five years ago were near shocked when I mentioned taking a taxi "backward" on the Camino to visit a friend with an overuse injury -- backward?? A small section devoted to this and identifying some good locations and/or strategies for identifying places to stop would be nice.*A German friend on the trail had a neat feature in his book that I didn't notice -or at least hear about) - in English books. His book noted not only the number of beds in an albergue or hostel but the layout of the space... like 30 beds in one great room verses 10 beds each in 3 smaller rooms. That occasionally came in really handy in picking the best space to stay. I would love to see that in a future edition.

If you are to walk the French Way on the Camino de Santiago you must have this book

Every guidebook to the Camino de Santiago has certain features in common--a route description broken into 29-32 stages, functional maps, accommodation listings, and historical blurbs on spots along the way. At this point, the distances between villages are roughly standardized and most stages are loosely in sync. Quite simply, any guide (or app, for that matter) could do the job pretty well.What makes Anna and David's guidebook stand out to me is the visually striking design, which maximizes the efficiency of each page without sacrificing any bit of appeal. The color coded stages make for easy navigation, while the accommodation icons help you to quickly assess whether a particular hostal has the amenities you seek. The content packed in around the margins--elevation profiles for all stages inside the front cover, a quick breakdown of pavement/trail in each stage under the heading, and even translations of place names--all add value without adding pages. And the maps! The maps are among the best you'll find in any pilgrimage guidebook, with excellent representation of each stage as a whole, complemented with zoomed in shots of each town. For those who have used a previous edition of this guide, it's worth noting that they have continued to reduce the size; per their website, the 2017 edition is 20% lighter and 30% thinner than the 2016 version. Finally, the guidebook is backed by a very helpful website, where it's possible to find updates and direct links to the accommodations included in the book.Disclosure: I was given a copy of the 2017 edition by David, but I purchased a previous edition of the book (and will likely purchase another edition at some point down the road).

We recently completed the first half of the Camino, from St Jean Pied De Port to Sahagun using a mixture of guide books, maps and other documents. We didn't use the other, very well known, guide book as we had looked at it and didn't really like it's style. However we did realise that it did offer something we missed, which was having all the important items together, I.e. maps, elevations and accommodation information, as well as general information about the area.We had heard from other people on the way that there was another similar guide book available which compared very favourably with the market leader, but didn't manage to to see a copy. On our return, whilst planning for our return, next year, to complete the Camino I determined to find a copy of this new guide " Hiking the Camino de Santiago " by Dintaman and Landis, eventually ordering a copy from Amazon.Having now had some time to evaluate the book I must say that I am very impressed. Comparing the information on the book for the areas that we have already completed with our own experiences we can see how useful it would have been to us for planning our daily walks and starts. Extrapolating this into the future, for our return for the second half, we are confident that it will be a great help. Since the book arrived it has remained next to my chair and I drop into and out of it regularly, sometimes when thinking through what we will do next year and often just to read about the areas we have already done and realise how much more we could have done and seen if we had this book earlier.We both like the style and feel of this book and the way it doesn't "preach" at you. It gives the facts in an easily understood way and leaves it to you to use them as you wish. It is still arranged in stages, similarly to it's main competitor, which I'm not sure that we will use much as we usually walk different distances from time to time and find that it is easier to find accommodation if you stop in places other than the "stage" endings". The way that distances are shown on this book should make it easy to plan your own, different, stages.Overall we really like this book both for future planning and as a memory jogger for the part of the Camino that we have already completed and strongly recommend it for anyone thinking of walking The Camino de Santiago.

excellent book, covered every single detail of your potential journey ,including a difficult or a lighter route.filled with information such as accomodation,history facts on each leg of the journey,costs,clothing,timings etc etcafter reading this book being a solo traveller, it makes you feel totally confident and at ease in completing the camino way.

This little book is packed full of essential information before and whilst walking the Camino. Lots of things to see and their history, places to stay, what to expect and what to try and avoid. Excellent!

An amazing bookI took this guide when I done the full Camino which ended up taking me 41 days including the little detour I took before.I finished in Finestere...Full of great information and historic facts.

Good route guide with clear maps and information about hostels. Handy size and light weight.