Hiking a Virtual Camino

Did you see those ads on Facebook during Covid? Or was it just me? We were all locked away at home and going stir crazy and I would continuously see these ads for The Conqueror Challenge.

From what I could gather... you'd walk around your neighbourhood (or on your treadmill) and earn these flashy medals once you completed a "challenge". 

I have to admit, it seemed kind of hokey to me. What do you do with all of these medals anyhow?? Hang them on a wall? Parade them around in front of your friends? And how do they account for the vertical elevation? There's more to the Inca Trail than just horizontal distance!

So I let the ads flash by while I scrolled my Facebook feed and rolled my eyes. Nope, not for me.

Ahem... well... now it would appear that they are! I was looking for some Virtual Camino options and came up with a grand total of two.

Camino for Good 

The first one is the one I hoped I could go with because it sounded really nice. If you sign up for the Camino for Good ($12/month), you can run, walk or bike at your own pace in your local area and help others through grants.

During the pandemic, a lot of the money raised by Camino for Good went to albergue owners who had their income dry up with the travel bans. But now, as travel starts up again, the money is going to pilgrims who need to purchase gear, etc. Sounds nice!

If you join up, you can see your progress along a virtual map. As you reach a certain virtual town/village, you get to see photos, pilgrim stories and historical and cultural information along the way. And... you get a Camino for Good neck gaiter and patch to wear while you are trekking around your local area!

Sounds fantastic!! Sign me up!!

Except... you have to either manually input your distance in the Virtual Camino app or use a fitness tracker. No problem! I've got got a fitness tracker - a Garmin fitness watch! Let's go!

Except... their app only supports (1) Fitbit or (2) Apple Watch.

Bugger!

I debated it... manual input of distances??? But no... I do not want to be fiddling around manually inputting that sort of thing. I want these to be as frictionless and easy as possible. So, alas, the Camino for Good is not for me.

And... we are back to... the flashy medals...

The Conqueror - Virtual Challenges

Now... The Conqueror is not a pure Camino app. You can hike a gazillion different virtual treks - everything from the West Coast Trail to the Pacific Crest Trail to Hadrian's Wall to the Inca Trail to... you name it, they've got it. You can even hike the Lord of the Rings and the Shire! And... of course... the Camino.

So I had a look and... you get to see your virtual progress on the app map. You also get virtual postcards at various points. And as you reach villages/towns, you get little blurbs about the area - photos, videos, etc.

This app is not as Camino centric... not be a long shot. No pilgrim stories, etc. Although... you can see the progress of other people on the app, which is kind of neat. Theoretically, you could make some virtual pilgrim friends as you progress along the path together. And at the end of it... you get the flashy medal. 

But... the burning question... does it synchronize with the Garmin fitness app? YES it does! Whoo-hoo! This is ideal because I just track walks on my Garmin (or it automatically logs my steps) and then it feeds that info to the Conqueror app. I don't have to enter anything manually... which I really like. And the data synchronizes once a day, at midnight. Not sure if that is midnight in my time zone or some other time zone but... will figure this out as I go along.

Alright... sign me up! This one costs $35 USD per challenge which you pay up front. You then have a maximum of 18 months to complete the challenge. This seems a bit more realistic than the Camino for Good app where you are paying $12/month. Could I finish this virtual trek in 3 months ($36)... I don't think so. Although, shelling out $12 every month might give a boost of motivation.

Day 1 Status Update - Jan 24, 2023

So far, I've done 10 km (that includes 1.5 km on the morning of Day 2). Sooo... not too bad. Crawling along at a snail's pace. Now the one thing is this... the first stretch of the Camino is through the Pyrenees and has some serious elevation gain, none of which is taken into account. But... you know what... that's OK right now. As this training progresses, I will add in some up and down and start carrying a backpack with 15-17 lbs of weight.

One step at a time.

There are a lot of features to this app and one thing I've noticed is... I can get a virtual 360 of my virtual location on the map. So as I walk, I can pop into the app and see what the terrain around my location looks like. Which might help me later when I am trying to figure out if I should do a flat hike or a more strenuous uphill trek. Cool!

Onwards!