Grit or Grace: Packing for the Camino de Santiago

As the director of a new collegiate study-abroad program that will invite students to complete a segment of a Christian pilgrimage across northern Spain, the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James), I am tasked with setting the expectations of students, parents and administrators, and with addressing the needs of student travellers. The present chapter analyses several genres of cultural artefacts that novice pilgrims, such as my students, are likely to encounter prior to departure: travel guidebooks and manuals, publications more generally about sacred journeys, pilgrimage memoirs and films. These texts help to frame the journey ahead as a pilgrimage, as a long-distance hike or both. Of particular interest to travellers as they prepare for departure is the representation of packing lists and outdoor sports gear across the various genres. I wish to consider the ways in which the material goods one brings from home for a journey impact and/or reflect one's intended travel experience. I encourage any would-be pilgrims to interrogate their own purchasing and packing choices, as they encounter these and other textual representations of the Camino de Santiago and as they consider their motivations for undertaking the journey.