hi I’ll be in Porto in early October and wanted to go up to Santiago de Compostela if possible. What is the best way to do that since we will not have a car. Any ideas or tips you have will be greatly appreciated. thank you

A 2.5 hour trip each way if you were to drive? Not my idea of a day trip, but it is your trip. There appears to be a bus that takes close to 3.5 hours each way (check rome2rio.com and be sure to click through to the underlying web pages); I don't know if you can go and return on the same day. Another option would be to hire a car and driver.

There is a bus from Porto airport that takes around 3 and a half hours on a road distance of about 230kms. It's not really a day trip distance as there isn't a direct train. The best way is either by rental car or by a car and driver as kja suggests. The problem is going into Spain from Portugal, which is why here aren't any trains direct from one to the other.

https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Porto/S...mpostela#trips

as Rubicund says

as much as we’d love to go to Santiago, it really doesn’t look as though it makes sense to spend at least seven hours of our day on a bus. So, we will look for a little village nearby that we can travel to by bus or we’ll just wander around Porto another day Again, thank you for helping .

Aveiro. Braga. Guimaraes.

Coimbra, Douro cruise with or without winery visit.

Or Flixbus to Santiago (3 1/2 hrs OW):
Porto dp 7.00 - Santiago ar 11.30
Santiago dp 17.15 - Porto ar 19.45

Thanks. It may work