Walking Guide to the Vía de la Plata and the Camino Sanabrés

Updated in November 2025 the 2026 edition of the Vía de la Plata guide is now available.

The guide contains the following information:

• Pilgrim hostels and other accommodation on or close to the Camino
• Services in the towns and villages (shops, restaurants, pharmacies, banks, etc.)
• Route descriptions and exact distances and ascents / descents (including for variants)
• Overview and urban maps, distance charts for at-a-glance planning
• Altitude profiles
• Notes on the important historical sites

This guide presents the essential information in a clear, concise, no nonsense manner. It describes the route which starts in Seville and follows the Vía de la Plata and the Camino Sanabrés to Santiago de Compostela.

The Via de la Plata is a unique Camino and different in several important ways from other more popular Caminos. Walking distances are longer, the track is often remote, accommodation and other facilities are often few and far between, on its southern section summers are hotter than on Caminos further to the north and, depending on the time of year you're walking, there may be very few pilgrims.

At 1000km it is also longer than any of the better known Caminos.

In the last twenty years this Camino has become more popular as an alternative to the more established Caminos for people looking for solitude and a more authentic Camino experience.

Because this is a challenging Camino it's important that the information in the guide be up-to-date and accurate and that the walking notes and advice about potential difficulties be written by someone who knows this Camino well and has extensive experience of walking it in all seasons.

My name is Gerald Kelly and I'm the author of this guide. I started writing this guide after walking the Vía from Seville to Santiago via Astorga in February 2009, and finished the first edition after returning to walk the Camino Sanabrés in 2012 (when it rained non-stop for two weeks!)

Preparing for my walk I had been unable to find any reliable information in English about these routes. I managed with information I found on a Spanish website and printouts of Google maps of the towns with the route sketched on them. However, if I hadn't known some Spanish I would have been completely at a loss and probably wouldn't have even attempted this Camino. Based on this experience I decided to try to make information more widely available in English, firstly as a download from my website and later as a printed book from Amazon.

This is a "community guide", its content is updated and adapted based on feedback and advice from people with experience of this Camino, as well as my own Camino adventures.

I stay in touch with the Camino through walking it regularly and participating in the discussion online. The Vía de la Plata Facebook Group I founded six years ago as a resource for current and future pilgrims now has more than 6000 members. You can join the conversation at:

More information and advice about walking the Vía can be found here:

Buen Camino!

Gerald Kelly