Trips: An Introduction

I am a walker. Not a biker or driver. I like to put my house on my back, and start walking. Every year, pretty much since the turn of the century, I try to get at least one long distance hike a year into my schedule, meaning I’ll be out for 20 days or more, walking anywhere from 500 to 2000 kilometers.

It’s my zen, mental and physical health therapy, and one of the few things these days I can not, will not, live without.

The Caminos de Santiago, a network of hiking trails terminating in Santiago de Compostela in the West of Spain, are my favorite routes. Not that I am particularly religious, no, but their continued existence since the 800s ensures a network of amenities that make hiking easy and allow me to concentrate on myself and my needs over having to Bear Grylls all the time to survive (though that can be great, too, and I did it more than just a few times).

Updates

This blog is based on plain text files and images/videos uploaded to a CDN before being pulled back onto my site. It’s an amazing approach, but one that does not lend itself well to daily blogging from the road. Especially, since I am aiming to take as little technology as possible with me. Not for dislike of tech, mind you, but because I am lazy and don’t like lugging lots of stuff.

This means that if you want to follow my hikes “live,” your best option is to follow me on your Fediverse instance of choice. Type “mikka@medic.cafe” into your Mastodon/Pleroma/Misskey/Soapbox or whatever instance’s search field, and follow me there.

Before I leave, and after I am back, I’ll update this site much more often than during the hike itself.

Tech

I am usually bringing my smartphone (an iPhone 13 Pro as of me writing this), battery packs, AirPods, and not much more. In recent years I sometimes brought my Sony ZV-1, but that was just another thing I had to keep charged, clean, and safe from elements and theft, so I ditched it. Maybe I will bring a real camera again when I walk 12000 Kilometers in 2025, but until then I’ll stick with smartphone tech.

I’ll be writing up some stuff about hike tech and how I use it. New on the shopping list for 2023 is a GPS trail logger, I just have to find one that actually manages to log for a whole day and charges quickly.

Gear

I used to swear by Osprey Exos backpacks, but the newer iterations of the pack simply don’t do it for me anymore. I am currently focusing on the Kumo 36 for my next hike, which at 36 liters is exactly the size I want in an ultralight backpack while hiking between almost daily supply stations.

For Spain and Portugal I am not worried about freezing to death in the summer, so I am bringing a Cocoon Merino and Satin blanket and call it a day.

Maps and Trips

I’ll try to publish all maps and trip plans before they happen. One of the things I want to do on this site is to have some code that imports my various planning tools and makes them available for anyone wanting to do as I do (which I highly recommend). This is yet to come, seeing how this is the first post :)