Religious Travel

A pilgrimage is a highly personal journey that involves profound spiritual strength, usually to a sacred site of great religious importance. Religious tours tend to offer a broader package visiting multiple holy places and often incorporating religious festivals. While clearly providing a devout experience, they do not necessarily make such a high personal demand on the traveler as a conventional pilgrimage.

The popularity of pilgrimages and religious-themed travel have evolved along with the overall global trend for greater diversity and unusual holiday experiences. There is significant demand from travelers for a meaningful journey involving a deeper personal connection with specific religions, sacred sites and their associated cultural traditions. An increasing number of specialist tour operators are able to offer either pilgrimages or tours of sacred sites for individuals or groups.

The deeply devout calling to go on a pilgrimage evolves from great personal reflection, requiring considerable physical and spiritual preparation. Often, a true pilgrimage will be undertaken on foot and will entail some physical hardship on the way to the holy, sacred place where the pilgrim will come into God`s presence. On a practical note, much research into the most appropriate destination and type of journey will be needed. It is generally considered the more the pilgrim or religious tourist knows and understands of their destination in advance, the greater the ultimate reward will be.

The concept of a pilgrimage is universal to most major religious traditions. For Christians, locations linked with Saints figure highly such as Assisi, the burial place of St. Francis or Canterbury to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket. Some 20 million people a year flock to Rome, not only to visit the Holy City itself and see the Pope but also visit the tombs of early martyrs. Santiago de Compostela is the most favoured route for pilgrims in Europe, with roads to the shrine of St James from Hungary, Denmark and Portugal in addition to the most popular route through France and Spain. Lourdes, in the French Pyrenees, attracts over 8 million Catholics a year, many praying the Spring Water will bring healing powers. There are numerous other Christian Marian sites across Europe and the Holy Land as well as in Guadaloupe and Mexico. Jerusalem is probably the holiest city in the world for Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Important sacred sites tend to be located in lands of ancient civilizations. Yet there are many places of religious interest elsewhere in the world to visit. In North America, for example, travellers may decide be independent and choose a company like http://www.carhiredirect.co.uk/travelguides/cheap-car-hire-new-york-from-car-hire-direct.html, giving him or her the freedom to plan an itinerary and see the many religious places and churches in and around the city as an alternative to a traditional pilgrimage.