All of us strive to better ourselves with each day, and we also strive to find more meaning in our lives in order to become well-rounded people. For the religious, this means strengthening one’s relationship with God. For others, it means learning more about cultures and religions that are different from our own. No matter what your personal path is, religious tourism has enriched many people’s lives and it can enrich yours as well. Below you’ll read about various areas of the globe and why people embark on pilgrimages there. Maybe you’ll be inspired to book with Tripmasters and set off on your own pilgrimage.
In Hinduism, there are seven holy pilgrimage sites in India that are sacred to believers, and Hindus believe visiting them will give them moksha (release from the cycle of birth and death). These are Dwarka, in Gujarat state (pictured: Dwarkadhish Temple overlooking the Arabian Sea); Kanchipuram, a two-hour drive from Chennai in Tamil Nadu state; Ujjain, in Madhya Pradesh state; Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh state; Ayodhya, five hours to the northwest of Varanasi; Mathura, approximately an hour north of Agra; and Haridwar in Uttarakhand state. Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges River, is the holiest city in Hinduism, and is believed to be the first city from which the others eventually grew. Certain deities are known for their legacies in certain holy cities: for example, Rama is associated with Ayodhya, while Krishna is associated with Mathura and Dwarka, and Shiva is associated with Kanchipuram and Varanasi. Religious tourism in India (called yatra, literally “travel”) is more popular and lucrative than in any other country in the world. The Kumbh Mela, which can be held at one of four locations (Haridwar, Nashik, Allahabad, and Ujjain), brings tens of millions together to cleanse themselves of their sins.
Every Hindu is encouraged to make pilgrimages to the Char Dham (literally “the four abodes”) in their lifetimes. The first abode is Badrinath, north of Delhi and Agra in Uttarakhand state, known (in antiquity) for its berry trees and for the tale of Lakshmi-Narayan. The second is Rameswaram, in Tamil Nadu state about 10 hours’ drive from Bangalore and Chennai, where Rama built a shrine to Shiva. The third is Dwarka, aforementioned due to its importance in the life of Krishna, who adopted Dwarka instead of Mathura as his home. The last is Puri, in Odisha state, about 10 hours southwest of Kolkata, where Vishnu is worshipped in the form of avatar Jagannath. The Ganges River (pictured) is very sacred to the Hindus, as is the city of Kurukshetra in Haryana state, about 3 1/2 hours from New Delhi. At Kurukshetra, nicknamed “The Land of the Bhagavad Gita” (one of Hinduism’s most important texts), there is a 55-mile circuit surrounding the city where Hindus take a yatra, on foot, to see 48 religious sites important to Hinduism.
There are sacred cities, towns, and worship complexes dedicated to other religions that are also popular pilgrimage sites in India. The Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir state, holds a relic that was supposedly the hair from the head of the Prophet Muhammad. Jama Masjid in Delhi is India’s largest mosque and is visited by Muslims from around the world. There are five seats of authority in Sikhism (called takhata), with the largest complex of meeting places (gurudwaras) situated in the city of Amritsar in Punjab state. The centerpiece is the Golden Temple, or Harmandir Sahib (“abode of God”), which is nominated for inclusion on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There are many sites related to Buddhism located in India, with one of the most historic being the UNESCO-listed Mahabodhi Temple in Bihar state, which can be seen as a day trip from Varanasi. (Pictured: The Great Buddha statue at Bodh Gaya, the most important pilgrimage site related to Siddhartha Gautama in the country.)
Nepal is known as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, the man who would become known worldwide for 2500 years after he lived as Buddha. His birthplace is in the town of Lumbini, about 6 hours by car from Pokhara and 7 1/2 hours from Kathmandu. The Maya Devi Temple (pictured), the World Peace Pagoda, and more than 60 other religious buildings are included on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The town of Lumbini is so popular as a tourist site that its airport in nearby Siddharthanagar is becoming an international airport in 2022, the second in the country. Currently flights serve both Pokhara and Kathmandu (30-45 minutes in duration) and thus can be done as a day trip or overnight stay on your own should you choose to do so. Other important pilgrimage sites in Nepal include the Halesi-Maratika Caves, sacred to Buddhists and Hindus, situated about 6 1/2 hours southeast of Kathmandu. Closer to the capital city, you can find Boudhanath and Swayambhunath, the most beautiful Tibetan-style stupas in all of Nepal.
