Let’s take a look at my Camino de Santiago Packing List 2025!
It’s one of the most important topics when preparing for the Way of St. James in Spain and Portugal – the Camino Santiago Gear List for females and males!
It does not matter which Camino Santiago Route you choose – your equipment must be light weight and fit to your body. Otherwise you will suffer while hiking the Camino.
But with the right equipment you can start well prepared and have a healthy hike! Let me share my experiences from walking more than 1.500 kilometers on the Camino.
Contents
Camino de Santiago Packing List 2025
(Note: Contains Affiliate-Links)
- A hiking backpack that fits properly and is not too heavy, if possible (I recommend a backpack from Deuter (see photos) or Osprey)
- Hiking shoes or boots that are big enough and broken in before the start of the trip (I switched from my heavy hiking boots to the much lighter, mid-height “Salewa Alp Trainer 2” (men/women), also very high-quality hiking boots from Lowa, e.g. the mid-height Lowa or the high Lowa Renegade)
- Suitable trekking socks that protect your feet as well as possible from blisters (Tip: I have good experience with Danish Endurance Socks)
- A sleeping bag to keep you warm in the hostel (doesn’t have to be super thick) (My choice was this one)
- A pilgrim’s pass that allows you to stay in special pilgrim accommodation & receive your pilgrim’s certificate at the end of the journey
- A travel guide book to help you along the way with directions, information on accommodation etc. (-> check my Camino Santiago Guide Books for Preparation here)
Also important are…
- Functional clothing (underwear, 2 T-shirts, hiking pants)
- Rain jacket and pants
- Fleecejacket / windbreaker
- Crocs / flip flops (for inside albergues and in the shower)
- Towel
The hygiene and toilet stuff:
- Small toiletry bag
- Tube of travel shower gel
- Tube of travel hand wash (or the Scrubba Wash Bag that blogger Corinna tested here)
- Tube of travel deodorant (your fellow pilgrims will probably thank you ;), such small sizes are usually available in the “trial section” of drugstores)
- (Travel) toothpaste & toothbrush (+ dental floss if necessary)
- Blister plaster
- Deer tallow cream (= massage for the feet, important for blister prevention on such long hikes!
- Ear plugs (important!)
- Drinking bottle
- (Travel) comb
- razor
- handkerchiefs
- Sun cream
- Emergency pharmacy: tablets for headaches, fever, nausea
- *Electrolyte solution for summer pilgrims, as the body sweats a lot in hot weather and loses fluids and salts
- *Nail care set
Valuable Items:
- Wallet
- Cash
- EC/credit card
- Passport
- Flight tickets
- Spanish phrasebook
Camino de Santiago Female Packing List
Add:
- Mix of sports leggings & hiking pants
- Hiking skirt
- Sports bra
- Functional underwear
- Functional T-shirt
- Sarong scarf
- Women’s urinal
Getting lighter and lighter over the years – my Camino packing list
With this packing list, you’ll be equipped for any weather on the 2024 Way of St. James, have the essentials with you and will also be traveling light to ultra-light – my backpack now weighs barely more than 7 or 8 kilograms (including food) – and yours shouldn’t either.
Beginner pilgrims in particular tend to take far too much with them. I did it too, until I finally radically sorted it out on the way, suffering from severe neck pain. See preparing with the packing list for the Way of St. James as an opportunity to consciously ask yourself what you really need (& courageously decide to let go!).
It can be a tremendously beneficial experience to realize that you can get by wonderfully with very few material things and that you don’t want for anything! And if you do, then you can most likely still acquire this in Spain on the Way of St. James. You are not in the wilderness.
