You’ve got Camino Questions: How crowded will it be? Which month is busiest? Which routes are busiest? Where is everyone from? What's the best way to travel? Or maybe you just love charts and numbers!
Regardless, we’ve got some data for you. This Camino de Santiago statistics page is designed to help you gain a greater understanding of the Camino and help to inform your decision making about route and timing.
High-Level Pilgrim Statistics
For our analysis, we’re just looking at the high-level stats and the more popular routes and start points. For a deeper dive, we encourage you to check out the full data set published by the Pilgrim’s Reception office in Santiago.
They reported 476,608 pilgrims receiving a compostela in 2024. This is a 7% increase over 2023 and an 82% increase since 2015. The Camino certainly isn’t static – how and where pilgrims are experiencing it is always evolving.
For instance, several chosen routes have been growing faster than the traditional Francés route. Year-over-year, the Francés was up 8%, while the Portuguese Coastal (also called the Littoral) was up 42%. There was also disproportionate growth on the Inglés (+16%) and the Primitivo (+18%).
We also see evidence for quite a bit of growth in people seeking alternative start points for a 5-6 day, 100-kilometer option. While 32% of pilgrims report starting in Sarria, there has been year-over-year growth for start points in Ferrol, Vigo, and Tui/Valenca do Mihno–all of which are also in that 100k sweet spot.
The Pilgrim’s Reception Office in Santiago, which issues guidance for what qualifies for the compostela, will be making some changes to the 100k requirements. This will likely further affect both the routes and the start points for people seeking shorter pilgrimages.
One disadvantage to the Pilgrim’s Office statistics is that they can only count people requesting a compostela once the pilgrim finishes in Santiago. The methodology can’t measure pilgrims who go on a Camino route but who don’t end up in Santiago, or those who do end up there but don’t request a compostela. So, their stats will miss pilgrims who, for instance, start in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (SJPdP) but only do a part of the Francés.
The SJPdP Pilgrim office also counts people who visit their welcome center. According to their 2024 report, they counted 58,451 pilgrims, which is nearly 26,000 more pilgrims than those reported by the Santiago pilgrim office. Using this as a proxy, it’s possible that the pilgrim figures are under-reported by 20%...or more.
Here's an infographic that we've created to illustrate some of these stats. And you can scroll further for more detail.
And What Are the US Pilgrims Up To?
Here at American Pilgrims on the Camino, we also have our own metrics, which we gather through our credential request program. In 2024, we received 12,332 credential requests, which represents ~32% of the US pilgrims who ended up in Santiago (noted above). This was a 25% growth over 2023 (!) and 93% growth since 2015 (!!)
For the first time in 2024, pilgrims from the US became the second most prevalent nationality (8%) after the Spaniards (57%). The US Pilgrims are also different in a few significant ways. US women represent a higher percentage than globally (61% vs 54%).
We also tend to skew older with 71% of US pilgrims being age 46+ vs 53% globally. This could be attributable to the large number of Spanish families and school groups who go on Camino in the summer. It may also be affected by the lower amount of vacation time that US workers receive relative to our European counterparts, with some people opting to wait until retirement. Or maybe US pilgrims are just rockin’ their retirements.
Either way, the US pilgrims are also rockin’ it on the longer routes and are twice as likely to start in SJPdP.
4 Camino Stats: Myths and Misunderstandings
We see a lot of opinions and advice about the Camino in our own Facebook group and around the web. Usually, those opinions offer genuinely helpful advice about when, where, how, or why to go on the Camino. But sometimes, that advice can be rooted in personal experience and not reflective of the Camino at large. Here are a few things that the data tells us:
1. “August and September are the Worst/Busiest Months to Go”
82% of pilgrims arrive in Santiago between May and October (source: Pilgrim’s Reception Office). However, in 2024, slightly more people ended their pilgrimage in May than either August or September.
In addition, 87% of pilgrims who started in SJPdP did so between April and September (source: SJPdP Welcome office). April, May, and September are somewhat busier than June, July, and August— but not drastically so.
Our advice: Go whenever it’s convenient for your schedule and your personal tolerance for the weather.
2. “Too Many People Start from Sarria, Making it too Busy”
Sarria is indeed the most popular starting point, with 32% of pilgrims beginning their journey there (source: Pilgrim’s Reception Office). But this means that 68% are starting somewhere else. This section of trail is not busy solely because of the people starting in Sarria. It’s busy because it’s the confluence of the Francés, Primitivo, Norte, and a variant of the Via de la Plata. All of them connect in or just after Sarria.
Our advice: You can certainly get a bed or find tranquility by deploying strategies like:
- Be flexible. Staying off of the typical guidebook stages allows you to slip into quiet pockets of the trail.
- Stay in municipal or parroquial albergues. Many pilgrims on this section make advance reservations and/or have luggage portaged. Municipal and parroquial albergues allow neither.
- Be openhearted about sharing your space with other pilgrims.
3. In Order to “Do the Whole Thing”, You Have to Start in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
The Camino is a very personal journey, and there is no “whole thing” other than however you choose to define it. This should take into account factors like how much time you have and your personal goals for the pilgrimage.
SJPdP is a lovely French village and a great place to start the Camino Francés, but it’s just one of many possible places to start this popular route.
Last year, on a “pick your distance” adventure, 4,386 pilgrims started in Roncesvalles, and 13,282 others started in Pamplona, Burgos, or Leon. This gave them plenty of distance for a long, satisfying pilgrimage.
Our advice: Choose a starting point that serves your personal goals, making sure it fits in with your timeframe and personal fitness.
4. The Camino is for People Who are Walking
Indeed, 93% of the pilgrims who received a compostela last year did so by arriving on foot. But there’s also been proportional growth in people arriving by bike, horse, sailboat, and wheelchair (in that order).
We recognized these efforts, and in 2024, our grant program awarded $12,000 for a transport van and all-terrain motorized wheelchairs to the Caminos Adaptivos and Asociacion Discamino de Santiago programs.
Learn More About the Camino
- The history of the Camino.
- Planning your Camino.
- Camino route overviews.
- Get inspiration from our quarterly web magazine, La Concha.
Rev 1/27/25