How Many Kilometres Should I Walk Per Day on the Camino?

Short answer: for most pilgrims, 20 to 25 km a day (about 12 to 16 miles) is the honest working range. Fit, experienced walkers settle at 25 to 30. New walkers should start at 15 to 20 and let the number grow. But treat those as starting points, not targets - because on a real Camino, the distance is rarely yours to choose. The towns choose it.

Here is what our own record says. Across seven route caminos - Spain, Portugal, Germany and Austria - we have logged 76 walking days with the distances written down. The shortest was 8.9 km. The longest was 39. The average is about 23 km a day. Almost everything we know about daily distance is inside that spread.

Everything in this post comes from our own caminos - our stage notes, our bookings and our photos. If we did not walk it or live it, it is not in here.

The towns decide more than you do

A Camino day does not end at a kilometre mark. It ends at a town you decide to stay at, and the towns are where they are. If the next good stop is 24 km away, your day is 24 km - or 31, if you push on to the one after. That is how our biggest days happened:

• 39 km, O Cebreiro down to Sarria in 2021 - the stages simply stacked up that way, and Sarria was the stop we wanted
• 36 km, Leon to Hospital de Orbigo, also 2021 - on our very first day of that camino, which is not a method we recommend
• We walked 34 km on some days in Portugal, on the Rhine and on the way to Finisterre. We were not trying to hit 34. That was just how far it was to where we stopped for the night.

And that is how our shortest day happened: 8.9 km from Koblenz to Vallendar in 2022. Vallendar was the stop for that day, so we stopped. There was no point walking past it just to make the number bigger. Nobody's Camino was ruined by a 9 km day. A few have been ruined by a 39.

Long day, short day

Nicki plans our German and Austrian routes on a pattern he stated outright in our chat: a long day of 20 to 25 km, followed by a short day under 15. Look at our Jakobsweg in 2024 and the pattern is right there: 24, 13, 18, 18, 25, 13, 14, 21, 30. The short days are not lost days. They are when feet recover, laundry gets done, and you arrive somewhere in time to actually see it.

The same rhythm shows up even when we did not plan it. Our 34 km day on the Rhine in 2022 was followed by 22, then 12.4. The 39 km into Sarria was the end of that stretch of walking altogether. You are going to take short days either way. Better to take them in a town you picked than wherever your feet give out.

Terrain is the other half of the number

25 km is not one thing. On the flat floor of the Inn valley in Austria, or across the meseta in Spain, 25 km is a steady day. In the mountains - climbing to O Cebreiro, or a Tyrol day with a few hundred metres of climbing in it - 20 km can be the bigger day. When you plan a stage, look at the climbing as well as the distance. A short day with a mountain in the middle of it is not a short day.

Time makes the same point. Walking pace with a pack is roughly 4 km an hour, and a real day includes a coffee stop, a long lunch with a couple of beers if you are doing it right, and a few pauses nobody logs - unless you are logging them in Townstamp. So:

• 15 km is about 4 to 5 hours, door to door
• 20 km is about 5.5 to 6.5 hours
• 25 km is about 7 to 8 hours
• 30 km and over is 8 to 9 hours, and the day starts to be about nothing else

Leave in the morning with those hours in mind and you will arrive in daylight, in time for a shower, a wash of clothes and a table. Arrive at dusk every day and the Camino becomes a commute.

Rest days are part of the distance

Our favourite rest day was never in the plan. On Camino 4, in May 2023, we stopped for a beer at Macedo's Bar in São Pedro de Rates - the bar where we had met in 2019, on our first camino. An American couple who were visiting the area overheard us telling the story of that first meeting and offered to buy us a beer. We sat back down. Two hours later we were still there, deep in one of those afternoons the Camino specialises in.

The husband, who was driving and drinking Pepsi, would not hear of us walking on - and in fairness, by then it had been more than one round, so we were in no shape to argue. He drove us the last 10 km to where we were staying, the RioVerde Agroturismo outside Barcelos, with an outdoor pool and grounds too nice to leave after one night - so we didn't. We stayed an extra day. That is the day one of us more or less learned to swim. For the rest of the camino, Nicki told anyone who would listen: the man lives on an island, cannot swim, and eats no fish. And his island, he would add, has more rabbits than people.

Build days like that into your thinking. Our working rule: one rest day, or at least one very short day, in every week of walking. If your daily number only works with no rest days in it, the number is too big.

Finding your number

• Start from the route, not your fitness. Divide the kilometres you want to walk by the walking days you honestly have (that is post 1's math). If the answer comes out above 30, the plan - not your legs - needs to change
• Test it at home, on back-to-back days. One long walk proves almost nothing. Walk your planned distance two days running, with your pack. The second morning is the truth
• Start the camino shorter than your number. Give the first two or three days 15 to 20 km while your feet and shoulders learn the job. We do not always take our own advice - see the 36 km first day above - but we give it
• Let the number breathe. Plan a range, not a figure: a long day when the towns stretch out and the ground is flat, a short one after it, a rest day where the map offers something worth resting in. The walkers who finish are not the ones with the biggest daily number. They are the ones whose number bent instead of breaking them

The honest summary

There is no correct daily distance, and the pilgrims walking beside you are doing everything from 10 to 40 km. Our own 76 days averaged about 23, and the shape of the thing matters more than the average: long and short alternating, terrain counted, a rest day in the week, and each day ending in a town we picked because we wanted to stop there. Plan the long days, the short days and the rest days, and the daily distance looks after itself.

Buen camino - at whatever distance is yours.