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Should you pre-book your accommodation for the Camino Portugués? Next to the discussion about footwear, this is probably the hottest question in Camino forums.
The Camino Portugués is different than the Camino Francés — the age-old advice of “just walk a little further to find a place to sleep” doesn’t always apply, and it can leave pilgrims out in the cold (literally). I’ve walked and mapped all of the Portuguese Routes, and below you can find my best answer to this question.
Have a question? Leave a comment at the bottom and I’ll reply right away 🙂
Can you pre-book accommodation on the Camino Portugués?
You can pre-book some accommodation on the Camino Portugués. Municipal albergues (pilgrim hostels, cheapest option) are first-come, first-served, and do not accept reservations. Private albergues do accept reservations, as do hotels and general hostels, and guest houses.
Should you pre-book?
Some people will wing it for their entire Camino and have no problems. Others will try this and have issues (lack of beds, higher prices, etc.) There’s no black and white answer when it comes to pre-booking. Here are some pros and cons.
Pre-booking pros:
- No stress about getting a bed
- You’re in control of your budget
Pre-booking cons:
- You can’t change your itinerary*
- If you make friends, you’re not flexible to stay in the same albergues
*You can travel by bus/train/taxi between towns instead of walking, if necessary.
Do the cons outweigh the pros? It will depend on a number of variables for your specific trip. Weigh the following considerations to see what feels most comfortable for you.
Get more help in my 2025 step-by-step Camino planning guide.
Considerations
What factors should you weigh when deciding whether or not to pre-book your Camino Portuguese accommodation?
2025 is a Holy Year
2025 is a Holy Year for the Catholic Church. This means a surge of pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago as well as other pilgrim trails, like the Via Francigena (a pilgrimage that ends in Vatican City). Keep this in mind if you’re taking in advice from people on forums about how busy the Camino typically is in any given month.
Time of Year
The Camino is quiet, peaceful, and introspective in winter. Albergues aren’t full; many of them aren’t even open. Prices are low, and competition for beds (in hotels as well) is non-existent. Summer is the opposite in every way.
Here you can see the number of pilgrims who walked the Portuguese Way in 2024, broken down by month (courtesy of the Pilgrim’s Office):
The important seasonal factors, in a nutshell, are:
- Summer: Accommodations are crowded and more expensive.
- Winter: Some albergues are closed, but hotels are open (and less expensive).
For example, we stayed in a hotel in Viana do Castelo that was €35 in winter and almost €300 in August. It’s good to remember that all people (not just pilgrims) are on vacation in the summer, and Portugal and Spain are very popular holiday destinations.
The Camino is at its worst when it’s overcrowded. Everything becomes more expensive, and competition for albergues is at its peak. Most importantly, surges put a strain on the local communities along the trail.
It’s better for pilgrims and locals if the crowds are spread out more evenly across the months. Times to avoid:
- Peak months (reference above graph)
- Holy Week
- Easter
Get help deciding when to walk in my guide: When To Walk The Camino Portugués.
Budget
People will say “the Camino provides,” but it’s good to remember that the Camino doesn’t always provide something in your price range. People with money to spare will be more comfortable not pre-booking. If the albergue is full and you can afford a spontaneous night(s) in a hotel, then planning is less of a worry.
As for budget travelers, pre-booking is a way to guarantee you don’t overspend your accommodation budget.
If you’re looking to spend as little money as possible on your Camino, then you will stay at municipal albergues, which cannot be booked in advance. You will need to show up early enough in the afternoon to get a bed. This leads to the next consideration.
Walking Speed/Distance
Fast walkers can arrive early and get a bunk bed at an albergue. Slower walkers may arrive after bunk beds are booked and will need to find something more expensive.
I once met a pilgrim who did the whole Camino in 45-kilometer days. He left early and arrived late. When the Camino is busy, arriving late means arriving after albergues are full. Approaching a Camino this way required him to pre-book.
You may also like: Seniors’ Guide to the Portuguese Way
Type of Accommodation Desired
Are you particular about what you want? Example: Only wanting a private room in an albergue.
