How much did I spend on my Camino?
I did not track my spending every day on the Camino. I withdrew large amounts of cash Euros a few times, and spent from that. Therefore, it was easy to look back at my total spending related to the Camino. I took out anything related to airfare/airports/trains/transit for getting myself to SJPDP, and home from Santiago. My goal was to extract the day-to-day spending numbers on the Camino walking days. Transit to and from Spain/the Way will vary person to person.
The results: I spent 27 Euro per walking day.
Details on what my habits were that resulted in this spending level:
I stayed in Albergues almost every night, so they were between 5 and 12 Euro, depending if municipal/private/donativo. Some municipal are as low as 5 Euro per night, the private ones are usually 10-12 Euro per night, and when they were ‘donativo’ and provided meals and community, I donated as much as 20 or 30 Euro, depending. I stayed in a private room somewhere mid-route which was 25 Eruro, and I got a very swanky private room for two nights in Muxia to commemorate the end of my walk.
Near the start of my walk, I did almost exclusively groceries & my own cooking. I did not go to restaurants or buy pilgrim meals. I only spent money on coffees at cafes to have somewhere to rest/use the toilet. These are usually 1.10 Euro to 1.5 Euro. I did not focus on buying inexpensive groceries – I bought fresh produce, cheeses, meats, avocados, fish, etc – I made myself extravagant meals because I had lots of time to do so. You could do much more basic pastas/salads and be way cheaper. I studied my guidebook each day and tried to find Albergues that had a kitchen so that I could do my own food preparation. If I ended up somewhere without a kitchen, I would do a salad or sandwich meal that I could make with my very minimal ‘kitchen’ I was carrying (foldable plates, pocket knife, spork, and mug).
Near the end of my walk, I got more interested in the unique communal meals at some Albergues, and chose to pay for a few of those, usually 10 to 15 Euro per meal. They were well worth it at several of the Albergues! I wrote a day by day journal that touches on some of this stuff, though that is not the focus. I turned it into a blog upon my return.
I did the occasional ‘special’ event, such as the chocolate museum in Astorga. None of these things were particularly expensive or frequent.
I hope this is helpful for you to make an educated guess about how much you will spend on your Camino!
