Dispatch

Just Get There Early: The Advice That Stops Working on the Camino del Norte

· 4 min · Camino del Norte

Comillas, the eighteenth of September. I’m confused, tired and devastated. A pilgrim on the Norte had been trying Camino Ninja, Buen Camino and web searches, and everything came back the same: full, reservations needed. But how do I make one if it’s full? The albergues were sometimes thirty-five kilometres apart. They had paid twenty-five euros for that night’s bed and broke down crying as they arrived. On Booking.com there was almost nothing under forty.

Then the line that explains the whole thing. They had been told, by people who had walked the Camino before, that you don’t make reservations. You just get there early.

The replies came fast — Gronze, the phone, WhatsApp, the fact that a platform only shows the beds it was given, which the Primitivo dispatch covered in August. A little over an hour after the first post the pilgrim wrote back: phone calls are the way to go, it seems. The next four days were booked.

Nobody lied to this person. The advice they were given is true. It is just true of the Francés. A walker who finished the first eight days of the Norte in the second week of September, and who knows the Francés too, put the difference in one sentence: on the Francés, at least in October, you could simply walk without planning. Here, plan. The Norte runs along a holiday coast. It has fewer beds built only for pilgrims, the hotels are priced for people on summer holiday, and even the cheapest albergue can be seventeen or twenty euros. The same walker never failed to find a public bed at Irún, Deba or Markina-Xemein, and watched them fill anyway.

“The Camino will provide” is the thing people say, and one reply in the Comillas thread pushed back on it. It is not a law of nature. It is a description of infrastructure: somebody argued for, paid for and built enough cheap beds, a day’s walk apart, that a stranger could turn up at one without asking first. The Pilgrim Age puts it this way — a tradition is a decade of someone else’s arguing, already won, handed to you as a gesture. On the Francés the argument was won long ago. On a coast built for summer visitors, pilgrims are still competing with them for the same rooms.

The Camino will provide only where someone has already provided. The rest of the way, you phone ahead.

On the Norte you can see where that argument was won. It is Ribadeo, on the river that divides Asturias from Galicia. From there you are in the Xunta’s public network: ten euros a night, doors open at one in the afternoon and close at ten, and — in the network’s own English — in no case is it possible to make reservations. Across Galicia that network runs to seventy-six albergues and more than three thousand beds. On another thread, from the tenth of September, a commenter replying to a pilgrim who had just reached Ribadeo put the whole thing in one line: if an app shows nothing available from here on, that usually means it cannot be booked. The screen that meant full in Cantabria means walk there in Galicia. The Confraternity of Saint James albergue at Miraz, which breaks the long day from Baamonde to Sobrado, works the same way — twenty beds, donativo, no reservations, open until the end of October.

East of Ribadeo, phone ahead. West of it, stop. On the coast, open Gronze and message private albergues directly, a day or two out. Book San Sebastián and Zarautz, the standard stage finishes; the public albergues at Irún, Deba and Markina-Xemein are fair and first-come, so arrive in decent time. Gijón can fill, and if the coast is costing more than you meant it to, the connector to the Primitivo leaves near Villaviciosa, before Gijón, and takes you inland to Oviedo. Once you cross into Galicia, stop booking. Walk to the door with a credential and a ten-euro note.

There are pilgrims on the forum this month getting ready to start the Norte in October, asking the question the Comillas pilgrim asked too late. Book San Sebastián and Zarautz before you go, and the rest of the coast a day or two ahead. Leave Galicia empty on purpose. The doors there open at one.

— Pilgrimages

Questions

Do I need to book albergues on the Camino del Norte in September and October?
East of Galicia, mostly yes, a day or two ahead — and that is the part of the Norte people get wrong, because the no-booking habit comes from the Francés. As of late September 2026 the live reports agree. A pilgrim at Comillas on 18 September found every app showing full and booked the next four days by phone the same afternoon. A walker who did the first eight days in the second week of September never failed to find a public bed at Irún, Deba or Markina-Xemein, but watched them fill and recommends booking San Sebastián and Zarautz. Others on the same threads say Gijón can fill and that two days ahead is enough. The Norte runs along a holiday coast with fewer beds built only for pilgrims, and the cheapest albergue can still be 17 or 20 euros.
Should I trust the apps on the Camino del Norte?
Trust them for the map, not for the beds — and know that their silence means different things on different halves of the route. East of Galicia, pilgrims replying to a thread from Comillas on 18 September 2026 said the same thing several ways: a place showing full on Booking.com has only run out of the beds it gave to Booking.com, and a direct phone call or WhatsApp message usually finds one. Gronze.com was the resource they sent people to. West of Ribadeo, the public albergues take no reservations at all, so an empty app there is not a verdict on the beds.
How do beds work on the Norte once you reach Galicia?
The rules flip at Ribadeo, where the Norte crosses into Galicia and enters the Xunta's public albergue network. Those albergues cost 10 euros a night, open their doors at 1 p.m., close them at 10 p.m., and take no reservations in any circumstances; the network has 76 centres and more than 3,000 places across Galicia. So west of Ribadeo, an app that shows nothing available usually means the place cannot be booked, not that it is full. The Confraternity of Saint James albergue at Miraz, which breaks the long day from Baamonde to Sobrado, works the same way: 20 beds, donativo, no reservations, open April to October inclusive.