Camino FAQ (the questions people really ask)

At least 100 continuous km on foot (or 200 km by conventional bike; e-bikes don't count) on a single recognised route and heading towards Santiago. Since 2025 those kilometres no longer have to be literally the last ones before Santiago, but the stage that completes them does have to be the one that reaches the Cathedral: walking, say, Logroño to Burgos and then entering Santiago from Lavacolla doesn't work, because that final section doesn't add up to 100 km. If the certificate matters to you, the safe joining points are still Sarria, Tui or Ferrol — or further back. All the details, with the Pilgrim's Office small print, in the Compostela guide.

A mid-range budget, with mixed accommodation and normal meals, comes to around €55–61 a day in 2025–2026. The austere floor — public albergue, pilgrim menu and little else — is now closer to €40 a day than to €30, according to 2026 sources: prices have risen steadily since the pandemic. By section, the Portuguese usually works out slightly cheaper than the Galician one: in Galicia the public accommodation has a flat Xunta rate (€10), but the heavier flow on the final sections pushes everything else up.

The Xunta's public ones are around €10. Private ones run from €15–20 in normal season to €20–40 in July and August, when demand pushes prices up and it is worth booking ahead. The item almost everyone forgets is the last night, in Santiago: there is no Xunta albergue in the old town (the nearest, at Monte do Gozo, is 4.4 km from the Obradoiro) and a bed in the city costs €12–25. It is the one night of the whole Camino that always deserves a booking, because everyone who set off when you did arrives that same afternoon. More in the guide on where pilgrims run out of beds.

It stays fairly stable, between €10 and €15 in most villages along the route, with a starter, a main, dessert and a drink.

No. Many small settlements have no ATM, so it is worth withdrawing cash in the bigger towns and always carrying some on you. Card payment and Bizum (the instant phone-to-phone transfer app everyone uses in Spain) keep growing, but the most rural places still work in cash only.

If you are coming from the EU, the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) gives you access to Spanish public healthcare on the same terms as a resident, although it covers neither repatriation nor private healthcare. British citizens use the GHIC, its post-Brexit equivalent. If you are coming from outside the EU, you need your own travel insurance: IATI-type plans run around €1.20–2.30 a day, roughly €42–81 for a five-week Camino depending on the level of cover.

A travel eSIM is the easiest option for anyone arriving from abroad: providers such as Holafly offer plans from €22.50 (7 days) up to €59.90 (30 days) with coverage from the main Spanish networks. A physical prepaid tourist SIM, if you prefer one, usually costs between €15 and €40 depending on duration and data.

Generally yes, but with well-known weak spots in mountain areas — the Pyrenees crossing near Roncesvalles, the climb to O Cebreiro — where the signal can vanish for long stretches. Albergue wifi is usually free but often slow, because of how many people are connected at once.

The four that kept coming up in pilgrim forums in August 2026: Gronze (stages, accommodation and the WhatsApp contact for each albergue, more useful than a booking site for sorting a bed as you go), Buen Camino and Wise Pilgrim (route apps with near-live accommodation availability) and Ivar's forum, caminodesantiago.me, with threads from pilgrims walking right now telling you how the route is that same day. We have no commercial relationship with any of them: they are simply the ones people use.

The most widespread unwritten rule is 22:00 for silence and lights out, though each albergue sets its own. Packing your bag the night before — and avoiding noisy plastic bags at 6 in the morning — is courtesy number one among pilgrims.

Yes, it is a recurring source of friction known as bed-saving, and many albergues — the public ones especially — have explicit rules against it: the traditional system is first come, first served. In March 2026 the so-called Bed Racing Challenge went viral, a dare encouraging people to run the final sections to secure a bed; the Federation of Friends of the Camino Francés Associations came out to clarify that much of the panic about ending up without a bed is viral misinformation: in practice there are still plenty of places outside the July and August peaks if you set off with a bit of margin.

It is a real and recurring problem, more frequent between June and September, although most pilgrims finish without a single bite. Prevention: never leave your pack on the bed, inspect the mattress seams and the bunk frame on arrival, sleep in your own bag or liner, and run your clothes through a tumble dryer on high heat, which is the step that actually kills them. Watch out for the permethrin spray advice that circulates in forums: what Spanish pharmacies sell under that name is a scabies cream, and permethrin is not approved in Spain as a biocide for treating textiles. We go into it, with a count of 1,387 pilgrim comments, in the bedbugs guide.

Tell the hospitalero or whoever runs the albergue straight away — it is their problem and they usually act fast — and tumble dry everything, clothes and pack included, on high heat for 30 minutes: according to the EPA that is what kills both bugs and eggs, and washing alone is not enough. Cold works too, but not for a few hours: it takes below −18 °C for four days, and many domestic freezers don't get that low. Anything that can't take the heat goes into a sealed bag until you can freeze it properly.

More and more, including Bizum between individuals, but the smaller bars and shops in rural villages still work in cash only. Don't count on arriving with no loose change at all.