Jerusalem is a holy city for three major religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. One of the most popular religious pilgrimage sites in Jerusalem’s Old City is the Western Wall (pictured below), which has meaning to all three religions. For Muslims it is the place where Muhammad tied the winged creature Buraq while on his Night Journey to Jerusalem. For Jews it is used as a place of prayer, and the Western Wall of Temple Mount in particular is considered the most sacred site in Judaism because it is close to where the Holy of Holies was located, the sanctuary where God’s presence appeared to man. Christians pray at this wall also, although Christianity’s holiest site in the Old City is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where it is believed that Jesus Christ was crucified and was later resurrected. The Western Wall is so named because it is part of the retaining walls that encase the plaza at Temple Mount, venerated in all three religions but particularly meaningful to Jews and Muslims. Jews believe Solomon’s Temple was built here in the 10th century BCE, and Muslims believe the Dome of the Rock (pictured at left) and Al-Aqsa Mosque to be amongst the holiest sites in Islam. Al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the site where Muslims believe Muhammad was deposited from Mecca while on his Night Journey.
The UNESCO World Heritage-listed Old City of Jerusalem includes over 220 sites of historic interest. Inside Jerusalem’s city walls, the Old City is divided into four quarters: the Christian Quarter and the Armenian Quarter in the west, and the Muslim Quarter and the Jewish Quarter in the east, with the Western Wall of Temple Mount bordering both the Muslim and Jewish Quarters. The Via Dolorosa was the road Jesus walked down before being crucified, and on your way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site of the crucifixion, you will see the Church of St. Anne, the Church of the Flagellation, the Convent of the Sisters of Zion, and the Church of St. Veronica. Inside the Christian Quarter you will see patriarchates (episcopal sees) for Roman Catholicism, Greek Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, and Coptic Christianity. The Cathedral of St. James and the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate are located in the Armenian Quarter. Other holy sites in Israel include the Sea of Galilee near Tiberias, Bethlehem just outside Jerusalem, and Nazareth, a short drive from either Haifa or Tiberias.
Rome has been a Christian pilgrimage site for hundreds of years. It is the final resting place of St. Peter, one of the founders of Christianity and one of its first martyrs. St. Peter’s Basilica (pictured below) in Vatican City, west of the Tiber, houses the tomb where it is believed he was interred some time between 64 and 68 CE. You could spend days exploring the Vatican, seeing such sights as the aforementioned St. Peter’s, located on the western end of the square of the same name (pictured at left), where the pope is known to give special Masses to devoted crowds. The Vatican Museums are located to the north of St. Peter’s Square, and include the Apostolic Library, the Pinacotheca, the Borgia Tower, and the Sistine Chapel. The Pope’s residence is just steps from the Sistine Chapel, and the Swiss Guards and the Papal Gendarmes are stationed just a few buildings away. At the southern end of the Vatican, there is a train station, which links to Roma San Pietro train station. When you get off the train, you can explore the Palace of the Tribunal, the Palace of the Governorate, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and beautiful gardens like the French, English, and American Gardens.
Away from the Vatican, there are a number of other religious sites you should see while you’re on your pilgrimage to Rome, Italy. The Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere dates from the fourth century CE and is one of the first places where Mass was given to the public. One popular pilgrimage trek that Catholics and other Christian faithful take while in Rome is the Seven Pilgrim Church Walk, which is particularly popular for Catholics to do during Holy Week since they would normally be visiting seven churches at home in any case. These churches are St. Peter’s Basilica (right), the Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuori le Mura, the Arcibasilica Papale Romana Maggiore di San Giovanni in Laterano, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica Papale di San Lorenzo fuori le mura, the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and the Santuario della Madonna del Divino Amore. Another important stop for pilgrims is the Holy Stairs (Scala Sancta), which are walked on one’s knees, and is considered a task that is rewarded in indulgences (a lessening of punishment for sins). These stairs are near the San Giovanni in Laterano archbasilica.
The holiest sites of the Baháʼí faith are located in Israel, namely in and around the cities of Acre and Haifa. The numerous buildings and gardens across both cities are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The buildings in Acre represent the final 25 years or so in the life of founder Baháʼu’lláh (1817-92). He was imprisoned in Acre from 1869 to 1877 by the Ottoman Sultan, who disapproved of his work and his following, and continued to live nearby after his house arrest was lifted. In Haifa there is the Baháʼí World Centre, situated across 19 terraces. The Baháʼí World Centre houses such buildings as the Shrine of the Báb (pictured), where the Báb (1819-50), one of the leading figures of the Baháʼí faith, is interred. Other important buildings and gardens include the religious governing body called the Universal House of Justice, the Centre for the Study of Sacred Texts, the International Archives, and Monument Gardens.
