New member. Looking for info.

[Glennw]

Planning on doing the Camino Frances in July 2023. Will be leaving from Brisbane, Australia. What would be the best place to fly into to get to St Jean. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. It has been a goal of mine for many years to walk the Camino. Something about it just gels with me.

 

[Vacajoe]

Welcome to the Forum. I’ll let others chime in on how to search previous posts for the answers you seek, but I wanted to give you a quick piece of beginner advice: avoid the use of “best” as that varies by person and no one can know what you would consider as “best”. Instead, provide as much info as possible to get the most accurate help as possible.

For example, “what European airport provides the shortest travel time once I land to SJPdP?” or “if money is no object, where should I fly into from Australia?”. Date of travel, budget, comfort ability with public transit, etc all affect how we can answer.

Buen Camino! You’ve already started your journey!

 

[trecile]

You can start in the Traveling & Transport to/from/along the Camino subforum. Additionally there are a number of threads with the tag travel to bayonne/biarritz/sjpp

 

[thepacman]

Planning on doing the Camino Frances in July 2023. Will be leaving from Brisbane, Australia. What would be the best place to fly into to get to St Jean. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. It has been a goal of mine for many years to walk the Camino. Something about it just gels with me.

Hi @Glennw - as @trecile said there's heaps of threads, but as a fellow Aussie (from Yallingup WA) I do know that the very start can be a bit overwhelming, as there's so much information. If you ever want chat off-line please feel free to send me a private message, and I'll be happy to share what little "wisdom" I might have. Equally happy to share my email address with you off-line.

Buen Camino ...

 

[Peregrinopaul]

As a first timer, (you, not me), I'd suggest booking a return flight to Madrid.There is a lot of info on the forum about how to get to St Jean from there. Others will suggest the logic of Paris, but I think starting in Madrid will contribute to the experience.

 

[Grousedoctor]

Paris and Madrid strike me as the two best arrival points. Both require additional travel by bus, train, or plane, but getting to SJPP from either arrival point is not particularly difficult (lots of threads on this Forum regarding this topic). However, as mentioned above by @Peregrinopaul, I too, would plan my return flight from Madrid. After your Camino, it’s an easy flight or train ride to the Spanish capital.

 

[Glennw]

As a first timer, (you, not me), I'd suggest booking a return flight to Madrid.There is a lot of info on the forum about how to get to St Jean from there. Others will suggest the logic of Paris, but I think starting in Madrid will contribute to the experience.

Thanks mate, good suggestion. Only thing is that after the camino i'm heading to the UK to catch up with some long lost relatives. I thought Barcelona mainly because I've heard you can get a bus to Pamplona and then on to St Jean. Will keep researching to find out the best solution.

 

[Glennw]

Paris and Madrid strike me as the two best arrival points. Both require additional travel by bus, train, or plane, but getting to SJPP from either arrival point is not particularly difficult (lots of threads on this Forum regarding this topic). However, as mentioned above by @Peregrinopaul, I too, would plan my return flight from Madrid. After your Camino, it’s an easy flight or train ride to the Spanish capital.

Thanks for the Info. I will be heading to the UK after the camino so won't be flying out of Spain.

 

[Glennw]

Hi @Glennw - as @trecile said there's heaps of threads, but as a fellow Aussie (from Yallingup WA) I do know that the very start can be a bit overwhelming, as there's so much information. If you ever want chat off-line please feel free to send me a private message, and I'll be happy to share what little "wisdom" I might have. Equally happy to share my email address with you off-line.

Buen Camino ...

Thanks Mr Pacman. You're right, there is a lot of info to take in. I might take you up on that offer offline. The head spins a bit with an overload of information.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

I thought Barcelona mainly because I've heard you can get a bus to Pamplona and then on to St Jean.

Barcelona is also a good entry point. You can fly, bus or train to Pamplona. It is likely though that before getting to SJPdP you will have to spend a night in one of the two cities, maybe in both. They are great places to do that though.

 

[JulieandPeter]

Hello,
Definitely check out Trecile's links above.

https://www.rome2rio.com/ is a great resource for planning travel routes.

The closest airport to St Jean is Biarritz. Our first Camino we had a flight on Air France from Paris to Biarritz, but ended up sitting between train cars instead due to an airline strike (a perfect start to our first Camino because adapting to whatever happens is one of the many joys of walking the CF).

I have flown into Biarritz from London which was quick and easy.

I've also taken the train from Barcelona to St Jean because the flight from California to Barcelona was less expensive, however, I was a little surprised how expensive Barcelona is compared to the rest of Spain so it was not a savings. It was a very long train ride; the route we took is not listed on Rome to Rio, but you can also search for train routes throughout Europe on https://www.bahn.com/en and my new favorite travel app is https://www.omio.com/

We have flown out of Madrid multiple times. The ease of flying out of Madrid depends on whether you will need to go through customs or not. I think for London you might, so you may want to check on that and give yourself ample time between flights. We recently flew from Madrid to Geneva and we were not required to go through customs and the 2 hour connection time we had was plenty.

I hope that helps. All the best in planning your journey!

 

[Roscoe]

Planning on doing the Camino Frances in July 2023. Will be leaving from Brisbane, Australia. What would be the best place to fly into to get to St Jean. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. It has been a goal of mine for many years to walk the Camino. Something about it just gels with me.

I'm flying from Brisbane to CDG Paris in May with a flight to Biarritz from there. Staying Biarritz then on to SJPP.