The Camino de Santiago: what it is and how XTOUR handles it

The short answer

The Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James, is a pilgrimage with a fixed end and many beginnings. Its goal is the tomb of St James the Apostle in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela; the Pilgrim's Office, which the Cathedral runs, welcomes pilgrims who arrive on foot, by bicycle or on horseback.[1] The Office's planning page points out that there are many traditional and recognised routes and that medieval pilgrims simply left from their own front doors.[6] So "the Camino" names a network, not a single trail.

INE's official list of municipalities places Santiago de Compostela in the province of A Coruña, in Galicia.[11] XTOUR lists Santiago de Compostela, the city where every route ends, but it does not map the routes, give stage lengths or judge which route suits which walker.

Who certifies a pilgrimage

The official record of a pilgrimage is kept by the Church, not by a tourism body. The Pilgrim's Office places the Cathedral's final stamp on the pilgrim's credential and issues the Compostela, the traditional certificate.[1] The credential itself, the Office says, is distributed by the Office and by Church institutions and associations it authorises, and there is also an official digital credential app.[4]

The Office ties the pilgrimage to the relics. Its history page dates the pilgrimage to the discovery of St James's body under King Alfonso II (792-842), and names Pope Leo XIII's Bull Deus Omnipotens of 1884, which proclaimed that the relics in Santiago were those of St James, as the start of the pilgrimage's modern development. The same page says 1,245 pilgrims arrived in 1985, and 272,703 qualified for the Compostela in the Holy Year of 2010.[2]

What the Compostela requires

The Office's rules are specific, and they matter to anyone planning a short Camino.

• Distance on foot or horseback. At least 100 continuous kilometres on one route recognised by the Office's system, with the final stage being the one into Santiago's Cathedral.[3]
• Distance by bicycle. At least 200 kilometres, on the same conditions.[3]
• Starting outside Spain. A pilgrim who began on foot outside Spain on a recognised route needs at least 70 kilometres in Spain.[3]
• Walking in stages. Allowed if the stages are in chronological and geographical order; when only the minimum distance is done, the credential must be stamped at the start and end of each stage.[3]
• By sea. The credential page adds 100 nautical miles followed by the last stretch on foot.[4]

The Office also issues a certificate of distance, a separate document that records the kilometres travelled from any starting point, the route and the dates. It says pilgrim reception and the Compostela itself are free.[5] Its home page warns that at times of great influx it cannot guarantee collecting the Compostela on the day of arrival.[1]

The motive question, in the Office's own words

Read side by side, the Office's pages describe the qualifying motive in three slightly different ways. The Compostela page says that in modern times it is limited to those who come for religious and/or spiritual reasons, and its requirements list, a few paragraphs later, says it is issued to those who come for Christian purposes.[3] The credential page describes the credential as for pilgrims with a Christian sentiment, "even if it is only with an attitude of search".[4] Spain's official tourism site puts it as "a spiritual or religious reason".[7] XTOUR does not interpret these rules; the Office decides.

The main routes in Spain

Spain's official tourism site says three routes in Spain are very popular, and calls the French Way the most popular of them.[7] Its route pages give the following outline, and its own figures differ between pages.

The French Way. The route page says it can begin in Spain at Orreaga-Roncesvalles in Navarre or at Somport in Aragón, with the two branches later joining, and that it passes Pamplona, Logroño, Burgos, León, Astorga and Ponferrada.[8] The two official descriptions of the Aragonese stretch differ: the Government of Aragón's heritage portal gives almost 100 kilometres from Somport across fifteen municipalities,[12] while the tourism site's route page gives an approximate distance of 150 kilometres for Aragón.[8]

The Northern Way. The route page says it starts in Spain at Irún and runs along the Cantabrian coast through the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia, with stops that include Donostia-San Sebastián and Bilbao.[9] Both cities are XTOUR destinations, San Sebastián and Bilbao, but XTOUR's pages for them are about the cities, not the Camino.

The Primitive Way. The route page describes it as very similar to the original route linked to King Alfonso II in the 9th century, running from Oviedo through Asturias and into Galicia by Lugo.[10]

The distances above are the tourism site's, not XTOUR's. XTOUR has no route data and publishes no stage lengths, walking times or route difficulty.

Heritage designations

The routes carry several layers of recognition, and the sources XTOUR could open describe them only in part. The Government of Aragón's heritage portal says the Camino was declared a Conjunto Histórico Artístico in 1962, given the Council of Europe's distinction as the first European Cultural Itinerary in 1987, and declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1993.[12] Spain's tourism site says the French Way was the first route of the Camino to become a UNESCO World Heritage site.[8]

UNESCO's own pages for the property, and the Council of Europe's page on the routes, refused XTOUR's requests on 9 October 2026. XTOUR therefore does not describe the current extent of the World Heritage listing or which other routes it now includes.

How XTOUR handles the Camino

XTOUR is built around places with a fixed position, and a route of several hundred kilometres is not one. XTOUR's Spain research rejected a "Camino de Santiago" place record for that reason: XTOUR has no route entity, and a route is not a point place.

What XTOUR does list is the end point. Santiago de Compostela is an XTOUR destination, and the cathedral visit has its own guide, visiting Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. A city that a route passes through is not part of the Camino on XTOUR, and the Camino is not part of any city.

What XTOUR does not tell you

XTOUR does not publish route maps, stage lengths, accommodation, luggage transfer, walking times, difficulty, weather or safety information for any Camino route, and it does not sell Camino packages. It has not verified whether the Pilgrim's Office's rules have changed since 9 October 2026. For the country as a whole, see the Spain travel guide and the Spain country page.