Religious and spiritual travel

Are you unsatisfied by your recent journeys? Do you feel like old cathedrals that were pleasing your eyes don’t provide the spiritual sustain anymore? And the icons, that took you somewhere above, don’t lift your spirit? You desperately wait for a sign from above? Probably, you should open your heart.

Worldwide spiritual travel market is an industry that accounts about $20 billion each year. Millions of people: curious, skeptical or faithful travel to the most mystic places of our planet. It can be a few days’ stay at a monastery full of Buddhists, a couple of weeks with your church friends in a Bible trip or an adventure to discover your Native American animal spirit. However, many people spiritually integrate their journeys.

If you’re fine with spiritual travel, take your time brainstorming on our behalf and bid your own thoughts and suggestions for a religious tour.

Throughout the history travelers were making pilgrimages. Spanish Jesuits were traveling to Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina – they were establishing missions amidst the native inhabitants, even though they were not pretty welcomed. Buddhist anchorites’ point of traveling was to spend prolonged periods in caves, thoughtfully staring at their omphaloses. Multiple African tribes sent their young men on “spirit quests” – that often meant the experience of pain and fear, however it was a necessary discipline in becoming an adult.

Though crossing the Atlantic isn’t that risky nowadays, spiritual tours forge on. Contemporary religious group journeys are present everywhere – whether a trip to holy places, or a volunteer vacation.

Main travel operators have realized the advantage of those spirit-centered journeys. A Christian travel company “Templeton Tours” cruise and land tours to the Holy Land, Alaska, Hawaii etc. No alcohol served on their tours, there’s a Christian bookstore instead of a casino, and the entertainment is provided by gospel groups. Alike, “Globus”, one of the world’s biggest travel operators, has got a section of faith-based tours; among its 20 routes you can find an “Irish Faith and History” package and a “Turkey and the Book of Revelation” tour. Quite often religious tours are offered with cheap airfare tickets and other discounts.

Most travelers, not interested in religion as such, are enchanted by the spectacle of the historical and cultural traditions exploring an ancient site.

And, no matter what is your purpose, contemporary traveling infrastructure has made the access to these sites easier then ever.