Why would I secure a rental contract, purchase health insurance, and purchase a flight tickets there and back.x when I don’t even know if I will be approved for a visa and for how long.

I didn't have to get a rental contract or plane tickets. I did have to get health insurance (one of the easiest parts of the process), the FBI report, financial statements, health statements, and all the various Spanish translations of those (which has to be official/certified, not just someone who happens to read/write English/Spanish).

It sounds like a catch 22, no?

Well, I'd call it more like a gamble: you might win, or you might lose. But you've gotta play the game. It is real work: I basically assigned myself the job of going through the process, and put a lot of other projects on hold while I was doing it. I started the work around October, I sent in the formal application in December 2021, the visa was issued in January, and I moved in March. There were a few hiccups that someone else might avoid, but on the other hand, you might have other hiccups. I'd assume 3–6 months work.

You've got to be well organized and keep up on things, pay attention to deadlines and timestamps (eg, the apostille can expire), and you've also got to be able to deal with uncertainty and waiting and bureaucracy. If you're not okay with that, you might not be cut out for doing this.

It helped me a lot to hire a lawyer (in Spain) to be able to:

• tell me what was possible
• tell me exactly what to do
• look over what I did before we sent it to the consulate
• talk with the consulate if necessary
• make the appointment with the police offices to get the NIE card when I arrived (not an easy thing in Barcelona!)
• answer random questions along the way
• right now, work on renewing the visa

As far as I know, an NLV is always for one year. Then you renew, which if accepted, gives you another two years, etc. So you shouldn't have a doubt as to how long the visa itself is good for.

I can't remember the details right now, but I think you have 90 days from the issuance of the visa to when you need to be 'done' with the process (have your NIE, etc.). That sounds like a long time, but believe me, there's a lot of work to do when you land. I don't know how long you're planning on hiking the Camino, but I wouldn't go off for two months doing that and assume you can wrap everything else up when you get back, before the 90-day deadline.