On a longer exploration, travel blogger Sherry Ott walked 450 miles from Pamplona to Santiago de Compostela along the Camino Francés. You can make it as hard or as easy as you want, based on the mileage you want to cover each day,” says Brittany. The Camino is not intimidating and there are bail-out options, if you need them. “Doing adventure travel with people in their seventies and forties, you have to find the right mix. The Camino also attracts folks across generations. We were glad I was alive and able to be on trip with them, let alone able to hike the entire route we’d planned,” Brittany says. “Our journey became spiritual for my whole family. She overcame a Flight-For-Life accident three months prior to walking the Camino with her family, which they’d planned before her hospitalization.īrittany and her husband, Frank, joined their group in Sarria to walk the lattermost portion of the most prominent route, Camino Francés. For others, it’s overcoming a challenge and making the best of it,” says Brittany Konsella, a guidebook author, blogger, and endurance athlete. For some, they are trying to get closer to God and want to bless Saint James at the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral.

“The Camino is as much a cultural journey as it is a spiritual one, and that journey means something different to each person. Each night, walkers replenish with smooth red wine, buttery scallops, and sweet paprika-coated polbo á feira. Burning wood and fried-dough churros fill the early morning air, followed by the bright aroma of pineapple-colored rapeseed and vanilla-citrus red poppies.

Pilgrims are immersed in verdant sheep-speckled hillsides, eucalyptus forests, rolling corduroy farmlands, and expansive plains. The Camino de Santiago is a fusion of travelers from around the world. Budget: How much does it cost to walk the Camino?.Top Sights Along the Camino de Santiago.How Many Miles is the Camino de Santiago?.To help you plan your own pilgrimage, we created this Camino de Santiago guide with the following chapters: Your browser does not support the HTML5 video element. The clergy would also give a shell to pilgrims upon their arrival at the Cathedral and completion of the Camino. One myth says that bygone pilgrims used seashells to drink water from the springs as they walked.

They’re each well-marked for pilgrims with gold-toned scallop shells set into blue-colored milestone markers and painted yellow arrows. Technically, you can start your Camino anywhere on the European continent! However, the seven traditional Camino routes originate all over Spain and range from 71 to 621 miles. The voyage-commonly known as El Camino, The Way, or the Camino-concludes at the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, which houses the tomb of Saint James, one of the twelve apostles and the first martyr of Jesus Christ. Today, nearly 350,000 trekkers from around the world continue to complete the Camino each year-and for good reason.Įl Camino de Santiago, or The Way of Saint James, invites countless pilgrims from all over Europe and the world to arrive in Santiago de Compostela, a city of nearly 100,000 residents in northwest Spain, 22 miles east of the Atlantic Ocean. Walking the Camino de Santiago is one of the most highly-sought pilgrimages in the history of humanity.

Camino de santiago map