The main costs for any of the Camino de Santiago routes divides into two sections, travelling to and from your start and finish points, then day to day costs on the Camino itself.
Day to Day Costs While Walking
The most popular Camino routes are the Camino Frances and the Portuguese Camino. Both of these routes have good infrastructures for pilgrims the most important of these are hostels, which are the cheapest places to stay. Just a quick note on the hostels: almost all of the hostels you see in any pilgrim guide are only for pilgrims.
Day to day living can be very reasonable – alternatively I know of people that stayed in hotels all along the route, and I have met one man who stayed in every Parador he could. I stayed almost always in albergues, two nights while on the way I stayed in a pension (bed and breakfast), it cost about €20 each time for one room for myself – this though is along the way in small villages and towns – expect to pay a lot more in Santiago or any of the major cities, it is about double this for a low end hotel.
Therefore:
Albergue each night 7 to 12 euro
Evening Meal 9 to 12 euro
I would start each morning in a cafe having breakfast, about €3 inc coffee. During the rest of the day I would spend about €4 on coffee, tea, cold drinks, and ice cream. Lunch I would make myself: cold meats, cheese, bread, and fruits, about €3. Sometime I would eat in the albergue in the evening, cooking with some others, sometimes eating out.
Total costs per day: 35 Euro, about $47 or £28
Hostel: 12, Evening Meal: 12, Breakfast: 3, Lunch: 3, sundries: 5 – note no beer money included here. (My word of warning: my budget for any trip has never been under my plan it has always been over)
Effectively you can walk the whole route taking 31 days and it will cost about €1,085, personally I would budget for another few hundred if possible, things just happen.
(My daily costs were between €20-30 – back in 2005. Over the four weeks that I walked I spent about €1000, €250 per week, therefore just over €35 per day on average. I always made sure that I always had money for any emergencies, (never used or needed). My bank cards worked fine in all the Spanish bank machines and the same for my credit card)
Travel to the Start of the Camino
Getting to the start points of any of the Camino routes is not simple and takes a little planning. For example the most common start points of the Camino Frances, St Jean Pied de Port or Pamplona, do not have large airports. If you are travelling from outside of Europe this thread on the Camino forum has great information on the best connections for flying and train travel in Spain.
I flew to Paris the first time and travelled by overnight train on SNCF to Bayonne; the connection from here to St Jean is easy and very short; alternatively stay on the same train to Pamplona. The second time I drove from Vienna and left my car at Roncesvalles for four weeks, the car park is free but has no security.
The amount you spend on air travel will depend on how far away from Spain you live and how you get there. However air travel is one of the major expenses – currently this is my favourite booking engine for comparing flight costs.
Getting home. I think most would book their return flights, more so if you are flying outside of Europe. I didn’t. I wanted some flexibility; I had all summer and did not know if I would finish the Camino before I went to France and Spain for more travel.
It can be expensive to pay for any returns flights from Santiago de Compostela if they are not booked in advance. If you have to be back for a certain time for work, family or anything I would recommend booking your tickets in advance, especially in July and August. There is a rumour that goes around every year that Spanish Airlines will provide reduced flight prices for pilgrims – I have never seen any evidence of this.
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