Camino Podolico

Who is behind the route

Camino Podolico is the Ukrainian Way of St James through Podolia and, at the same time, the project that runs it. The city of Vinnytsia created it in 2021, with support from the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, explicitly “on the model of the Ways of St James”. Today it is coordinated by the City Marketing and Tourism Department of the city of Vinnytsia, together with the town of Bar and the communities along the route. A trial walk in summer 2021 brought around 150 pilgrims onto the trail, and the official opening was planned for spring 2022. Then came the full-scale Russian invasion, and for two years the route lay dormant.

The cities did not give up on it. In June 2023 the European Federation of the Ways of St James accepted the Camino Podolico as a member, and in autumn 2023 its president and the mayors of Vinnytsia, Hnivan, Bar and Kamianets-Podilskyi signed a memorandum in Vinnytsia on developing the route. Since May 2024 it has been part of the Council of Europe Cultural Route, and on 25 April 2024 it reopened to pilgrims, at their express request. It has been growing ever since: 338 pilgrims arrived in 2024, and 568 certificates were issued in 2025. The 2026 season ended with 2,037 pilgrim passports and 1,727 certificates, three times as many as the year before: more pilgrims than in the three previous years combined. 87 per cent walked and 13 per cent cycled, and two thirds were women. A good seven in ten went all the way to Kamianets-Podilskyi, the rest as far as Bar. Almost all came from Ukraine, most of them from the Vinnytsia region. Since 2025 Vinnytsia has provided one of the Federation's vice-presidents.

The route

• Camino Podolico – 291.3 km from Vinnytsia on the Southern Bug via Hnivan, Zhmerynka, Bar, Yaltushkiv, Zinkiv and Dunaivtsi to Kamianets-Podilskyi, the official finish with certificate (259.2 km), and as an extension via Zavallya to the Church of St James in Panivtsi, in 14 stages

At the starting point in Vinnytsia, a granite stone has stood since St James's Day 2024, a gift from the region of Galicia, showing the distance to Santiago: 4,625 kilometres. And the route keeps growing westwards. Since 2026 the Camino Atlantis has led from Zavallya to the Zbruch river and on to Chortkiv, where the Camino Ruteno to Lviv begins. Neither route is in Camino Ninja yet.

What the operator does for pilgrims

You can get the pilgrim credential in Vinnytsia at the Capuchin Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels and in Bar at the town library; stamps are given in churches, museums and accommodation, and at the finish in Kamianets-Podilskyi you receive the certificate. On the website, every stage has its own page listing accommodation, cafés, pharmacies, hospitals and, indispensable in wartime, the air-raid shelters. The operator provides the track for download, separately for walkers and cyclists, plus a virtual tour of the route.

The season runs from 1 April to 31 October. The operator issues clear safety rules, such as using the Air Alert app for the Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi regions, and organises taster walks on individual sections. A dedicated project is aimed at veterans: guided walks on the Camino Podolico, funded through a city crowdfunding platform.

In 2026 the team renewed the waymarking with new wooden posts, signposts and painted arrows. If you would like to try the route first, walk the Demo Camino: one day from Vinnytsia to Selyshche or Hnivan, with a demo pilgrim passport in the form of a postcard and two or three stamps.

Contact and getting involved

You'll find stages, accommodation, the track and news on the Camino Podolico website. The team answers questions by email and on Facebook and Instagram, both under @camino.podolico.