Camino 2026: Packing list

My wife and I are leaving for Portugal in a few days and we’ll start the Camino de Santiago (Portuguese) from Porto early next week. We’ve been preparing for this trip for nearly a year.

We are walking the Camino and carrying everything with us—we are not using a luggage forwarding service. That means the packing list and resulting pack weight are a huge consideration. We’ve spent months researching clothing, packs, and all the relevant accessories we need, and we’ve been dialing in our packing lists bit by bit, testing the loads and mercilessly cutting stuff we thought we’d need in order to reduce pack weight.

While there may be some last-second changes, I think at this point it’s pretty set.

Like other thru-hiking weight-conscious (ultralight) folks out there, I ended up using LighterPack as a web app to gather all my stuff, organize it virtually, and weigh every last gram. It’s been illuminating to focus on each item and the gram-by-gram measurements. I’ve literally changed out clothing, dumped some electronics off my list, and cut back on consumables that I can just buy along the way in Portugal and Spain.

I’ve been a one-bag traveler for a while now, but this takes one-bagging to another level. You aren’t just hiking from the airport to a cab to a hotel. You’re hiking all day every day for 2 weeks (on the Portuguese route from Porto). It’s 170 miles, not 170 meters.

In any case, here are my top line stats:

• 19.65 pounds = Total Weight (everything I’m carrying, wearing, or will consume)
• 2.63 pounds = Consumables (water, food, etc.)
• 6.42 pounds = Worn items (clothing, waist pack that’s not in my backpack)
• 10.6 pounds = Base Weight (everything that isn’t worn or consumed)

And my complete LighterPack list, including links to most of the products (if you really want to learn more) is right here: https://lighterpack.com/r/ywo59z

A few notes on the list, for those that are really interested:

• This is my “air mode” pack setup. This is the way I will carry my stuff to the airport and all the way until we reach our hotel in Porto. On the first morning of the full Camino, I will modify the setup to optimize the carrying experience and put different kinds of tools close at hand.
• My backpack is actually too big (35L) for the way we’re traveling. My wife is only carrying a 24L backpack, and my stuff fits easily into 28L or less. But I have a problem—my torso is too long for the average backpack. To find a backpack compatible with my longer torso, I’ve had to pursue bigger packs by volume. Thankfully the Hyperlight Mountain Gear Waypoint 35 is very lightweight on it’s own—under 2 pounds including the aluminum stay down the middle.
• I picked up trekking poles here at home, and I like them, but I’m concerned they may be confiscated by TSA on the way. So I’m thinking about picking some up in Porto. I’ll also buy a small pocket knife there.
• No laptop, no tablet—just a smartphone.
• No books or maps—it’s all apps on the phone now. I have a few Camino-focused apps and I’m not yet sure which will be my favorite. I’ll be using a few.
• We saved a lot of weight by not carrying towels or sleeping stuff because we’re staying in private accommodations that already provide those things. We’re too old and too introverted to take the albuergue approach, I’m afraid. I know we’ll miss out on some of the Camino culture, and maybe we’ll regret that. We’ll see.

Anyway, we’re packed up and ready to go. We’ll do a final packing / checklist completion cycle this weekend before we fly out.

And hopefully Europe runs out of jet fuel while we’re there and our vacation turns into a relocation.

Buen Camino.