How to schedule return flights...

how many days before your return trip to the usa depends on many things. where is your starting point?
how many kilometres are you planning to walk per day? an average walking pace is 4 km/hour. how many hours per day are you planning to walk? rest day to get over the jetlag? how many rest/short days are you planning?

i did the camino frances without any rest days in the spring of 2012. arrived in sjpdp the previous afternoon and start day 1 the next day to roncesvalles. it took me 31 days to get to sdc. i took the bus to finisterre and returned the same day. i stayed in sdc 3 nights because i was unable to get a flight out. however i would have stay 2 nights after i finished my camino to say good bye to my camino family that i have met regularly on the trail.

if i may offer a suggestion, i would planned for a minimum 0f 37 days befor my return to the usa. of course if you are an experienced hiker and used to long distance hiking, you can probably do the camino in 26-28 days without rest/short days.

this is your camino. if you care to provide more information, i am very sure there will be many, many experienced peregrinos to offer you some ideas or suggestion.

buen camino and god bless.

I schedule my return flight based on (a) 15-20 km per day (b) plus 3 rest days and (c) 3 extra days to take into account contingencies such as French railway strikes.
On one Camino I walked fast and had a whole week to spare. It was great - I went to the railway station in Santiago and took the first train that arrived - which dictated whether I went north, south, east or west. Then hopped on a couple of buses and did some exploring along the north coast. Rural Spain is generally not expensive.
Another time I had some extra time and spent it around Finisterre - lovely little fishing port.

My initial plan was to stay in Spain as long as possible. Schengen rules meant that was 90 days.

I figured on 20km per day and that I would go from SJPdP to Finisterre. ... 44 days I spent 6 days rest time ... half of that in Santiago.

Spain has a lot to offer. The most expensive part of the trip is the air fare. It might be a once in a lifetime trip. So find a place to rest for a while somewhere near lots of beaches such as Malaga or Almeria. When that gets boring spend some time in Granada, Cordoba, or Seville. If you really get energetic there are other caminos ...

I ended up going home a bit earlier than planned. It cost about $200 to change the dates on my flight.

Going from NA to Spain, walk the camino, and then go home is like opening an encyclopedia and when you find the entry you seek, closing it. Boring.

This is such a difficult question because it doesn't matter how many days someone else took or even how many you took last time, every pilgrimage is different because you are different so you walk it in a different way.

When planning my first pilgrimage from SJPdP to Santiago, I worked on taking 31 days because that seemed to be the average mentioned in a number of guides (I didn't know this Forum existed at that time so had no knowledge of how long "real" people took).

Like most people, I had no idea whether I was capable of walking an average of 25km every day for a month so I added a week for a buffer. Then I added a few rest days and came up with a figure of 42 days.

To my great surprise I neither wanted nor needed rest days so arrived in Santiago much sooner than expected. At no time did I need to rush but what to do with all those spare days? What a wonderful problem to have! After a day in Santiago, I set out to walk to Finisterre and then returned to Santiago for a few days before flying to London and then home. It's far better to have days up your sleeve than to have to rush because you're running short of time.

There are limitless ways to spend spare days but staying in Santiago catching up with people you met along the Way has to be up there with the best of them.

Caminomary525 said:

... In planning for a Spring 2014 Camino I don't want to be stuck with a schedule but I also don't want a lot of non pilgrim costly days after Santiago...

I am thinking about leaving enough time to walk to Finisterre and busing or skipping that if I need rest/short days. Anybody got a better idea?

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I would simply plan in a lot of time and if there are days left over in Santiago there is always the possibility to do a Finisterre/Muxia/ Santiago round trip or to take the bus up to Ferrol and to walk the Camino Ingles. Remember also that busing / skipping days means that you will lose contact with your Camino friends / family as you then move faster than they do. I would schedule in more days instead and spend any leftover days exploring Galicia. Buen Camino! SY