Top 10 Pilgrimages Every Christian Should Consider

Rome is the seat of the Catholic Church and the site of the martyrdom of both St. Peter and St. Paul, making it the second most important pilgrimage destination in Christianity after Jerusalem. The four major basilicas — St. Peter's, St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran, and St. Mary Major — form a traditional pilgrimage circuit known as the Jubilee route. St. Peter's Square, the Sistine Chapel, and the Vatican Museums contain the greatest concentration of Christian art and architecture in the world, and the catacombs beneath the city preserve the earliest evidence of Christian worship.

The Camino de Santiago is a network of ancient pilgrimage routes converging on the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, where the relics of St. James the Apostle are believed to rest. More than 300,000 pilgrims walk the Camino each year, with the most popular route — the Camino Francés from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port — covering 780 kilometers over approximately five weeks. The Camino has experienced a remarkable revival in the twenty-first century as a spiritual and physical journey that attracts Christians, seekers, and those with no religious affiliation in roughly equal measure.

The Sea of Galilee — also known as Lake Kinneret — is the freshwater lake in northern Israel where Jesus spent the majority of his three-year ministry, calling his first disciples from its shores, walking on its waters, calming its storms, and preaching the Sermon on the Mount from the hillside above it. The lakeside town of Capernaum, where Jesus made his home base, preserves the ruins of the synagogue where he taught and the house of Peter where tradition says he healed Peter's mother-in-law. Sailing on the Sea of Galilee on a wooden boat at sunrise is one of the most serene and memorable experiences of any Holy Land pilgrimage.

Canterbury Cathedral became the most important pilgrimage site in medieval England following the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170, who was murdered at the altar on the orders of King Henry II. Chaucer immortalized the Canterbury pilgrimage in The Canterbury Tales, making it as much a part of English literary history as religious history. The cathedral, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture spanning 1,400 years of Christian history, contains the shrine of Becket, the tomb of the Black Prince, and the chair of Augustine of Canterbury — the first Archbishop of Canterbury who brought Christianity to England in 597 AD.

Lourdes became a major Catholic pilgrimage site following eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary reported by fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, who identified the apparition as the Immaculate Conception. The Grotto of Massabielle, where the apparitions occurred, and the spring that emerged there — whose waters have been associated with numerous medically inexplicable healings reviewed by the Lourdes International Medical Committee — now draw over six million pilgrims annually, making it one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the world. Sixty-nine cures have been officially recognized as miraculous by the Catholic Church.

Iona is a small island off the western coast of Scotland where St. Columba founded a monastic community in 563 AD that became the most influential center of Celtic Christianity in the early medieval period, sending missionaries across Scotland, northern England, and continental Europe. The Iona Abbey, rebuilt in the twentieth century and now the home of the ecumenical Iona Community, remains one of the most spiritually charged places in the British Isles. Pilgrims come to walk the ancient pilgrimage route around the island, pray in the abbey, and experience the distinctive "thin place" quality that Celtic Christians identified in Iona's landscape.

Bethlehem is the birthplace of Jesus, and the Church of the Nativity — built by the Emperor Constantine over the traditional site of the manger — is one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world, dating to 339 AD. The church narrowly escaped destruction in the Persian invasion of 614 AD when the mosaics above its entrance depicting the Magi in Persian dress persuaded the Persian commanders to spare it. Standing in the Grotto of the Nativity below the church's main floor, touching the silver star that marks the traditional birthsite, remains one of the most profound experiences in Christian pilgrimage.

Mount Athos is a peninsula in northern Greece home to twenty Eastern Orthodox monasteries that have maintained unbroken monastic life since the tenth century, forming the most significant surviving center of Byzantine Christian spirituality on earth. Access is restricted to male pilgrims holding a special diamonitirion permit, and only ten Orthodox and ten non-Orthodox visitors are admitted per day, making it one of the most exclusive pilgrimage destinations in the world. The monasteries preserve priceless Byzantine manuscripts, icons, and liturgical traditions that were lost everywhere else in the Orthodox world during the Ottoman period.

Assisi is the Umbrian hilltop town where St. Francis was born in 1181 and founded the Franciscan order — transforming medieval Christianity's relationship with poverty, creation, and simplicity. The Basilica of San Francesco, built over his tomb in 1228 and decorated with frescoes by Cimabue and Giotto, is one of the greatest examples of Italian Gothic architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Pilgrims walk the same streets where Francis stripped off his rich merchant's clothing in front of his father and the bishop, renouncing wealth for radical poverty in one of the most dramatic conversion gestures in Christian history.

