Statistics

The pilgrim's office gathers data on pilgrim's that complete the Camino. As far as I know there are no stats on people that stop before reaching the end.

Visitors to Saint Jame's relics don't all walk, some take boats or airplanes. For example when we visited Spain in 2014 by boat. We could have taking a bus from Vigo to Santiago but we didn't in case we ever did the walking part.

I am going to call people who use modern transportation "tourists".

Most self propelled pilgrims walk but some take bikes:

Most pilgrims are from European countries but they come from all over the place:

There are many paths to take, we are taking the most popular route "the French way":

Starting points for non-Europeans like us are somewhat arbitrary. We are started in St Jean 800KM distance:

About 40% walk the minimum distance 100km:

Where to start

More than one Camino
There isn't one path to get to Santiago.   Even once you pick a path there are side routes, short cuts and detours. There is no official way.

For medieval pilgrims their journey started at their front door. Modern pilgrims tend to start at fixed points. The modern starting points are where the medieval pilgrims use to form groups. These mustering points where caused by natural barriers like mountains or river crossings.. For example there are few passes through the mountains so pilgrims would be funneled onto a few trails. Since it was safer to travel in groups they tended to stick together after forming up.

We will be taking the Camino Fances and starting at Saint-jean-pied-de-port in France.  The destination is 800km away.  This muster point was created by the Pyrénées mountain range which we will cross on the first two days.