Buddhist temples in Southeast Asia are called wats, and the nations of Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos are particularly well-known for them. There are nearly 40,000 wats across the Thai kingdom, with the most sacred being Wat Phra Kaew, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha inside the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok. Other must-see wats in Bangkok include Wat Mahathat, Wat Suthat, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun. The best-preserved Khmer-style wat in Thailand is located inside Phanom Rung Historical Park in eastern Thailand, near the border with Cambodia. Of course Cambodia’s best-preserved Khmer-style wat needs no introduction; it is the famous Angkor Wat (pictured) which has been around since the 12th century and is the top tourist draw for the city of Siem Reap. The stupa Pha That Luang in Vientiane and the 16th-century monastery Wat Xieng Thong in Luang Prabang are the most important wats in Laos.
While we’re on the subject of Buddhist temples, we would be remiss in our discussion of pilgrimage sites not to include the largest Buddhist temple in the world, which is the sprawling Borobudur complex in central Java, Indonesia, near Yogyakarta. After a lengthy restoration project, which included over a million stones being removed from the site, catalogued, cleaned, and finally reassembled, Borobudur was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Believed to date from the ninth century CE, Borobudur is built terrace-style on a hill, in a mandala/step-pyramid design hybrid, with bas-reliefs on the pyramid illustrating events in the life of Buddha. Borobudur is also noteworthy for the sheer number of statues and likenesses of Buddha on the temple grounds. (There are 504 Buddhas to be exact. Do you think you can count them all?) Be warned, there’s a lot of walking up and down stairs at Borobudur, but who can resist walking on the same sacred grounds as the people who built this magnificent complex over a millennium ago?
Japan is known for a large-scale Buddhist pilgrimage as well, the Shikoku Pilgrimage. This pilgrimage connects 88 Buddhist temples across the four prefectures on the island of Shikoku, with the vast majority of them positioned on or near the coastline. The pilgrims are encouraged to walk the entire stretch of the path (about 750 miles), although many people use cars, trains, and other means of transportation to reach the temples in a timely manner. While the traditional starting point of the pilgrimage is at Ryōzen-ji Temple near Naruto in Tokushima Prefecture, many people start their journey on Honshu, at the sacred Mount Koya in Wakayama Prefecture, south of Nagoya and close to Shikoku. Japan’s other main religion, Shintoism, boasts multiple pilgrimage routes that lead from the Shima Peninsula and Ise-jingu Shrine to the Three Grand Shrines of Kumano, with the cities of Ise and Kumano separated by a journey of about two hours by train.
Now let’s learn some facts about the Catholic pilgrimage sites in Europe. One of the most famous pilgrimages finds people setting off for the town of Lourdes, France. The miracle at Lourdes was popularized by the eyewitness account of peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous, who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary inside a grotto (pictured) where she was searching for firewood, and would see her a total of 18 times in the year 1858. Among the apparitions Bernadette saw were the Virgin Mary demanding Bernadette dig in the ground of the grotto, eventually encountering a spring of water. This water is believed by Catholic faithful to have healing properties, and thousands of people have claimed that drinking the water cured them of their various ailments. Lourdes was just a market town in 1858, but today it is one of the world’s most-visited pilgrimage spots. Approximately five million Catholics visit Lourdes every year in the hope that they too will find health and wellness. Lourdes, nestled in the French Pyrenees, can be visited on its own or as a day trip from Biarritz; Toulouse; Andorra la Vella, Andorra; and Pamplona, Spain.
Santiago de Compostela, situated in the Galicia region of northwestern Spain, has long been famous for its pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James, which has brought Catholic pilgrims from all across western Europe to Galicia since the ninth century CE. Those who made the pilgrimage were promised plenary indulgences, which would offset the punishment which would be meted out for a lifetime of sins. James, one of the Twelve Apostles, was believed to have preached here, and was eventually also murdered here in 44 CE and interred at the Shrine of St. James the Great, now called the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (pictured). The cathedral was completed in 1211, and subsequent remodels and redesigns added Baroque elements to the Romanesque/Gothic hybrid architectural style. While visiting the Cathedral, be sure to see the elaborately-carved Pórtico da Gloria, one of the most beautiful extant portions of the original interior design. Traditionally the pilgrims’ final stop would be in the cathedral crypt, where the relics of St. James are interred.
