This spiritual pilgrimage in Spain is the world's best hike – here's why

Time Out

29-04-2025

When I set off on my first Camino, I too thought it was just a hike. I'd heard about it two years prior from a friend who'd recently been on pilgrimage.
'It's this 500-mile walk across Spain,' he said. 'You get to see the entire country's landscape change before you and drink amazing wine, and there's hostels all along the way especially for pilgrims that serve huge meals for super cheap, and you'll meet so many incredible people from all around the world.'
His feverish excitement fed mine, but if I'm completely honest, it was the phrase 500-mile walk that enamoured me. A month-long self-guided hike along a well-frequented path sounded like a doable challenge. That, and the convenience of an affordable trip to Europe made it perfect for my first-ever solo international journey.
The walk he'd been speaking about was the Camino Francés. One of many Caminos de Santiago – literally Ways of Saint James – this one begins in the French Pyrenees, traversing red-dirt wine country, a sun-baked grain belt, and evergreen highlands on its way to northwest Spain. Over 240,000 trod it in 2024, making it the most popular route among the year's 400,000 peregrinos on record. Other Ways, like the Camino Portugués and the Camino del Norte, follow the coastlines, while the Camino de Madrid and Vía de la Plata pass fortified Arabesque hilltop cities and the inland plains separating the north from southern commercial centres.
'Even witless walkers can't avoid the Camino's profound experiences'
While it's known today as a Catholic pilgrimage, the Way existed long before the Church enshrined what it claimed were James the Apostle's remains at Santiago de Compostela. For centuries, it served as a route to Finisterre – or Land's End – on the Atlantic coast, where Druids and Romans prayed to their own gods. Pilgrims who'd tasted the sea's salty air carried scallop shells back home, and today, shell markings guide travelers along their journey.
I learned all this later of course. Legends travel like wind on the Camino, and I heard of enchantments like a fountain that runs with wine and an iron cross that makes the weight you carry lighter. I then drank from that fountain and lightened my load. Many pilgrims come seeking self-growth, healing, and miracles, but thanks to its 2,000-year heritage as a spiritual quest, even witless walkers like me who think they've come for mere sport can't avoid the Camino's profound experiences. I've now walked it three times. I've yet to meet a pilgrim who's not felt their sense of self shifted by the time they reached the Pórtico da Gloria where the road ends.
Unlike other hikes, the Camino did not challenge me against the wilderness, but against my own will. Despite trying every preventative measure imaginable, my feet blew up with blisters every time, and each day I had to make the painful decision to keep walking. I weighed the importance of my belongings, knowing it'd be my own demise if I carried too much baggage. In recent years, it's become possible to ship your backpack along daily for a nominal fee, but I'd argue this easy out is environmentally unsustainable and denies you the transformative reward of letting go of your burdens once you reach Santiago.
'While intrinsically contemplative, the Camino is also inherently social'
The Camino's wonders outweighed its woes. Like finding the perfect walking stick. Or receiving a homemade meal from someone who didn't even speak my language. Or stumbling upon an open-air farmhouse where modern-day nomads lived off the land, offering pilgrims plump fruit, fresh juice, and a place to rest in their bedouin shelter.
While intrinsically contemplative (most pilgrims walk 10–20 miles a day), the Camino is also inherently social. I'm shy by nature, but on a long and lonesome road where everyone had the same destination, I couldn't help spilling my secrets to strangers. Time warped while walking eight-hour stretches together. Days turned into lifetimes and strangers into age-old friends. A retiree from Basque once found a hat I'd lost and carried it for two weeks until our paths crossed again. While wearing low-top shoes that squished my toes, I met a girl with the same size feet whose wide-toed boots were bruising her ankles — when we swapped, we were like two Cinderellas who'd found their Prince Charmings.
Whether you walk with a deeper purpose or not, the Camino works on you. On my first Camino – coming from a skeptical, and sometimes downright pessimistic, atheology – I found myself believing in a higher power: I'd experienced too many happy coincidences for there not to have been someone, or some thing, looking out for me. On my second Camino, I walked with a partner, testing our ardour against the arduous road. On my third Camino, I set off with a fellowship of pilgrims whose tribe mentality pushed me to break out on my own. Each Camino taught me its own lesson of trust – in God, in my fellow man, then in myself.
We peregrinos often remind each other: 'Everyone must walk their own Camino,' and if you, too, choose to walk this path, you'll create your own challenges and bring your own worries. But there are so many people to help you along the way. So much beautiful scenery to breathe in. So much timeless tradition in which to enrobe yourself. So many tapas and tortillas and tintos. And finally, there is the unparalleled strength of body and peace of mind when you reach Santiago.