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No -- April/May and September/mid-October are the busiest periods as far as "the whole Camino" (ahem !!) is concerned in that there are the highest numbers of people walking ALL of the Way between SJPP or further and Santiago -- which means that those are the months when there will be the greatest numbers of pilgrims on the Meseta and on other "boring" sections that some people choose to skip.
I seem to be reading more posts here and elsewhere these days from people who plan to walk a section of a Camino route but with no particular intention of ending their journey in Santiago. People who ask what the most attractive parts of a Camino route might be for a given number of days.
Very difficult to know how many that would be. Me certainly in recent years. I didn't register in SJPDP when I last passed through there in September or in Santiago on my last arrival so I am one of those invisible pilgrims. Given the many possible routes and starting points it is simply not possible to know how many people start a Camino in a given year and make the comparison with the far more definite number of Compostelas handed out. My impression is that the percentage who do not ask for a Compostela at the end of their journey may be growing but I cannot point to any solid evidence for that.And that doesn’t count the enormous amount of people who don’t claim a Compostela
Is there a reason that you take that as given? So far as I'm able to ascertain these are the numbers of people who have passed through the Pilgrim Office in St. Jean and there is no check as to whether these have claimed a Compostela or Distance Certificate. I'm not sure how such a check would be done. I don't believe that the Pilgrim Office in Santiago shares information except in aggregate numbers.
I’ve walked three, with four different people and none of us have claimed a Compostela , as you say it’s impossible to estimate how many there are.
Good points! I know the Pilgrim's office in Santiago collects information about the route taken and start location... Do they publish the numbers based on route/start? Maybe the proportion of walkers on the Frances has declined, as the infrastructure and knowledge of alternative routes has grown?
The Santiago pilgrim office publish numbers broken down by route followed and also by starting point. Certainly the percentage of pilgrims choosing the Frances has declined as other routes have gained in popularity. Especially the variants of the Portugues. But because numbers walking overall on all routes have risen greatly in the last 10 years or so the numbers being recorded in SJPDP have not fallen dramatically in absolute terms.
oficinadelperegrino.com
I've never looked at this before! Fascinating! It would be awesome if they included multiple variables... for example: starting point by route taken and nationality. That level of detail might not be important tho for most. But, as a marketer, I'd love to know that too! (ex. build/own a Swiss themed albergue/hotel where?) (I'm not Swiss, I just remember an albergue that was branded that way!)The Santiago pilgrim office publish numbers broken down by route followed and also by starting point. Certainly the percentage of pilgrims choosing the Frances has declined as other routes have gained in popularity. Especially the variants of the Portugues. But because numbers walking overall on all routes have risen greatly in the last 10 years or so the numbers being recorded in SJPDP have not fallen dramatically in absolute terms.
Estadísticas | Oficina del Peregrino. Santiago de Compostela
Perhaps some of the confusion of the numbers is the chart provided here is only the folks that walked from SJPDP. Most folks start closer to Santiago and those numbers are not included here.
57,000 for 2023 seem very low considering all the publicity about return of big numbers. Is this really only those who identify as Pilgrims rather than walkers/travellers etc.
It is those who passed through the Pilgrims Office in St. Jean Pied de Port.
My mistake, 2am syndrome on my part. I didn't read the original post correctly. I misread it as figures from the Pilgrim Office in Santiago de Compostela.
@diegoromerosm Provides very useful website(s) that give much more detail about various parameters. His data is scraped from the Santiago de Compostela Pilgrim Office website. The Santiago de Compostela Pilgrim Office website used to provide access to their raw data (non personally identifiable) but for reasons unknown they have stopped doing this.
solviturambulando.es
And that doesn’t count the enormous amount of people who don’t claim a Compostela
From surveys done in 2021 IIRC and published last year, it seems about 15% of those who reach Santiago do not claim a Compostela -- though the % of pilgrims not claiming theirs is a lot smaller in October to April than during high pilgrim season.
Yes,I've done four but only claimed for first one.And that doesn’t count the enormous amount of people who don’t claim a Compostela
And I've done four, but only failed to claim for the first one (although the last one was vicarie pro for someone whose health did not permit her to walk and I gave the Compostela to her - I kept the other 5 certificates from that walk, though).
Numbers have always been a lot lower at that end of the Camino than in the Sarria to Santiago section, and that was true even before the fashion for "doing" Sarria to Santiago came into being.
