Tourism along the Camino de Santiago is crucial for the survival of small towns.

In the expansive grain fields of Spain, a medieval church overlooks a few adobe houses where about 50 residents live—and twice that number of travelers along the Camino de Santiago find shelter here this summer.

Terradillos de los Templarios and many similar villages were established to accommodate medieval pilgrims on the 500-mile (800-kilometer) journey to the tomb of Apostle James in Santiago de Compostela. Today's Camino adventurers are revitalizing these communities.

"This is essential for the villages," remarked Nuria Quintana, who oversees one of the two pilgrim hostels in Terradillos. "In the winter, when pilgrims are absent, you could walk through the village multiple times and encounter no one."

In this hamlet named after a medieval knightly order that was created to safeguard pilgrims, the return of travelers—after pandemic-induced disruptions—is revitalizing the economy and community spirit of villages that were gradually losing jobs, residents, and social connections.

"Without the Camino, there wouldn’t be any cafés open. The bar is where the community gathers," stated Raúl Castillo, an agent with the Guardia Civil, the agency responsible for patrolling Spain’s roads and villages. He has spent 14 years stationed in Sahagún, 8 miles (13 kilometers) away, covering 49 small communities.

"The neighboring villages off the Camino are heartbreaking. Homes are collapsing, and grass is overgrowing the sidewalks," he remarked, gesturing to a tabletop.

Stretching from the Pyrenees Mountains at the French border, across Spain’s sun-baked plains to the misty hills of Galicia near the Atlantic Ocean, once-thriving agricultural towns have been losing their populations in recent decades.

The rise of mechanization significantly decreased the demand for farm workers. As the youth migrated to urban areas, many shops and cafés closed down.

Often, this led to the closure of grand churches filled with priceless art—the cultural legacy of medieval and Renaissance artists funded by affluent townspeople, noted Julia Pavón, a historian at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, the Camino’s first major city.

Starting in the 1990s, the Camino experienced a revival in international popularity, attracting tens of thousands of hikers and cyclists every spring, summer, and fall. After a significant decline during the pandemic in 2020, the recovery began in 2021 with mostly Spanish pilgrims, and as Quintana noted, 2022 has become the year of resurgence, with over 25,000 visitors in May alone on the most traditional route, the "French way."

In the smallest villages, daily visitors outnumber residents by a factor of ten, resulting in a substantial impact.

"Currently, the hospitality sector is the main source of employment in town," stated Óscar Tardajos, who grew up on a farm along the Camino. He has operated a hotel and restaurant in Castrojeriz for 33 years, a hillside village once central to the wool trade, where its half dozen churches were erected centuries ago.

The Camino plays a vital role in job creation and preserving cultural heritage, remarked Melchor Fernández, an economics professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela. "It has slowed the depopulation trend," which is 30 percent higher in Galician villages located away from the Camino.

While most pilgrims spend only about 50 euros per day, their spending benefits the local economy. "The bread in a pilgrim’s sandwich isn’t from Bimbo," Fernández remarked, referencing the multinational brand. "It’s sourced from the bakery next door."

In Cirauqui, a hilltop village in Navarra, the sole bakery has thrived thanks to the steady flow of pilgrims visiting daily, noted baker Conchi Sagardía as she served a pastry and fruit juice to a traveler from Florida.

Besides the pilgrims, the primary clientele of these shops are older villagers, as there are few younger adults around. "In the summer, the grandmothers sit along the Camino, watching the pilgrims pass by," remarked Lourdes González, a Paraguayan who has owned the café in Redecilla del Camino for a decade. Its only street is the Camino.

Her worry—a common sentiment along the route—is to preserve that unique pilgrim spirit, even as the Camino's rising popularity brings increased commercialization.

Increasingly, the iconic yellow arrows lead to bars or foot massage places rather than the actual Camino. One recent morning in Tardajos, Esteban Velasco, a retired shepherd, was at a crossroads directing pilgrims along the correct path.

"The Camino would lose its essence without the pilgrimage," stated Jesús Aguirre, president of the Association of Friends of the Camino de Santiago in Burgos province. "People may embark on the journey for various reasons, but they inevitably absorb something deeper along the way."

For many, this journey represents a spiritual or religious quest. The motivation to keep churches open for pilgrims also revitalizes parishes in an increasingly secular Spain.

The Santa María church in Los Arcos, dating back 900 years, is one of the most stunning in the Camino villages, featuring a tall bell tower and a beautifully sculpted altarpiece. According to Reverend Andrés Lacarra, pilgrims often double the attendance at weekday masses.

In Hontanas, a cluster of stone homes that unexpectedly appears after crossing the expansive plains of Castilla, only Sunday mass is held, typical for areas where one priest oversees multiple parishes.

However, on a recent Wednesday evening, the church bells rang joyfully—the Reverend Jihwan Cho, a priest from Toronto on his second pilgrimage, was preparing to celebrate the Eucharist.

"Being able to celebrate Mass... it truly brought me joy," he expressed.

International pilgrims like him are transforming some towns into more cosmopolitan places. In Sahagún, an English teacher encourages Nuria Quintana’s daughter and her classmates to shadow pilgrims to practice their language skills. In the small village of Calzadilla de la Cueza, César Acero remarked, "People have become much more sociable."

When he opened his hostel and restaurant in 1990, fellow villagers called him "crazy." Recently, two farmers enjoying a quick coffee next to a group of cyclists traveling from the Netherlands to Santiago demonstrated how things have changed.

"Now I see people of all nationalities that I never encountered as a child," shared Loly Valcárcel, owner of a pizzeria in Sarria, which is one of the busiest towns on the Camino, located just past the distance required for a completion "certificate" in Santiago.

Far fewer pilgrims now traverse the ancient Roman road through Calzadilla de los Hermanillos, where Gemma Herreros helped her family tend sheep as a child.

She operates a bed-and-breakfast with her Cuban husband, a former pilgrim, near the town’s open-air museum that showcases the history of the ancient road. Herreros hopes the village continues to thrive without entirely losing the "absolute freedom and solidarity" of her childhood.

In Hornillos del Camino, a quaint village with honey-colored stone houses, Mari Carmen Rodríguez shares similar aspirations. When she was a child, only a few pilgrims passed through. Now, she remarked, "The sheer number of people makes you almost hesitant to step outside," as she left her restaurant to buy fish from a truck—a typical substitute for grocery stores in many villages.

However, she quickly added, "Without the Camino, we would be on the brink of vanishing completely."