The full camino planner allows a lot of room for precisely describing your preferences in terms of
distance travelled, the sort of comfort you want at the end of the day, special locations and on and on and on.
This can be a bit overwhelming for a first-time user.
Easy mode takes basic information about how fit you are and what comfort levels you want, the Camino you want
to walk and uses sensible defaults for other parameters.
Once you have a plan, you can refine it by turning easy mode off and exploring other options in more detail.
Travel Types
The travel type is a broad description of how you intend to travel the Camino.
Generally, people either walk or use a bicycle.
Travel Types
Icon
Travel Type
Description
Walking
Walking the Camino.
Cycling
Cycling the Camino.
Fitness
Fitness is a broad estimate of how long you can keep up a consistent walking or cycling pace.
Most legs on the Camino take five to eight hours and you can get pretty tired and footsore along the way.
The fitness level allows the planner to make allowances for the inevitable slowing of pace as you weary.
See below
for information on how to estimate fitness.
Beware of over-estimating your fitness.
"Normal" fitness is someone in their 20s or 30s who has trained for long walks.
Fitness Levels
Fitness Level
Description
Super-fit
Very, very fit, world-class athlete level.
Very fit
Very fit, athlete level.
Fit
The fitness level of an experienced long-distance walker.
Normal
The fitness level of a consistent long-distance walker.
Unfit
An average walker who has trained for the Camino. Consider this level if you have doubts about whether you're up to the normal level.
Very unfit
An average walker without much training.
Estimating Fitness
The standard definition for fitness levels is the amount of time it takes to climb 1000 feet (300m) over half a mile (800m).
For example, using the following table, if it took you 25 minutes to climb 1000 feet, you would be classified as fit.
Another way to estimate fitness is to measure the time you can walk at a nominal 5km/hr (or 3mi/hr) before noticeably tiring.
Fitness
Climb Time (mins)1
Tiring Time (hours)2
Nominal Speed (km/hr)3
Maximum Time (hrs)4
Super Fit
15
20
6.0
24
Very Fit
20
10
5.5
23
Fit
25
8.0
4.5
17.5
Normal
30
5.0
4.0
14.5
Unfit
40
3.5
3.5
11.5
Very Unfit
50
2.0
3.0
8.5
1 How fitness is determined. The time it takes to climb 1000 feet over half a mile
2 How fitness is determined. The time you can walk at 5km/hr before noticeably slowing.
3 Based on average over five hours walking
4 The maximum feasible -- but hardly recommended -- time spent walking
Cyclists can estimate fitness based on road-speed and VAM (velocità ascensionale media or average ascent speed).
Fitness
Road Speed (km/hr)1
VAM (m/hr)2
Super Fit
40
1600
Very Fit
32
1300
Fit
28
1100
Normal
24
900
Unfit
20
700
Very Unfit
16
400
1 Sustained road speed on a flat, well-maintained road
2 Sustained climb over an hour or so on a 5% gradient. As a rule of thumb, add 50 for every extra 1% gradient and subtract 50 for every 1% reduction in gradient.
Comfort
Comfort is a broad description of how much hardship you're prepared to put up with while walking.
Most of the time, comfort levels translate into pre-packaged accommodation and service preferences
while walking the camino.
You can adjust these pre-packaged defaults on the following screens to suit your needs.
Comfort levels also adjust the bias towards longer or shorter daily stages.
Comfort Levels
Comfort Level
Description
Austere
Minimise the use of expensive accommodation and services. Camping is often a preferred option if there isn't an inexpensive albergue nearby.
Rather than use restaurants, you intend to buy your own food and cook it.
Frugal
Reduce the use of expensive accommodation and services. Camping is an option if there is nothing suitable nearby.
You are quite willing to buy your own food and cook it.
Pilgrim
The normal pilgrim level of comfort. In general albergues or guest houses are preferred accommodation options, but you're willing to
spring for something a bit more luxurious every now and again.
You generally plan to eat in restaurants or cafés along the way.
Comfortable
Similar to the normal pilgrim level of comfort but you're more willing to shell out to sleep between sheets and eat well.
Luxurious
Money is no object and you would prefer to have comfortable accommodation options and plenty of service available.
To begin with, choose the way you intend to travel. Then choose the level of fitness that you have.
Easy mode allows you to fill out a few fields about your travel style and which routes you want to travel. Sensible defaults are then used for things like daily distance, accommodation preferences, must-see stops and the like. Detailed mode allows you to fine-tune your preferences in terms of distance, accommodation, where to stop and so on. However, the level of detail can be quite complex. Use easy mode to start with and then uncheck this box to allow more detail once you are familiar with the system.
Be careful with fitness. Normal is normal for a young walker with plenty of training; someone who can walk three hours at 5km/hr without tiring. If you have any doubts, choose Unfit.
De Calixtinus
Cookies
De Calixtinus uses cookies for session tracking and to keep a persistent copy of your current travel and route preferences.
De Calixtinus does not keep any other personal information, or share information with other entities.
Usage
This is intended to be a helpful tool for people planning their trip.
It provides a suggested itinerary that you can choose to ignore any time you feel like it.
De Calixtinus is (usually) fast enough to allow you to revisit things en-route, starting from where you currently are.
One of the reasons that it keeps your current set of preferences in a cookie is so that you can breeze through
things you don't want to change if, for example, you didn't quite make your goal and what to re-plan mid-camino.
De Calixtinus doesn't really distinguish between an interesting place
to stop, full of sights and entertainment, and a boring, dusty waypoint in the middle of nowhere.
Or a bar that is sometimes open for a couple of hours each day or a full-dress restaurant.
Or a small corner shop and a full-blown supermarket.
Units
De Calixtinus uses the metric system, both internally and for input and display.
A possible future enhancement is to allow the user to specify their preferred unit system but,
right now, netric it is.
Disclaimer
De Calixtinus is still under development
Just because "Computer Says So!" doesn't mean it's a good idea.
So use your own judgement and check other sources of information.
The output from this program is no substitute for either careful planning or
casual resilience in the face of adversity.
I've done my best to be accurate about the data but ...
if you're relying on something to be true, check with other sources, as well.
Things change: places to stay come and go, temporarily shut down
or get filled up; roads get blocked; on Sunday everything shuts down and you need
to plan accordingly.