The Camino de Santiago with kids

Bronagh Carroll, co-founder of our partners Magic Hill Holidays, has spent several years exploring thousands of kilometres along the Camino de Santiago with her family. The aim? To ensure that the advice they give to walkers taking on this iconic pilgrimage route is always born from personal experience.

In 2018, Bronagh hiked the 93km from her home in Santiago de Compostela to the coastal town of Finisterre along the Finisterre Way in the company of her 14-year-old nephew during his school summer holiday.

“The teenage years can be tricky, and I really feel that family has a big role to play in preparing kids for adulthood,” says Bronagh. “We can’t just rely on their teachers.

“I saw this holiday as a huge opportunity to get my nephew thinking about his possibilities in life. And I created tasks to give him that I think will be valuable experiences to help him take advantage of those opportunities, from flying to Spain on his own to daily budgeting. I think walking the Camino opened up the whole world to him. He learned what he was capable of and met people from so many different backgrounds.”

There’s a saying that everyone walks their own Camino. It’s wonderful seeing this adventure through the eyes of a child as they rise to the challenge and discover their potential. Bronagh was amazed at the change in her nephew in just one week. “You’ll always have your activity holidays in resorts on the Costas, but the Camino is for families who want something more.”

The French Way is the best Camino route for families, with the most services, the most accommodation options, and the most people on it, making it very sociable. Along with the Santiago to Finisterre walk, the final section of the French Way is what Bronagh Carroll always recommends for families, especially newcomers to the Camino. Stretches of the Portuguese Way are also popular, with the potential for regular beach swims.

But while it’s certainly manageable for families, the challenge of the French Way is not to be underestimated either.

“The route goes through Galicia, which is a wet region, with lots of rivers and lots of ups and downs,” says Jaime. “It’s very hilly and there are some big distances, so walking it means long and tiring days. In some places you can break up the stages to make it more manageable, but in others there just isn’t the accommodation to allow you to do that. And, of course, younger kids can’t walk so fast.”

Rasmus Pedersen, from our partner Spain is More, recommends a family Camino holiday along the Northern Way.

“For families, you want to have shorter stages of around 11-14 km per day and nice hotels, which is what we’ve been able to arrange on this Camino,” says Rasmus. “When creating a family-friendly trip, it was important to us to offer other activities than ‘just’ walking too, so you can stop for a day to surf or go canoeing. The region is famous for dinosaurs’ footsteps, and you can visit an interesting dinosaur museum or see ancient cave paintings. Plus, you have really nice beaches.”

If you are planning to walk the Camino with kids, it’s advisable to organise it through an experienced tour operator who can ensure you’re on one of the more family-friendly sections, and – crucially – that you have suitable accommodation booked ahead of you.

“Walking the Camino when everything is planned for you gives you a lot of peace of mind – and that’s the whole idea,” says Rasmus.

Besides a good supply of snacks, pre-booking your accommodation is one of the essentials of walking the Camino de Santiago with children. Many pilgrims choose to wing it and stay in dorms every night, but that’s not suitable with younger children. And, as Bronagh points out, the Camino has become very popular since Covid due to the sense of freedom and open-air exercise it provides, so finding a bed on arrival is getting harder in peak walking season.

“The Camino is not family-friendly as such, not touristy; it’s all about the local experience,” says Bronagh. “But when we organise a holiday, all our accommodation is private rooms with private bathrooms. It’s not Malaga; these are really, really rural areas with limited family rooms, so we recommend booking a good six weeks in advance.”

The Camino is perfectly safe for children, with clearly waymarked routes and regular drinking fountains, and you’re rarely far from a community where you can find food, a taxi or medical attention if needed. Sun and rain protection are essential of course, as is good walking footwear to prevent strains, but it’s endurance rather than safety that is the main challenge for families walking the Camino.

The beauty of a tailor made family walking holiday on the Camino is that organisers take the ages and abilities of kids into account. They can lengthen or shorten walking days as appropriate (where possible), as well as sorting out your luggage transfers and recommending restaurants suitable for families. And you’ll have 24/7 support for peace of mind too.

There’s nothing to stop you from walking with your baby on the Camino, but you’d need to be well-organised to do it for more than a few nights. Not many of the traditional Camino accommodations will be geared up for babies, and feeding/changing on the walk could be difficult, given that babies aren’t always prepared to wait for the next inn.

You can definitely walk sections of the Camino with a toddler, so long as you pace yourselves and accept that there’s probably going to be a fair amount of carrying involved. Bronagh can offer first-hand advice: in 2022, her 20-month-old son, Leo, became the youngest Irish person to walk the Camino, as he accompanied his parents for 115km over 10 days on the final section of the French Way.

While he certainly put a good shift in, much of Leo’s personal journey was completed in an all-terrain pram – from where he no doubt spent his time reflecting on this towering achievement and where it might take him in future. Toddlers can toddle along happily for a half-hour or so but they will need to be carried, pushed or pulled for much of the way – and remember that while there are frequent stretches of dirt road suitable for a durable buggy or scooter, there are plenty of other parts that are not.