How many kilometers a day should you do if you walk the Camino de Santiago?

Excursionismo - Envato

Day-to-day responsibilities take up a good portion of our time, to the point that it may be impossible to do some great activities such as the Camino de Santiago. But even if you have a few weeks of well-deserved vacation and rest, the long stretches of the pilgrimage routes mean that the days off are not enough to complete them from start to finish.

Fortunately, there is no single way to complete the Camino de Santiago. We can start the journey from any stage, divide the routes according to our convenience and still get the Compostela (as long as we walk a minimum of kilometers). Although the route will depend mainly on our time and it is possible to start from any location that crosses the Jacobean roads, how many kilometers should be done per day?

How many kilometers can be done per day on the Camino de Santiago?

Some stages of the Camino de Santiago are very demanding. In addition to having to plan the trip very well taking into account the best type of footwear, the necessary contents of the backpack and other recommendations to make the experience much more rewarding, the time available and knowing where our limit is are two of the keys to know how many kilometers a day we should do. 

Although the different routes are built for a large number of kilometers, the vast majority of pilgrims usually walk only a little more than a hundred to get the compostela. For this, only 5 or 6 free days are needed, so it is important to synchronize the free days with the needs to do the Camino de Santiago and walk about 25 kilometers each day to achieve our goal. 

All the routes of the Way of St. James: Average number of kilometers

Not all the routes of the Camino de Santiago are equally extensive, so we have gathered the most traveled routes, added their kilometers and divided by the number of stages to find the perfect average for the kilometers that should be walked per day. 

• Camino del Norte: 824 kilometers divided in 34 stages (24.2 km per day)
• French Way: 764 kilometers divided into 33 stages (23.1 km per day)
• English Route: 119 kilometers divided into 6 stages (19.8 km per day).
• Portuguese Way: 620 kilometers divided into 25 stages (24.8 km per day)
• Primitive Way: 313 kilometers divided into 14 stages (22.3 km per day)