Pilgrimage Routes, or How to Find Your Inner Backpacker
The world's pilgrimage routes are filled with spiritual seekers - but also with everyday backpacking women fleeing modern life and looking for serenity, or just for something else.
What is a pilgrimage, exactly?
A pilgrimage is usually a spiritual journey, often arduous and demanding, that involves travel to sacred sites - most often a shrine or site of religious or mystical importance.
Modern pilgrimages can have a mundane twist and can range from a visit to Graceland in the footsteps of Elvis, for example, or to Abbey Road in search of Beatles history.
For the more politically minded, pilgrimages can take place to the tombs of leaders like Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square or Mao Tse Tung's in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
There are even pop culture or cult pilgrimages - in the steps of the Da Vinci Code, for example, or around New Zealand to visit film locations for Lord of the Rings.
If you've ever been on a pilgrimage of any kind, we'd love to hear about it!
A Taste of History
Pilgrimage routes have been traced since Antiquity - to Karnak and Thebes in Egypt, to Ephesus in Byzantium and to Delphi in Greece - and once each four years, during the Olympic Games, to the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. But only with Christianity did pilgrimages really take off.
Pilgrims were usually men - pilgrimages were seen as too dangerous for women - and almost too tempting, leading to 'loose morals'.
But that didn't stop women.
Empress Helena, Emperor Constantine's mother, made pilgrimages some 1700 years ago to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. A Spanish nun, Egeria, followed in her footsteps a few years later.
In medieval times, literature was filled with stories that served as warnings to honest women: in one, Saracens captured a wealthy pregnant noblewoman on a pilgrimage; in another, a female pilgrim was raped - she ended up in a harem. Enough to discourage any honest female pilgrim!
But no, this didn't stop intrepid women from tracing their own pilgrimage routes, but it did ensure only the bravest ten percent did so.
Today, women don't need to avoid pilgrimages anymore - and no one questions whether we are 'honest women' either.
That said, the same rules apply to pilgrimage routes as they do to other rules for backpacking women: dress modestly and be culturally appropriate, and don't show off with money or possessions.
A Renewed Faith
Many pilgrimage routes are well-known: the Muslim Hajj, which should be undertaken at least once in a lifetime by all healthy Muslims who can afford it; following in the steps of the Buddha; the pilgrimage to Santiago, or El Camino (Way of St James) in Spain or Lourdes in France for Roman Catholics; the Hindu Chardham; or the Jewish pilgrimage to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
Some pilgrimage routes are best traveled in a specific manner - pilgrims on the Camino, for example, are encouraged to arrive on foot, horseback or bicycle, at least towards the end.
But what counts is what you experience as a result. Wherever you go, whatever you do, your pilgrimage will always be your special spiritual adventure, to relive and to remember.
Have you ever been on a pilgrimage?
We'd love to hear about it if you have! Where did you go? Was it difficult? Were you alone or with others? How did it change you? What were your reasons for going? Would you do it again?
Please tell us about where your pilgrimage took place and what kind of experience it was for you - we'd love to know more about your pilgrimage experience!
What Other Visitors Have Said
Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...
The Via Francigena to Rome
The reanimation of the ancient pilgrimage route between Canterbury and Rome began in the 1990’s after the discovery of a diary written by Archbishop Sigeric ...
Everywhere and Back
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I got hurt my freshman year in college and was told I'd be permanently disabled in 10 years. (That anniversary is this month, and they're right.) Before ...
Pilgrimage to Czestochowa, Poland
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The tradition of pilgrimages to Czestochowa, a famous Marian sanctuary (also commonly known by the name of Clara Montana, the Bright Mountain) is a long ...
Wailing Wall in Jerusalem
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In 1983 I made a decision that was to form a backdrop to most of my adult life. I decided that I wanted to make a pilgrimage to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem....
A Week in Taize, France
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I went on a pilgrimage to the small French town of Taize in France when I was 15 years old. In Taize, there’s a wonderful religious commune run by a sect ...
Umrah
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I did Umrah back in June 2005 Alhamdulillah and the experience was great. I was really excited to go to Saudi for many reasons. The most important was ...
Vaishnodevi Pilgrimage
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Vaishnudevi is a pilgrimage in Jammu, India. I went there to pray to Mother Goddess. It is in the hills at a height of around 6000 feet above sea level ...
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