In 1917, as Europe was in the throes of World War I, three shepherd children in relatively unscathed Portugal communicated with the Virgin Mary, and the relayed message calling for piety and peace energized a country ready for healing. The children, Francisco Marto, Jacinta Marto, and Lúcia Santos, saw the Virgin Mary in a grazing field, the Cova da Iria, outside the small town of Fátima, Portugal, on May 13, 1917. The apparition told the children to return for new messages on the 13th of every month, with a final revelation to the public promised — eventually. Despite the children’s families and local government publicly doubting the children, their devotion was steadfast. On October 13, 1917, tens of thousands of pilgrims claimed to have seen “the Miracle” — colors and lights which were believed to have been caused by the Virgin Mary, who appeared to the children once more. Today Fátima is visited by millions of pilgrims each year from all over the world, with churches and chapels built on what was the Cova da Iria (pictured). Lúcia, the only one of the children to survive to adulthood, became a Carmelite nun and devoted her life to God until her death in 2005 at the age of 97.
In 1981, Medjugorje (pictured) was just a small town in the south of what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, located approximately a half-hour away from both Mostar and Neum. The town population was ethnically Croat, and Roman Catholicism is the religion for the majority of Croats, even though during this time the former Yugoslavia was officially an atheist state. Six children between the ages of 10 and 16 began seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary on June 24, 1981. She would advise them on various topics like peace, friendship, devotion, and what they should do to please her and God. Unlike other apparitions in Lourdes or Fátima, the children of Medjugorje continued to see the Virgin Mary daily for many years, and in the case of a couple of them (now all in their fifties), they claim Mary still speaks to them. All of the messages are written in detail with commentary at www.medjugorje.org. Even though the Vatican doubted the veracity of these claims for decades, Medjugorje became a popular pilgrimage spot regardless, and now welcomes over two million pilgrims annually. In 2019, the Catholic Church finally allowed Medjugorje to bill itself as an officially-sanctioned pilgrimage site.
The final Marian apparition that should be mentioned as a popular pilgrimage site today is the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City (pictured). Juan Diego, an indigenous monk, was said to have been walking to the Franciscan mission in Tlatelolco in December 1531, when he saw the apparition of the Virgin Mary for the first time. She asked that a chapel be built on the site where she revealed herself to Juan Diego, called Tepeyac Hill. The bishop, who did not take him seriously at first, finally realized that a miracle had occurred on the day of the fourth apparition. Juan Diego was asked to pluck roses on the hill, which were out of season by December, and carry them in cloth. As the story goes, when he unfurled the cloth in front of the bishop, the roses painted a colorful painting of the Virgin Mary. The bishop saw all he needed to see, and the next year pilgrims already began the trek to Tepeyac Hill, where a shrine was built. The current grand basilica was built in the 1970s and can welcome 10,000 pilgrims at any one time.
As adherents of Protestantism and its many branches know, the Reformation began on October 31, 1517 when Martin Luther, a professor of theology and the man who inspired the creation of Lutheranism as a sect, nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints Church in the town of Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. These 95 Theses were complaints to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, primarily focused on the sale of indulgences. As mentioned before, until the 16th century, many Catholic bishops would sell indulgences to the higher classes while the devoted poor had to earn indulgences by going on pilgrimages and the like. Martin Luther was eventually buried at this church, and from 1525 to 1760 it operated as a Lutheran church. In the 19th century it was given an extensive remodeling and by the end of the century the church was reopened, once again serving a Lutheran congregation. There are so many things to see at the All Saints Church, including the “Theses Doors” (pictured), installed in 1858 in honor of Martin Luther’s then-375th birthday. Wittenberg is an easy day trip from Hanover, Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden.
Finally, I can’t ignore what is perhaps the most famous pilgrimage of all, the Hajj. Literally meaning “pilgrimage” in Arabic, the Hajj is a journey that all Muslims must take to the sacred city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The Hajj happens annually in the second week of the final month of the Islamic calendar, Dhu al-Hijjah. Muslims must make the journey to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes, and many save up for years in order to go. To fulfill the requirements of the Hajj, Muslims must walk counter-clockwise seven times around the most sacred site in Islam, the black stone cube called Kaaba (lit. “House of God”, pictured). They must also walk briskly seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwah, drink from the Zamzam Well, stand in vigil at Mount Arafat, sleep one night in the Muzdalifa plain, symbolically “stone the devil” by throwing stones at three pillars, and then partake in animal sacrifice and hair removal. Today “animal sacrifice” means buying a sacrifice voucher, where a butcher sacrifices an animal in the name of God without the pilgrim’s presence, and a mere trimming of one’s hair is required these days (as opposed to a full shave). These rites are performed across nearly a whole week, and only Muslims are allowed to enter Mecca.
If you had to choose, which pilgrimage would you embark on? To put together your own spiritual journey, head on over to Tripmasters.com, where you can find hundreds of pilgrimage sites scattered across over 120 countries and territories throughout the world.
