How to Choose Your Camino Route (Frances, Portugues, or Norte?)

Short answer: if it is your first Camino and you have two weeks, walk the Portugues from Porto. If you have a month or more, walk the Frances. If you love the coast and you are fit, look at the Norte - but budget more for it, and know that its opening stretch in summer is beach-holiday country. We know: it is the one route we have ever quit. That is the answer we give friends, and the rest of this post is the reasoning - from eight trips that touched all three routes, plus two German-speaking walks that taught us what we look for in any route.

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 routes, as we found them

The Camino Frances - the classic. About 780 km from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago, over the Pyrenees, through Pamplona, Logrono, Burgos and Leon. The deepest history, the most pilgrims, the best infrastructure - a room and a bar in every village. Then there is the climb over the Pyrenees, the Cruz de Ferro, O Cebreiro in the mist. From Sarria, the last 100 km is the busiest walking in Spain. And there is the long flat meseta between Burgos and Leon - some pilgrims skip it, but I loved it. We have walked it in pieces across three trips - Leon to Finisterre in 2021, Ponferrada to Santiago in 2025 - and in autumn 2027 we finally walk its first half, from Saint-Jean to Leon. We went to the Frances in 2021 because Covid had kept us apart in 2020 - I hate Covid - and after two years apart we wanted the classic. It took us eight years to get to the start of it, which tells you something about both the route and us.

The Camino Portugues - the gentle introduction. From Porto, about 250 to 280 km depending on whether you take the Central route through Rates and Ponte de Lima, the Coastal route along the ocean, or mix them - ten days to two weeks of walking. Kinder terrain than the Frances, wonderful towns (Barcelos, Ponte de Lima, Tui, Pontevedra), Portuguese food and prices in the first half, and a quieter trail that still ends with the same arrival in Santiago. The Spiritual Variant, a detour through Armenteira and a boat up the River Ulla, is worth it on its own. This is the route we met on in 2019, and we walked it again in 2023. For a first camino, it is the one we recommend most.

The Camino del Norte - the one we quit. Along Spain's northern coast from Irun: green hills, cliffs, beaches, fishing towns - and climbs, every day, because the coast is never flat for long. We had looked forward to this route for years, and we left it after two days. In July, its opening stretch runs through Spain's beach-holiday coast - built-up resort towns on the way to Bilbao, holiday crowds and holiday prices, beds and meals costing noticeably more than on the Frances, and the pilgrim trail feeling like a sideline to somebody else's vacation. Maybe it changes further west; pilgrims who finish it swear that it does. We only know its start, in high summer, and it was not the camino we had come for. So we did the honest thing - train to Ponferrada, and the Frances into Santiago instead (post 1 tells that story) - and the rescued trip became one of our favourites. A route can be famous, and still be wrong for you, that year, in that season. If you walk the Norte, go fit, go funded, and consider going outside beach season.

And beyond Spain: pilgrim routes run all over Europe. We have walked the Jakobsweg across Bavaria and Tyrol and the Rheinsteig above the Rhine, and a route near somebody's home can be just as good - in 2022 I stayed at Dennis's house the night before we started the Rheinsteig. If a recognised route passes near you, do not overlook it for the famous ones.

The questions that actually settle it

Forget comparing routes in the abstract. Answer these, in order:

• How many days do you have? (Post 1's math, again.) Under a week: a last-100-km section, Sarria or Tui. Ten days to two weeks: the Portugues from Porto, whole and complete. Three weeks: a long Frances section. A month or more: the full Frances
• Is this your first? First-timers do best where the infrastructure carries them - the Frances and the Portugues, where a bed, a meal and a yellow arrow are never far. Save the Norte and the quiet routes for the second trip; you will know by then what you are choosing
• Coast or interior? Some pilgrims need the ocean in sight; others want the meseta's big skies and Romanesque churches. Neither is a small thing over two weeks - follow the landscape you daydream about
• How do you feel about company? The Frances in September is a walking village; if that sounds like fellowship, it is the most social trail in Europe. If it sounds like a queue, the Portugues Central or a spring date will suit you better
• Mountains or mercy? The Frances crosses the Pyrenees and climbs hard twice more. The Portugues rolls. The Norte climbs daily. If your knees are bad, that matters.
• How do you get there and home? A route is only as good as its airports and trains. Porto is one flight for most people and the trail starts at the cathedral; Saint-Jean takes a plane, a train and a bus - price the travel days in, as we keep saying

How we chose, trip by trip

Our own sequence looks random until you see the logic: the Portugues in 2019 because Porto was where Mike's plan and two Germans' plan happened to cross. The Frances in 2021 because after two years apart we wanted the classic. Germany in 2022, Germany into Austria in 2024, and Austria in 2026 - the walks on Nicki and Dennis's side of the Atlantic. The Portugues again in 2023 because we had a better way to walk it. The Norte in 2025 because we had wanted it for years - and the Frances again, two days in, when the Norte's expensive, touristy start was not for us; the salvaged trip became one of our favourites. And the Frances from the very start in 2027, because it is the piece of the map that has been waiting for us the longest. The pattern: alternate the new with the loved, let somebody's home turf host every few years, and never let the perfect route talk you out of going.

The honest summary

All three are good walks. What changes is the scenery, the company, and how hard they are on your knees. First time, two weeks: Porto. A month and a classicist's heart: Saint-Jean. Fit, coastal, quiet: Irun. Then walk, and let the route make its own case - most pilgrims we meet are already planning their next one, on a different route, before they reach Santiago. Choosing is not the hard part. Going is.