Don't let the bed bugs bite !

Pilgrims traditionally sleep in albergues or refugios, low- or no-cost volunteer-run dorm-style hostels provided for those who walk, bike, or ride horses along the Camino. Bed bugs have surely been present since the pilgrimages began. But with a worldwide resurgence in bed bugs, they are surely flourishing now more than they have in the last fifty or sixty years.

This is the same problem hotels and hostels face, but worse. Think about it: the nature of the pilgrimage route means that the same people are going from hostel to hostel, day after day after day. They’re bringing backpacks or sleeping sacks, and clothing, and their laundry and washing facilities are more limited than those of the typical urban backpacker.

With reasonable precautions, namely shaking out your sleeping bag outside at regular intervals you should be able to prevent the worst problems. And perhaps most important: check your sleeping bag, clothes, and rucksack before leaving Spain, to avoid bringing any bed bugs back with you.

• Learn to search a mattress and bed frame for bed bugs, carefully before putting your stuff in the room.
• Try not to store belongings on or near beds. Though bed bugs can live elsewhere, beds are the most likely spots.
• The best idea to keep from spreading bed bugs is probably to dry everything in a machine on hot before leaving a known infested premises, and before going home. (If items are dry, this takes less time, but if things are dirty, it’s best to wash them first and dry for a very, very long time. Sleeping bags may make it easy for bed bugs to harbour even during a wash or dry.)
• Carefully inspect items that can’t be dried.
• Learn what bed bugs and their signs look like.
• And don’t assume that if you do not have bed bug bites, you were not bitten en route (a sizable percentage of people do not react allergically to bed bug bites, and so will see and feel nothing).
• 
   The most important thing---if you encounter bedbugs---make sure you immediately remove your things and wash and dry everything---do everything you can do to not bring along any stowaways after a bedbug encounter. I know this sounds completely inconvenient, but you would be surprised at how many pilgrims have recounted stories of hospitaleros lending them clothing, washing all their things, etc. We pilgrims don't want bedbugs and nobody else does either.
  This has become a significant problem, so be aware and take precautions.
  
  Buen camino
• DON'T BRING THEM HOME

Note to wives... Stand husband on doorstep & spray with Dettol !