El Camino Real
El Camino Real is a National Scenic Byway in New Mexico. Within New Mexico it covers roughly 380 miles. The map below shows its route. Use “Plan a drive” to open it in the Road Sorties route planner — already routing along El Camino Real with scenic roads turned on, ready to add your own stops.
El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro is a federally designated National Historic Trail across New Mexico, tracing the 16th-century Spanish colonial route from El Paso to Santa Fe. Congress recognized the U.S. portion of the trail, roughly 404 miles running through Las Cruces, Socorro, Belen, and Albuquerque before ending at Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico's first Spanish capital, as a National Historic Trail in 2000. The route itself is far older, predating both Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, and served for three centuries as the primary supply and trade corridor linking Mexico City to Spain's northern colonial outposts. The National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management jointly manage the trail today, working with the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro Trail Association to mark and interpret its history. Driving the corridor through New Mexico means passing through the same river valley towns that grew up around the original camino, with historic markers, museums, and colonial-era sites tracing a distinctly Spanish chapter of American settlement history.
- El Paso to Ohkay Owingeh
- ~404 miles (US portion)
- National Historic Trail (designated 2000)
- Las Cruces, Socorro, Belen, Albuquerque
- 16th-century Spanish colonial route
- NPS & BLM administered
Designated for its historic qualities
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Places to stop along El Camino Real
Ohkay Owingeh
A Tewa pueblo near the confluence of the Rio Grande and Rio Chama, beside the site of the first Spanish colonial capital founded by Juan de Oñate in 1598.
Palace of the Governors
A 17th-century adobe seat of government on the Santa Fe plaza, the trail's northern terminus, where Native artisans sell jewelry beneath the portal.
WebsiteCoronado Historic Site
The excavated ruins of Kuaua Pueblo, with a reconstructed kiva showing rare painted murals, where Coronado's expedition wintered in 1540.
Old Town Albuquerque
Albuquerque's original 1706 plaza, anchored by San Felipe de Neri Church and lined with adobe shops and restaurants.
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
Rio Grande wetlands where tens of thousands of sandhill cranes and snow geese spend the winter, best at sunrise fly-outs from November to February.
WebsiteFort Craig
Adobe ruins of an 1854 Army fort on a remote stretch of the trail, staging point for the Union side at the 1862 Battle of Valverde.
El Camino Real Historic Trail Site
A museum on a mesa above the Jornada del Muerto, the waterless stretch travelers dreaded, telling three centuries of trade on the royal road.
Elephant Butte Lake State Park
New Mexico's largest lake, a 40-mile reservoir on the Rio Grande near Truth or Consequences, busy with boats and beach campers.
Fort Selden Historic Site
Melting adobe walls of an 1865 fort where Buffalo Soldiers served and a young Douglas MacArthur lived as a boy.
Las Cruces
A southern New Mexico city near the old Mesilla plaza, where Billy the Kid was tried, with chile fields and pecan orchards around it.
Website
Where to Stay along El Camino Real
5 campgrounds and RV parks sit within about 5 miles of El Camino Real.
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Photos of El Camino Real
What is a National Scenic Byway?
National Scenic Byways are roads recognized at the federal level for at least one outstanding quality — scenic, natural, historic, cultural, archaeological or recreational — that gives travelers a reason to seek them out rather than just pass through.