Can Grandparents and a 21-Year-Old Hike the Camino Together?

My husband Eric and I start a new kind of adventure next week — launching from Porto with our 21-year-old grandson Ben on his first Camino. We've delighted in countless trips with him before: DC at nine, Hawaii, Rome, Florence, Istanbul. But more than a few friends have wondered if a multi-week, multigenerational hike, even with a great traveler, can actually succeed.

We say yes, as long as everyone is reasonable about what "together" means.

I'm pretty sure we'll all make it to Santiago. I'm absolutely sure it will be a different journey for each of us. I can still remember being 21 — I just have no desire to be it. And yet he is. Every stage of the Camino is full of pilgrims his age, speaking three languages, maybe open to a beer or two more than Grandma is, moving at a pace that has nothing to do with knees or hips. It's easy to see why the current might pull Ben that way.

The dad Eric and I met in León when we did the Francés understood this. His son began hiking mostly with a couple of attractive Norwegian women a few days out of St. Jean, and the trip wasn't turning out to be the graduation present Dad had pictured. But the boy still loved him. That much was obvious even from the outside.

We've noticed that the families who do multigenerational travel well — and there are more of them out there than you might think — build in structure without demanding constant togetherness. We're planning a shared lunch spot the first day or two, just to find out whose pace is whose. And a shared dinner destination each night, where we can trade stories over wine and tired feet.

I think of the Taxi-Mar captain we watched in Caminha, on our first Portuguese Camino — refueling his boat with a cigarette dangling from his lip, looking like it was the most natural thing in the world. Eric and I still talk about it. Am I sorry Ben wasn’t there for that? Sure — but he wasn't, and that's sort of the point. He'll have his own version, from his own path, this time around.

If we end up in different lodgings some nights, that's fine too. My hips like me to be kind to them.

So next week we start hiking together. The only rule I'm taking with me: everyone comes home safely. Maximum freedom to actually experience the journey. Maximum love to hear what it gave everyone else, even on the stretches we didn't walk side by side.