Routes of the Portuguese Camino

There are many ways to tailor the Portuguese Camino to fit your needs. It has three traditional starting points and a number of popular variations. The traditional Portuguese Camino starts in Lisbon, passes through Porto, then onto the border of Portugal and Spain at Tui, ending at Santiago de Compostela after 610 km. The book Camino Portugues published by Village to Village Press breaks down the the Camino into 26 stages, or 26 days.

The most popular spot to start the Portuguese Camino is in Tui, Spain, meaning many pilgrims who walk the Portuguese Camino never step foot in Portugal. Tui is the most popular starting point becuase it sits 115 km from Santiago de Compostela: the minimum distance a pilgrim has to walk in order to earn their Compostela (Certificate of Completion) is 100 km. The other nice thing about this distance is most people can complete this walk in a week so they only have to take off a week of work. This is also the reason why Sarria, on the Camino Frances in Spain, also approximately 115km outside Santiago de Compostela is by far the most popular starting point of all the Caminos. (I wrote a book about my Sarria Camino, From Sarria to Santiago: A 10-Day Camino With Family and Friends, which is available on Amazon.com - see link in sidebar.)

Rosemary and I will be starting our Camino in Porto, 260 km from Santiago, the second most popular jump off point on the Portuguese Camino.

From Porto, there are two popular variants to the traditional or Central Route that passes through the middle of Portugal and into Spain. The first is the Coastal Route. This route has grown in immense popularity in recent years. It had an increase of over 20,000 pilgrims from 2022-2023, while the Central Route's numbers remained roughly the same. The Coastal Route follows the Douro River out of Porto to the coast, then follows the coast until Vigo, then goes upriver to Redondela where it then meets up the Central Route. Rosemary and I will walk two days along the coast before we cut over to the Central Route.

The second variant, is the Spiritual Way. It splits from the Portuguese Camino in Pontevedra, goes to Vilanova de Arousa, then connects back to the Portuguese Way at Padron. This variant adds an extra day to a pilgrim's journey, but the journey from Vilanova de Arousa to Padron is by boat along the Way of the Cross. This was the way St. James' body supposedly travelled to Padron where it was then carried to Santiago de Compostela.

To conclude, there are many places to start the Portuguese Camino, and various options to make it your own. I hope this posts gives you more options and insight into the planning your Portuguese Camino.

If you like this blog, please subscibe and check out my YouTube Channel @johnpetersii and TikTok @jp2writer where I vlog about the Camino. If there is anything you would like to know about our previous Camino from Sarria or our upcoming Camino, please ask in the comments.

Buen Camino!