About Camino de Santiago
For more than a thousand years, pilgrims have walked across Spain to the shrine of St. James in Santiago de Compostela, and the web of routes they wore into the landscape — the Camino de Santiago — has become one of the world's great journeys, sacred or secular. The final stages through Galicia are the classic experience: eucalyptus and oak woods, stone hamlets and horreo granaries, scallop-shell waymarks, and the ritual greeting of 'Buen Camino' passing between walkers of every nation.
The destination earns the journey. Santiago's granite old town, arcaded and rain-polished, wraps around the great Cathedral of St. James, where pilgrims have laid hands on the Portico of Glory since the twelfth century, and where the giant botafumeiro censer swings through the transept on feast days in a cloud of incense. Walk even the last hundred kilometers and you'll understand why so many arrive in tears — and why so many come back to walk again.
Pavlus Recommendations
How our planners would spend a day in Camino de Santiago.
Walk a classic Galician stage
Even a day's stretch — Sarria to Portomarín, or the last miles into Santiago — delivers the full Camino: waymarked woods, village churches, café stamps in your pilgrim credential, and camaraderie in every language.
Arrive at the Praza do Obradoiro
Stepping from the lanes into the cathedral square, backpack on, is one of travel's emotional summits. Linger — every few minutes another pilgrim arrives and the scene repeats.
Attend the Pilgrim's Mass
Noon mass in the cathedral gathers the day's arrivals beneath the gilded altar of St. James — and if the botafumeiro flies, you'll never forget it.
Tours That Visit Camino de Santiago
Book any of these through Pavlus and pay less — never a service fee. Browse the full catalog → or call 800-528-9300 for your unadvertised Pavlus price.