Camino de Santiago questions

My wife and I used Camino Ways. (Pamplona to Santiago- 30 days or so). Irish company.

They booked the hotels (my wife said albergues weren't to her liking) and luggage service.

Very happy with them.

In general, finding a luggage transfer service ad hoc from any alberque or hotel on the trail is easy.

Thank you!
Were the Alburgues the hotels or the hostels ?

We opted to only sleep in places that had no shared rooms-- mostly hotels, some pensiones, some labeled hostels. We always had a private bedroom and bathroom.

The downside of going with a great outfit like CaminoWays is that you lose optionality on the walk. We were on a forced march. Others we walked with could take a day off-- we couldn't. We were booked through. With that said, my wife loved always knowing we had good room at the end of long walk.

The one mistake we made was not planning for a day off. We walked every day-- averaging 13 miles-- for a month. Almost everybody else we walked with (you meet lots of people on the camino) would take a day off every week or so.

And being part of the booked Caminoways "group" (we didn't walk together but you saw the same gang), we tended to get to know the couple dozen or so folks who also used CaminoWays-- but we just pulled head of the people when they took their day off.

The good thing is you can find just about the perfect place to stay in the bigger villages and towns. I personally don't book ahead and take it as it comes in between stages of the briefly guide book. a little bit of risk but I've been ok on all my 5 camino.

Mark
Followtheyellowshell.com

When we walked the Camino for 5 days back in 2019 we went through Macs Adventure. It arranged hotels and baggage transfer between hotels. Its local transfer company was Tee Travel, phone: 0034 986 565 02. Its the company that actually moved the luggage. If that’s all you want, maybe contact it to see if they do transfers for the entire Camino.

I have walked 4 times, planning #5 for next spring and always book my own places to sleep. This is extremely easy and I can plan my days as I like to stay in the towns and hotels/albergues that I prefer. Many albergues have private rooms, but you get the opportunity to be with others. I do like the ones that have communal meals.
My preference is to walk 15-20km, but if it is flat, to walk a tiny bit more.
As for luggage transport, every hotel, every pension, every albergue has envelopes for this. Your bags can be picked up every day without prior arrangement. You do not have to plan this ahead. Cost is usually 5€ per day.

Are you on FB? There are a ton of FB pages, including ones for just women, or for slow strollers. Have you been to this website/forum? https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/forums/-/list

There are also tons of YouTube channels that can help you. I have one that is specifically for older women as I am 67. Where I slept, what I ate, what I packed, etc. and there are 40 short video from each day I walked this past spring. Called "Camino for Everyone", if you want to take a look.
Message me if you want more information.