Or do you have accessibility needs? Example: Needing a bed with an outlet next to it to charge a hearing aid.
Or are there special places you want to stay? Example: The Monastery of Santa María in Armenteira (on the Spiritual Variant).
Spontaneity doesn’t always grant you many options. If you have deal-breaker conditions for your Camino, booking ahead will serve you better.
Luggage Transfer
Many walkers choose not to carry their bags while walking the Camino, and instead use a luggage transfer service. A luggage transfer service works like this:
- You leave your bag at your albergue, hotel, etc. in the morning.
- The luggage transfer company comes and picks it up.
- They deliver it to your next accommodation by car.
- It’s there when you arrive.
This doesn’t need to be booked in advance. With one company, you can book a next-day transfer as late as 8 pm the night before. Some companies also allow you to change or cancel your reservation without fees.
But you do need to be staying at accommodations that the transfer companies pick up at. For example, a luggage transfer company can’t pick up at an Airbnb because they can’t get inside to collect your luggage (more on Airbnb in a minute).
Learn more in my luggage transfer guide.
Training/Preparedness
Many pilgrims are nervous about pre-booking because they fear they’ll need rest days. Experienced walkers who prepare adequately will have fewer concerns about this (though never zero — no one knows exactly how a walk will go). If you’re new to distance walking, you probably don’t know how your feet will hold up. More flexibility is your friend when you’re new.
I had no idea what to expect from my feet and muscles until after my third distance walk, and now I feel comfortable estimating my stamina and managing blisters before they become a problem.
Important note: This isn’t related to overall fitness. I once met a German woman who didn’t think she had to train for the Camino Portugués because she ran marathons. She was very fit, but her feet weren’t prepared for six hours of walking a day. She had eight open blisters on the day I met her, but she couldn’t take a rest day because she had to make her flight out of Santiago.
This leads to the next point.
Flexibility
One of the concerns about pre-booking is the need for spontaneous rest days. If you pre-book everything but you’re unable to walk one day, then you have to take the bus, train, or taxi instead. This is a valid concern.
But if the end date of your Camino is set in stone (like the German woman I mentioned above), then taking the bus or train on a spontaneous rest day is inevitable.
Walkers with flexible schedules can take rest days and simply arrive in Santiago days later if necessary.
Length of Trip
Many pilgrims choose to walk only the last 100km of the Camino instead of starting from Porto or Lisbon. In this event, I recommend you pre-book unless you’re going in the off-season. More on this in the next point.
Planning a 100km Camino? Use my guide to help plan: How to Walk the Camino’s Last 100km
Trouble Areas for Finding Accommodation
Porto and Santiago de Compostela are the most crowded points of the Camino Portugués. These should be booked as early as possible. I was shocked when I did my first winter Camino and saw that Santiago was booked up, even in January.
Another congested area is the final four stages of the Camino: Redondela to Santiago. All of the Portuguese Routes combine here in Redondola, where the route suddenly feels very crowded:
It’s wise to consider booking these stages ahead:
- Redondela
- Pontevedra – this is a city with many albergues, so it’s the least likely to book up
- Caldas de Reis
- Padrón
This is not a conclusive list; these are simply the bottlenecks that will impact everyone (since all routes pass through these towns).
How to Plan
With all these factors considered, here are resources to help you plan.
Planned For You
If you want someone to plan your Camino out for you, stage by stage, there are several companies that provide this service. I have always planned my Caminos myself, so I can’t endorse any specific companies.
Research Independently
If you’re going to plan on your own, then you’ll need to research the stages. The Camino Ninja app is a great resource for planning. The towns are listed in order, with icons showing what is available in each town:
Click on a town and you can see the accommodation options:
Then, click on an accommodation option and read the information:
This information alone will not tell you if there are beds left, but it gives you all of the information needed to reach out to the accommodation and ask about availability.
Note that these might not be currently open or available when you stay, but it does make it easy for you to reach out to accommodations in each town.
More tips below on planning.
