Pilgrimage tips

As the world’s largest island country, Indonesia is famed for its natural biodiversity and diverse ecosystems. But Indonesia is also rich with cultural attractions and is home to 10 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the most of any country in southeast Asia. Its uncontested jewel is Borobudur.

The Italian Alps are renowned for their stunning scenery, fine wine and good food. But many travelers are unaware that the region also hosts exquisite Renaissance and Baroque art. Nestled in the mountains and hills of northwestern Italy, just an hour’s drive from Milan, a cluster of Catholic sanctuaries brim with sculptures and frescoes by artists like Gaudenzio Ferrari, Tanzio da Varallo and Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli.

Active winter holidays in Europe don’t always have to take place on the slopes. If you want to get outdoors and enjoy the snowy weather, there are plenty of alternative ways. From dog sledding in Norway to hiking Spain’s famed camino, here are four action-packed winter breaks for non-skiers.

In Yamabushi lore, the steps at the entrance to Haguro’s mountain sanctuary symbolise the descent into hell. But hell is the last thing on my mind as I stand at the carved wooden gate of Zuishinmon, with those steps before me. Japanese nightingales and bush warblers are calling to one another in the crowns of maple trees above my head. Sunbeams caress my back as I bow beneath the gate — an acknowledgement of the guardian spirits who are believed to roam these sacred slopes. 

I just returned from a week in Washington's San Juan Islands (a trip you'll be able to read about in an upcoming issue), where more than once I found myself thinking about how the sense of interconnectedness travel sometimes imparts can feel, dare I say it, spiritual. It came over me during a nighttime kayak ride on a bioluminescent bay off San Juan Island and on a midday paddle with my son across a mountain lake on Orcas. I felt it again watching my children build forts on the same driftwood-strewn beaches where I played as a child 35 years ago.

On a sunny June day in Edinburgh, I went to see where my ancestor lost his head. A bagpiper in full regalia played tunes on the Royal Mile, and tourists took selfies beneath the castle, as I surveyed the scene at the Mercat Cross—the site where, on March 26, 1697, Sir Godfrey McCulloch was one of the last people beheaded by the Maiden, a grisly device that forced the doomed to face upwards to watch the falling blade.

My earliest memory of food is my dad going to the chippy every Friday. Growing up, we never had any other takeout than the chippy near our house [in Oldham] — it was called Tony’s. My mum would cook the rest of the time, so my dad saw it as his job to do the ritualistic, Friday-night chippy pilgrimage. I actually don’t like battered fish, so I’d have a chip muffin [bread roll] with gravy and mushy peas. Even after all the restaurants I’ve been to, it’s still one of my favourite meals.

Legend has it that the dramatic rock-hewn churches of Lalibela were created with the help of a team of angels. Buried deep into the rock in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, the 11 monolithic churches were built in the late 12th and early 13th Centuries by King Lalibela, who, so he claimed, had built the churches on the instruction from God.

Never underestimate the difficulty of a flat trail over a great distance. After my first five-hour day following the Island Walk, a new 435-mile trail that rings Prince Edward Island, in Canada’s smallest province, I limped into Points East Coastal Inn in bayside St. Peter’s Bay with a blister cooking on my right sole and a paralyzing need to rest barefoot until checkout the next morning.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who broke ground on 15th of August 2019 for works to begin on the project, expressed delight that four years on, the Tamale International Airport Phase II project has been completed.

The city of St Davids in Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales, has been a Christian pilgrimage site since medieval times.

For centuries thousands of pilgrims a year have made the journey to Bethany Beyond The Jordan, a site on the east bank of the Jordan River which Christians believe to be the exact spot where Jesus was baptised.

Years ago, when her sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Mahire Turk sought divine intervention.

When I started packing for the Camino de Santiago this summer, I didn’t want to get things wrong—after all, the stakes are a bit higher than a day hike when you’re packing for a month-long trip.

The number of people concerned about their health and wellbeing has rocketed since the pandemic began. The stats are legion but among them, 80% of those surveyed by Public Health England in 2020 — in the first year of Covid-19 — reported wanting to change their lifestyle in 2021 to become healthier. Meanwhile, an Ipsos study in 2021 noted that 62% of Americans believe health is more important to them than before the pandemic. And this has, as countless more reports will attest, changed the way many of us want to travel.

To begin at the end: the remains of the apostle Saint James (or Sant Iago, in Spanish) are believed to repose in an urn, in a tomb, in a crypt, in the looming medieval cathedral of the city named after him. Santiago de Compostela was built around the saint’s burial site, as revealed to a shepherd by a guiding star almost a millennium after the body was carried here by stone boat from Jerusalem, with angels guiding the way. Or so the story goes. It has since led more than 1,000 years’ worth of pilgrims to this convergence point of myth and history, via the network of cross-country trails known as the Camino de Santiago. In 2022, a record 438,000 people completed one of those routes, some of them covering only the final 62 miles (or 124 miles for cyclists) required to qualify for the official pilgrim certificate, the Compostela. It’s a measure of how popular the pilgrimage has become, drawing not just the Catholic faithful but recreational trekkers, mountain bikers, group tours and solo travellers, coming to work off their worries — or a few extra pounds — in the wilds of the Iberian peninsula.

After a foodie pilgrimage along the northern Spanish coast, Ros Walford shares some of her edible highlights of the Camino del Norte.

The Kii Peninsula, incorporating Wayakama and Mie prefectures, is located in the central belt of Japan’s main island, Honshu. There are plenty of wonderful things to do here. An abundance of spellbinding natural beauty means outdoor activities aplenty, and it’s here that you’ll find some of the country’s best diving, trekking and cycling. Check out Rough Guides top 12 places to visit on your first trip to the Kii Peninsula.