We know the various Ways to Santiago well, after more than a decade walking and biking them several times a year with groups of all sizes and ages. We know the best hotels, restaurants, sights to see, which stretches of which stages offer the most attractive walking, in which season, etc., etc.

What itinerary choices do you have?
The Camino is a linear walk, following a defined route and therefore leaves little room for improvisation insofar as the actual path to be followed. The main choices come down to:

• how much time you have available. If you are thinking of doing a long walk, consider that the itinerary can be broken up into various stages, to be completed over a period of months or year. For example, many people who want to want to walk the entire way from St. Jean Pied-de-Port in France, just on the French side of the Pyrenees, typically break up the nearly 800 km into 3 walks of approximately 2 weeks each, completed over the course of 18 months - limiting the walking to the best times of year, spring and autumn.

• where to start from - and therefore total distance to be walked. Of course, you can start your walk from anywhere along the established route. The only requirement by the Pilgrim's Office in Santiago in order to receive the certificate of completion is to have walked the final 100 km into Santiago. In practical terms, at least for the most popular route - the French Way - this means walking at least from the town of Sarria - located 112 km from Santiago, and reachable by RENFE, the Spanish National Railway.

  You should start your walk from a city or town that is reachable by public transport. Typical starting point cities are (in order to distance away from Santiago) Sarria, Villafranca del Bierzo, Ponferrada, León, Burgos, Pamplona and finally, St.Jean-Pied-de-Port. We can advise you on the best way to get to any of these cities - but - we cannot arrange your travel itself.

• average daily distance you would like to walk. This is somewhat limited by logistical constrainsts of the location of the cities, towns and villages along the route and whether they offer suitable lodgings. The Pilgrimage has been divided up into "standard" stages that have come into being over the years, based on the location of towns along the Way, but occasionally, these may be too far spaced for your preferred distance or may not offer suitable lodgings. In these cases, you will need a taxi to take you to a nearby town either further ahead or backwards along the route, which does have a suitable lodging. The next day you would return by taxi to wherever you had stopped walking and continue. In our experience, we are usually able to avoid the excessive use of such taxi rides.

• how often you want a rest day. Frequency of rest days and daily distance are the most crucial factors in successfully completing this walk, especially if you plan to walk more than just 1 week at a time.

We can arrange:

• a suitable itinerary based on your desired average walking distance

• nightly accomodations in establishments of the quality level that you desire. Our standard lodgings are of 1 - 2* quality hotels and inns in smaller villages and towns, and 3* in larger towns and cities. Upgrades are most easily arranged for stays in the larger towns and cities. We cannot arrange lodging in Pilgrim's Hostels - albergues in Spanish, as these function on a first-come, first-served basis and do not accept bookings.

• daily luggage transfer between accomodations

• taxi transfers between accomodations and starting or ending points of daily walks should this be necessary due to a lack of suitable accomodations at said starting or ending points.