El Camino Real (Spanish for The Royal Road, also known as The King's Highway) usually refers to the 600-mile (966-kilometer) California Mission Trail, connecting the former Alta California's 21 missions (along with a number of support sites), 4 presidios, and several pueblos, stretching from Mission San Diego de Alcalá in San Diego in the south to Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma in the north.

In fact, any road under the direct jurisdiction of the Spanish crown and its viceroys was a "camino real". Examples of such roads ran between principal settlements throughout Spain and its colonies such as New Spain. Most caminos reales had names apart from the appended "camino real". Once Mexico won its independence from Spain, no road in Mexico, including California, was any longer a camino real. The name was rarely used after that and was only revived in the American period in connection with the boosterism associated with the Mission Revival movement of the early 20th century.