Accommodation Tips
With all of this context, here are a few helpful tips.
Skip Airbnb
I recommend that you don’t use Airbnb while on the Camino. It’s better for the local community if visitors use the infrastructure that’s dedicated to tourists. Apartments were originally dedicated to locals, but now many cities in Spain struggle with housing because too many units are serving tourists as Airbnbs. Many of these Airbnbs in Spain are foreign-owned (instead of locally owned); the money spent does not cycle back into the community.
Not every city struggles with this, but the problem is widespread in Spain. At a press conference in January, 2025, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said “Our obligation is to prioritise use of homes over tourist use. There are too many Airbnbs. What’s lacking is housing.” You can read more here.
There’s immense tourist infrastructure available to you along the Camino:
- Guesthouses
- Campsites*
- Albergues
- Hotels
*Campsites are limited, and wild camping is illegal in these regions of Portugal and Spain. Read more here.
Go Off The Itinerary
You will have more accommodation options if you forgo the standard itineraries and stop short or walk beyond what’s recommended in guidebooks. This is particularly easy to do in the last 100km of the Camino.
In our itinerary guides, we share options to shorten or extend stages. You can find them here:
Offseason travel
Many pilgrims like the idea of being flexible and spontaneous, and booking only a few days in advance. Offseason travel is ideal for this. There are fewer albergues open in the offseason, but hotels and guesthouses remain open year-round and competition for beds isn’t a worry.
Get Advice From Reliable Sources
I’ve seen a lot of posts on the Camino forums in 2025 where people are upset by the advice to not pre-book. “Everyone said not to pre-book, but literally every albergue was full.” I’ve heard this dialogue in forums and on the Camino itself.
Forums are very helpful for certain things, but I have a few pet peeves:
- Overstretching experience. Some people do a single Camino and then share advice loudly, and even argue when people have different experiences.
- Useless one-liners like “take the Camino as it comes!”, encouraging people not to plan in advance (without even considering the person’s question or needs).
- Camino Francés advice. More times than I can count, I’ve seen people asking questions in a Portuguese Camino group, only for people to chime in giving the answer for the Francés. The routes are not the same. There’s no geographical overlap.
I would feel terrible advising someone not to pre-book, only for them to arrive after albergues are full and be forced to put a hotel room on their credit card.
I’ve walked thousands of kilometers on pilgrimage, and I would never say I know what the specific conditions will be for someone’s walk. When weighing decisions about pre-booking, I encourage everyone to gather information from:
- Any data available (like the graph above with the pilgrims broken down by month)
- Hotels/albergues themselves (send emails using DeepL or Google Translate)
- Guidebooks, if recently updated
- And yes, forums/Facebook groups
Some forums are more helpful than others. There’s nothing bad about using them for advice (I do for many things), but I wanted to include the disclaimer that the advice you get isn’t always deeply rooted.
My Experience
Doing the Camino as a couple in the off season or shoulder season, Bert-Jan and I usually book two days or so in advance. Bert-Jan and I travel full-time as digital nomads. We have flexible standards and are just happy to have a clean bed, hot shower, and WiFi at the end of the day.
When I planned a Camino to do with a retired friend in January (only the last 100km) and my mom in April (280km from Porto), I prebooked everything. Both my friend and my mom came to do the Camino from the US. This was a big trip for them, and I wanted us to stay at places that looked nice, and not end up with whatever was left at the end of the day. I researched and pre-booked private albergues so that we could have something comfortable, clean, and well-located waiting at the end of the day.
What should you do?
Your plan will ultimately be decided by your:
- Personal level of risk tolerance. Will pre-booking take the stress out of the Camino for you and help you enjoy it more?
- Budget. Can you afford a hotel if albergues are full?
- Amount of flexibility. Can you be happy with a less nice hotel room if that’s all that’s available?
- What type of accommodation you want to stay at. If you want to do municipal albergues (cheapest option), then your decision is already made for you, since you cannot book in advance.
This is a highly debated topic among pilgrims. I hope that this context helps you feel more confident in whichever choice you make.
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