Camí de Cavalls accommodation: where to stay and how to plan it

What makes accommodation planning different here

Nothing on this trail is walkers' accommodation. There are no refuges, bothies or trail hostels, and no operator books a chain of beds along the route the way a hut system would. Every night is spent in ordinary holiday stock: package hotels and self-catering apartment blocks in the coastal resorts the path threads through, town hotels in Mao, Ciutadella and es Castell, one youth hostel at Ciutadella, and agroturismes on inland farms. Two things follow, and both change a plan. First, most of that stock is seasonal, and it is shut in the months when this route walks best. The island's hotel season runs roughly Easter to October. Local trade reporting has the majority of Menorca's hotels closing before the end of October, with only urban, boutique and Imserso properties trading into the first days of November, and a Balearic industry count put establishments open twelve months at 20.4 per cent for 2026, rising to 70.6 per cent of capacity operational in March, 92.8 per cent in April and 99.8 per cent in May. The direction of travel is earlier openings: several named coastal hotels opened for the 2026 season in the second half of March. From November to roughly March the beds that exist concentrate in Mao, Ciutadella, es Castell and the inland towns, so a resort address is a reason to ring before you build a night around it rather than a reason to assume a bed. Second, the north coast has no accommodation. From Platges de Fornells (km 44.6) to the first hotels above Cala en Blanes (km 90.7) is about 46 km with one hotel roughly 2 km inland near Cala Morell and nothing else within several kilometres of the path. That is not a mapping gap, it is the ground: the tramuntana coast between Fornells and Cala Morell is undeveloped and the beaches on it have no buildings. The two workable answers are to stay inland and be driven to and from the stage ends, which is what the island's Cami de Cavalls support companies exist to do, or to accept one very long day. The useful inland bases are Ferreries, about 7 km inland of the coast at Els Alocs near the midpoint of the gap and about 5 km inland of Cala Galdana on the south coast, and es Mercadal, about 4.5 km from the route near Fornells. Both have hotels open through the winter, which the coast does not. Book direct. Almost every property on this route publishes a phone number and most take reservations through their own site, and several of the smaller ones hold free cancellation until one to seven days before arrival. There is no shared reservation system and no need for one. The alternative, and the normal choice for people who do not want to solve the north coast themselves, is a self-guided package from one of four island companies that book the whole chain of beds, move luggage between them and drive you to and from stage ends when the accommodation is not at the stage end: Cami de Cavalls 360 ([email protected], +34 971 105 136), NuraTravel, RutasMenorca and ExcursionsMenorca. Cami de Cavalls 360 states that its price includes "Organization and accommodation booking along the route", "Transportation of luggage between the accommodations included in the program" and "Transfers to the starting and ending points of the stage when they do not match the location of the accommodations included in the program". Where a walker is booking independently for the shoulder months, ring rather than rely on a booking engine: whether a coastal property is open at all is the question, and most do not publish their season anywhere. Camping wild is not an option on Menorca and should not be planned around. Under the Balearic conservation law that covers the protected areas the path crosses, camping, bivouacking and sleeping out in the open without authorisation are prohibited, with minor infractions carrying 300 to 6,000 euros and, in absolute prohibition zones, up to 100,000 euros. The local press reports this being enforced against backpackers, and lists the prohibited ground as virgin beaches, dune systems, pine woods and the stretches of the Cami de Cavalls that run through protected areas including s'Albufera des Grau. In towns, sleeping on a mat is not itself banned but pitching anything with a closure counts as concealed camping and is fined municipally. Walking guidance circulating online that a bivouac on a remote beach is legal if you pack up before six does not match the published rule, so treat it as folklore. There are two campsites on the whole island, both on the south side and neither anywhere near the northern half of the circuit: Camping Son Bou near Alaior and Camping s'Atalaia between Ferreries and Cala Galdana. Both take your own tent. A 2012 Balearic tourism law does not recognise camping as tourist accommodation, which is why no new sites have opened. Anything else on a map that looks like a campsite on this route is not one. Eating vegan here is a supermarket and a town problem rather than a cuisine problem. The one dish that reliably works is pa amb oli, toasted bread with garlic and olive oil, and its tomato version pa amb tomaquet, both of which happen to be vegan and are on most menus. Oliaigua, the island's bread and vegetable soup, and berenjenes a la menorquina, stuffed aubergines, are commonly listed as the vegetarian options on Menorcan menus, but neither is dependably vegan: the aubergines are usually built on cheese or meat and oliaigua is sometimes served with egg. Treat anything described as vegetarian with the same caution. A vegan traveller writing about the island reports "I've seen many dishes advertised as vegetarian which contained fish" and being served a salad with an egg on it after asking for vegan. A Menorca food guide makes the same point about vegetable paella cooked on meat stock, empanadas made with tuna, and croquetas made with cod, and says plainly that you "cannot always rely on it being cooked without meat based products/fats". Geographically it thins out fast. Fully vegetarian or vegan kitchens are rare and sit in Mao and Ciutadella, so the two ends of this circuit are the easy part and the resort stages in between are not: beach restaurants have short menus and no reason to think about it. Out of season the problem compounds, because the resort restaurants that would have fed you are shut. Supermarkets carry pulses and plant milks, which makes a self-catering apartment the sensible base for a vegan on this route rather than half board. Useful to be able to say: sense carn (no meat), sense peix (no fish), sense ou i sense formatge (no egg and no cheese), and sóc vegana or soy vegano. Asking directly whether something is cooked with meat stock is worth doing, because it usually is not volunteered. Distances off the route matter more here than on most trails, because almost nobody stays on the path. Worth knowing before booking: a resort name on a map is a cluster of apartment blocks and package hotels, so the walk in from the path is usually a few hundred metres and flat, but the inland options are several kilometres and need a lift. The apartment blocks are the weak link for a through-walker: several are aimed at week bookings and quote weekly rates first, so a single night is often possible but priced or arranged separately, and it is worth asking outright rather than assuming a booking engine will show it. Mao and Ciutadella are the two places on the loop with beds that trade all year, and on a circuit that starts and finishes at Mao you can choose which night falls in which town without changing the walking. Choose it deliberately: the town kitchens and markets that matter to a walker with dietary needs keep fixed weekday closures rather than weekend ones, so a rest night landing on the wrong day of the week is a wasted one.