Walking the Camino de Santiago in sections over several years

Not everyone has a month in a row to walk to Santiago. That is why many people walk the Camino in sections: a week this autumn, another at Easter, another the following summer, until they reach the Obradoiro. It is as valid a way to walk the Camino as any other, and it has its tricks.

This guide is written from O Porriño, on the Portuguese Way, where every year we see pilgrims come back exactly where they left off.

How to plan it

End each section somewhere well connected

Each section should finish in a place with a train or bus, so you can go home and come back the following year without hassle. On the French Way, for example, Pamplona, Logroño, Burgos, León, Ponferrada and Sarria are good places to stop. On the Portuguese Way, Porto, Tui and Pontevedra.

Always start where you left off

Write down the exact spot where you finish each section: the albergue, the street or the waymarker. When you return, start right there. It sounds obvious, but a year later it is easy to forget.

Choose the season for each section

Walking in sections has one advantage: you can walk each area at its best. The Meseta on the French Way in spring or autumn. Galicia in May, June or September, when it rains less and there is more room.

The pilgrim document and the Compostela

Use the same pilgrim document for the whole Camino and keep stamping it on every section. If it fills up, get a new one and keep the old ones to present them together.

To get the Compostela, what counts is walking the last 100 kilometres (200 by bike), with at least two stamps a day on that section. Before you start, check the current requirements with the Pilgrim's Office in Santiago.

The hard part: keeping your memories together

Walking the Camino over several trips has a problem a single trip does not: your memories end up scattered. October photos in one place, April photos in another, and when you arrive it is hard to see the Camino as one journey.

That is why it helps to keep a single journal for the whole Camino and write in it on every section, even if months pass in between.

With Waymino that happens on its own. It is a band you wear while you walk: hold your phone near it and your journal opens, and you save photos and notes from every stage. The journal stays open until you reach Santiago, even if it takes you a year. Each time you return to the Camino, you carry on where you left off. When you arrive, one tap creates a memory video of the whole route.

To be clear about one detail: for now the journal counts consecutive days from the day you start, and does not pause between sections. We are working on a mode designed for pilgrims who walk in sections.

If your goal is to arrive in 2027

2027 is a Compostela Holy Year. If you want to walk into Santiago that year, a good approach is to walk the first sections now and leave the last 100 kilometres for 2027. Book ahead: in a Holy Year the albergues in Galicia fill up early.

Buen Camino, one section at a time.