Most people flying to Spain to walk the Camino Francés treat Paris as a layover. Marley Kreiser, a self-described small-town girl from Hershey, Pennsylvania, decided to make the French capital her deep end. She spent two days there before heading to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the traditional starting point of the pilgrimage — and she admits the city intimidated her more than 800 kilometres of walking ever could.
Her arrival at Charles de Gaulle was a slow-motion comedy of small wins: activating an eSIM bought in advance, hunting down customs she was sure she'd already cleared, then spending half an hour decoding the train ticket machines. A station worker rescued her mid-confusion by simply pointing at her phone map. One wrong train later, she surfaced onto Parisian streets and promptly forgot all the anxiety.
The itinerary, at first, was blissfully unplanned. She wandered past the Église de la Sainte Trinité and its garden courtyard, watched the city's chaotic-but-ordered ballet of bikes, buses and mopeds, and listened to street conversation she couldn't understand — counting only two English exchanges in hours of walking. Her biggest surprise wasn't the architecture. It was the feeling of safety. As a young woman who'd trained herself into constant vigilance walking around US cities, she found Paris streets unexpectedly relaxed, despite everything she'd read about pickpockets.
The real travel masterclass came from her host. She'd hesitated over using Couchsurfing — staying with a stranger felt risky — but Fadl, a Lebanese expat of five years working toward French citizenship, greeted her with pitted olives, a Mediterranean dinner and four hours of conversation. By the end, he'd handed her a list of more than 20 free sights in the city, tailored to her asks: nature, art, architecture. Her takeaway: over-planning would have cost her the best guide she met.
For travellers eyeing the Camino, this is a useful nudge. Paris is one of the easiest entry points to the pilgrimage route, and budget stays like Couchsurfing can turn an intimidating transit city into the trip's warmest memory. The alternative — a hostel with a printed itinerary — rarely ends in a friendship that outlasts the holiday.
