U.S. pilgrims made up the largest international group walking the famous Camino to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in 2023.
The Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, welcomed over 32,000 American visitors in a record year for the ancient pilgrimage site.
Interest in the Camino de Santiago — a network of pilgrim routes across Europe that lead to the Tomb of St. James — is greater than ever, with the worldwide number of pilgrims walking the site approaching half a million. Not everyone, however, walks because of religious reasons.
According to the statistics published by the pilgrims' office, 446,035 pilgrims from all over the world arrived in the City of the Apostles last year. With 44 percent of the pilgrims (almost 200,000) being Spanish, Americans were the most common international visitors (32,063), followed by Italians (28,645) and Germans (24,342).
In terms of gender, women were in the lead.
