On 4 October the sun comes up over Santiago de Compostela at 8:34 in the morning and sets at 8:10 in the evening, which leaves you 11 hours and 35 minutes of daylight. On Sunday 25 October the clocks go back an hour, sunrise moves to 7:59 and sunset arrives at 6:36 pm, so the working day has shrunk to 10 hours and 37 minutes in the space of three weeks. The rain follows the same curve: Santiago's climate averages show about 107 mm falling in September and 226 mm in October, spread over roughly 14 days with at least a millimetre of rain against about 8 in September. For a woman walking the Camino alone, those numbers matter more than any packing list, because they decide when you can start, how far you can reasonably go and how wet you will be when you reach the next bed. October is still a very good month for the walk, and the low autumn light over the Galician hills is the reason plenty of people choose it, but it is a different Camino from the one summer walkers describe. That is the whole case for planning this month around the clock and the forecast rather than around the route map.
October is quieter, but not empty
The Pilgrim's Office issued 530,987 Compostela certificates in 2025, a record, and September was the busiest month of the year with 81,546. On the Camino Francés, the most walked route, arrivals in Santiago ran at 35,645 in September, 29,895 in October and just 5,433 in November, so the real drop comes at the turn of the month rather than gradually through autumn. Across the seven main routes the fall from October to November was between 74 and 87 per cent. These are dates of arrival in Santiago, not dates of departure, which means a Sarria start on 20 October still puts you among a busy October crowd. There is a second reason to treat "autumn is empty" advice with caution this year: Compostelas issued between January and August 2026 ran about 6 per cent ahead of the same months in 2025, and 2027 is a Holy Year, which will push demand higher again. Expect a thinner crowd than in August and a much thicker one than in January.
Daylight and rain decide the day
Civil twilight begins at 8:06 on 4 October, and the Guardia Civil's advice to pilgrims is to travel during daylight hours, so do not leave an albergue in the dark. Wait for the light, have a second coffee and start at about nine; at an easy pace a 20 to 25 km stage then lands you in the next village by late afternoon, ahead of the 8:10 pm sunset of early October and well ahead of the 6:36 pm sunset that follows the clock change. The longest of the five usual Sarria stages, Palas de Rei to Arzúa, is around 29 km, and from late October the better plan is to stop in Melide, roughly halfway, instead. Rain is the other half of the arithmetic. Santiago averages 14 days a month with at least a millimetre of rain in October, so in a month of 31 days you should plan on being rained on about every second day.
Tui or Sarria
Both starts cover roughly 115 km (published figures run from 111 to 118 depending on the variant), and both qualify you for the Compostela, which the Pilgrim's Office issues for at least 100 continuous kilometres on foot along one recognised route, finishing at the Cathedral. Sarria is the famous one: 161,901 of the 2025 Compostelas began there, about 30.5 per cent of the year's total, against 41,645 from Tui, so Sarria's five stages carry nearly four times as many walkers. Choose Tui. The Camino Portugués from Tui takes five or six stages, has no high mountains in the way, and puts far fewer people into the same beds and bars each evening; Porto and Vigo are the usual gateways, since Tui sits on the Spanish bank of the Miño opposite Valença do Minho. Sarria still has a real case, though. The bars, beds and fellow walkers are packed so close together that a first night alone in a dormitory is easy, and a woman nervous about her first solo trip gets a gentler introduction there in mid-October than anywhere else on the Camino.
Beds and money in the shoulder season
The Xunta's public albergues in Galicia charge €10 a night in 2026, generally take no reservations and give you one night only, which in peak months can mean joining a queue at one in the afternoon. In October that pressure eases, but private places begin to close during the second half of the month and many more shut in November, so message or phone the next night's bed that morning instead of trusting last year's guidebook. Private albergues typically cost €12 to €27, depending on the town, and pensiones and small hotels start at around €35. One Camino operator's 2026 figures put a day on albergues and pilgrim menus at €40 to €50, a day on private rooms at €90 to €120, and food alone at €20 to €30. Book the first night and the night before Santiago, then leave everything between flexible. When a day goes badly (soaked, blistered, lonely), pay for a private room and do not apologise for it; that is what the budget line is for.
The safety net Spain has built for women pilgrims
Spain runs a government campaign aimed specifically at women on the Camino, and it deserves ten minutes of your planning time.
Women made up 53.45 per cent of the 2025 Compostelas, and the Interior Ministry says about 280,000 women walked a Camino route that year. Its No caminas sola ("You don't walk alone") campaign began in 2021, and the sixth edition was presented in Melide in July 2026, with 41,500 information cards and 1,700 posters going out in Galicia to albergues, pharmacies, health centres, tourist offices and police premises. Each carries a QR code for AlertCops, the Interior Ministry's app, which lets you report an incident and send your exact GPS position. The Guardia Civil has added a Camino-specific Guardián function that shares your location with a centre staffed around the clock and keeps your last ten positions on record, and the in-app chat is translated into 100 languages, so you do not need Spanish to use it. Install the app at home and switch the Guardián on the first morning rather than the afternoon you need it. Save the numbers as well: 112 for any emergency, 062 for the Guardia Civil, 091 for the Policía Nacional and 016 for Spain's helpline on violence against women.
The Guardia Civil's own tips for pilgrims are plain common sense, and several count for more in October. Carry your passport or ID, stay on the marked route and ignore anyone who recommends a shortcut, wear something reflective on road sections, tell family where you are, and keep your plans off social media until you are home. Its tip sheet also says the walk is better in company and by day, which is worth taking at face value: eat dinner with the people in your albergue, because by the third evening you will know who is walking your pace.
What actually goes in the pack
Santiago's October averages run from 9.5°C overnight to 18.1°C in the afternoon, cool enough for a warm hat at a dawn start and mild enough that you will be in a T-shirt by noon, so layers do the work. Beyond a normal summer kit, October adds a few things, among them:
- A waterproof jacket rather than a poncho, plus a rain cover for the pack.
- Two pairs of quick-drying socks, one of which lives in a zip bag and never gets wet.
- A head torch with fresh batteries, for the first and last half hour of the day and for finding your bag in a dark dormitory.
- A reflective band or vest for roadside stretches; the Guardia Civil asks pilgrims to stay visible on roads at all times.
- A bag light enough to qualify for Correos' Paq Mochila backpack transfer, which takes up to 15 kg, runs on the main routes until 31 October and from 1 November covers only Sarria to Santiago and Tui to Santiago.
The last afternoon
The Pilgrim's Office near the Cathedral is open from 9:00 to 19:00 every day except 25 December and 1 January. You register by scanning a QR code, collect a numbered ticket, and the Compostela itself is free, issued in person only and against a credencial stamped twice a day on the stretch that counts. Collect those stamps from the first morning, because the office is strict about them. On busy days it warns that same-day collection cannot be guaranteed, and after the clock change the sun is down by 6:36 pm, so a late arrival on the final stage is a poor plan. Aim to reach the city by mid-afternoon, and keep the credencial in a zip bag: it is paper, and Galicia is wet.