The 8 best mobile apps for the ‘Camino de Santiago’

Buen Camino de Santiago is probably the most widely used app amongst Spanish-speaking pilgrims. It covers 45 route guides across Spain, Portugal and France, with thousands of geolocated points of interest for accommodation, services and monuments. It includes a customisable stage planner, terrain profiles (for walking and cycling), real-time alerts about incidents and weather forecasts.

Its model is ‘pay what you want’: free by default, with the option to contribute via in-app purchases if you find it useful. It supports 10 languages and allows direct contact with the author via WhatsApp or email. It does not book accommodation or provide a digital certificate.

Wise Pilgrim All Caminos covers up to 26 pilgrimage routes to Santiago with interactive offline maps, elevation profiles and a comprehensive directory of accommodation (hostels, campsites, hotels, guesthouses, Paradores and rural cottages) with telephone numbers and direct contact details. Its key feature: integration with SES Peregrino (Galician Regional Government) to display real-time availability of public hostels.

One-off payment model: individual routes for $0.99 or the complete ‘All Caminos’ package for a one-off payment of $4.99. It is only available in English, which limits its use to English-speaking pilgrims. The distances and stage names are in line with the popular John Brierley guidebooks.

Camino Ninja is a free, ad-free and “100% anonymous” app (it does not require registration or collect any data). Its minimalist interface makes it ideal for first-time pilgrims: offline information on accommodation and routes, accurate distance and elevation calculations, guidance during the stage, and filters to locate services.

The app went through a difficult period following the death of its original developer. It is currently maintained by the community in collaboration with Jakobsweg-Zentrale GmbH (listed on Google Play). It supports seven languages, including Spanish. It covers the most popular routes but is not as comprehensive as Buen Camino or Wise Pilgrim.

Camino Forum is neither a map app nor a hostel guide: it is the mobile app for the largest online forum for pilgrims (caminodesantiago.me), run since 2004 by Ivar Rekve, a pilgrim based in Santiago. It has around 90,000 users and thousands of threads on routes, kit, health, stages, accommodation and real-life experiences.

Features: sub-forums by route and topic, downloadable resources (GPX, PDFs), private messaging, news and blog, customisable notifications, light/dark mode. Partner shop with official accreditation. The main language of the forum is English, although posts are published in other languages.

Wikiloc isn’t specifically for the Camino, but it’s the go-to app for downloading GPX tracks and navigating offline using GPS. It lists millions of routes uploaded by the community, including all the main pilgrimage routes to Santiago. It lets you record your own track with photos and waypoints, and plan bespoke routes.

Freemium model: free to view; Premium €19.99 per year to download offline topographic maps, turn-by-turn navigation, Live Tracking and integration with Garmin, Apple Watch, Suunto and COROS watches. Supports 20 languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Russian. Does not include a directory of hostels.

Organic Maps was born out of a spin-off from Maps.me led by one of its original founders, who was dissatisfied with the app’s commercial direction. It is 100 per cent free, with no adverts, no registration, no trackers, and is open source. The maps are downloaded offline by region and allow navigation on foot, by bike and by car.

It is not specific to the Camino: it does not include listings of hostels with prices. It is best used as a supplementary layer for offline maps, by importing a GPX track downloaded from Gronze, Wikiloc or Wise Pilgrim. The multilingual interface is available in numerous languages and the map data is sourced from OpenStreetMap.

For years, Maps.me was the favourite offline map app amongst pilgrims: it offered global coverage based on OpenStreetMap, a search function for points of interest and walking navigation. Following recent changes in ownership and the introduction of adverts, part of its user base migrated to Organic Maps, a spin-off from the original project.

Recent changes to the code have disrupted the smooth reading of community hostel files: it is no longer possible to call, text or visit websites directly from imported waypoints, which reduces its usefulness for the Camino. It is still available and many people keep it installed out of habit, but the general recommendation is Organic Maps.

The Digital Pilgrim’s Pass is the only pass officially endorsed by Santiago Cathedral and the Pilgrim’s Office. It allows you to have your credential stamped digitally by scanning QR codes at official stamping points (parishes, hostels, etc.) an unlimited number of times, whilst recording the location, date and time of each stamp.

It does not replace the physical pilgrim’s pass: it complements it. Its main advantage is its integration with the Pilgrim’s Office, which speeds up the process of obtaining the Compostela on arrival in Santiago. There is a parallel digital pilgrim’s passport managed by the Spanish Federation (caminosantiago.org). Coverage of QR code points is patchy, though better in Galicia.