Camino - The World's Best Hike

Table of Contents

Intro – Camino – The World's Best Hike
Contemplative but also Inherently Social
Videos – Camino – The World's Best Hike
References

Intro – Camino – The World’s Best Hike

Walking the Camino is a life changing adventure. Physically challenging and full of profound experiences, the Camino de Santiago is the most renowned long-distance trail on Earth. Over 240,000 trod it in 2024.

The Camino de Santiago heads the list on Time Out’s list of the world’s best hikes for 2025.

The probability is high that you know someone who has done Camino. There are 9 routes that lead to Santiago starting in France, Spain and/ or Portugal. The ‘Portuguese Way’ is now the most popular with 32% of all Caminos starting in Porto. The Portuguese Way includes a ‘Central Way’ and the ‘Coastal Way’.

Pushed for time? The shorter 5-7 days route starting and ending in Spain is now gaining traction, ideal for all those with a time constraint. Cycling Camino from Lisbon or Porto is hugely popular.

Contemplative but also Inherently Social

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.

Dana Cape Contributor, Time Out Travel

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 (16-32 kms) 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 something, looking out for me.

The 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 group 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.

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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…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.

Walkers along the Camino de Santiago greet each other and are greeted with a Buen Camino (in Spanish), Bon Camino (in Galego) or Bom Caminho (in Portuguese). There is also another traditional Camino greeting: ‘Ultreia! ‘ to which you must reply ‘et Suseia’, onwards and upwards.