Rome is the seat of the Catholic Church and the site of the martyrdom of both St. Peter and St. Paul, making it the second most important pilgrimage destination in Christianity after Jerusalem. The four major basilicas — St. Peter's, St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran, and St. Mary Major — form a traditional pilgrimage circuit known as the Jubilee route. St. Peter's Square, the Sistine Chapel, and the Vatican Museums contain the greatest concentration of Christian art and architecture in the world, and the catacombs beneath the city preserve the earliest evidence of Christian worship.

The Camino de Santiago is a network of ancient pilgrimage routes converging on the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, where the relics of St. James the Apostle are believed to rest. More than 300,000 pilgrims walk the Camino each year, with the most popular route — the Camino Francés from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port — covering 780 kilometers over approximately five weeks. The Camino has experienced a remarkable revival in the twenty-first century as a spiritual and physical journey that attracts Christians, seekers, and those with no religious affiliation in roughly equal measure.

The Sea of Galilee — also known as Lake Kinneret — is the freshwater lake in northern Israel where Jesus spent the majority of his three-year ministry, calling his first disciples from its shores, walking on its waters, calming its storms, and preaching the Sermon on the Mount from the hillside above it. The lakeside town of Capernaum, where Jesus made his home base, preserves the ruins of the synagogue where he taught and the house of Peter where tradition says he healed Peter's mother-in-law. Sailing on the Sea of Galilee on a wooden boat at sunrise is one of the most serene and memorable experiences of any Holy Land pilgrimage.

Canterbury Cathedral became the most important pilgrimage site in medieval England following the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170, who was murdered at the altar on the orders of King Henry II. Chaucer immortalized the Canterbury pilgrimage in The Canterbury Tales, making it as much a part of English literary history as religious history. The cathedral, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture spanning 1,400 years of Christian history, contains the shrine of Becket, the tomb of the Black Prince, and the chair of Augustine of Canterbury — the first Archbishop of Canterbury who brought Christianity to England in 597 AD.

Lourdes became a major Catholic pilgrimage site following eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary reported by fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, who identified the apparition as the Immaculate Conception. The Grotto of Massabielle, where the apparitions occurred, and the spring that emerged there — whose waters have been associated with numerous medically inexplicable healings reviewed by the Lourdes International Medical Committee — now draw over six million pilgrims annually, making it one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the world. Sixty-nine cures have been officially recognized as miraculous by the Catholic Church.

Iona is a small island off the western coast of Scotland where St. Columba founded a monastic community in 563 AD that became the most influential center of Celtic Christianity in the early medieval period, sending missionaries across Scotland, northern England, and continental Europe. The Iona Abbey, rebuilt in the twentieth century and now the home of the ecumenical Iona Community, remains one of the most spiritually charged places in the British Isles. Pilgrims come to walk the ancient pilgrimage route around the island, pray in the abbey, and experience the distinctive "thin place" quality that Celtic Christians identified in Iona's landscape.

Bethlehem is the birthplace of Jesus, and the Church of the Nativity — built by the Emperor Constantine over the traditional site of the manger — is one of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world, dating to 339 AD. The church narrowly escaped destruction in the Persian invasion of 614 AD when the mosaics above its entrance depicting the Magi in Persian dress persuaded the Persian commanders to spare it. Standing in the Grotto of the Nativity below the church's main floor, touching the silver star that marks the traditional birthsite, remains one of the most profound experiences in Christian pilgrimage.

Mount Athos is a peninsula in northern Greece home to twenty Eastern Orthodox monasteries that have maintained unbroken monastic life since the tenth century, forming the most significant surviving center of Byzantine Christian spirituality on earth. Access is restricted to male pilgrims holding a special diamonitirion permit, and only ten Orthodox and ten non-Orthodox visitors are admitted per day, making it one of the most exclusive pilgrimage destinations in the world. The monasteries preserve priceless Byzantine manuscripts, icons, and liturgical traditions that were lost everywhere else in the Orthodox world during the Ottoman period.

Assisi is the Umbrian hilltop town where St. Francis was born in 1181 and founded the Franciscan order — transforming medieval Christianity's relationship with poverty, creation, and simplicity. The Basilica of San Francesco, built over his tomb in 1228 and decorated with frescoes by Cimabue and Giotto, is one of the greatest examples of Italian Gothic architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Pilgrims walk the same streets where Francis stripped off his rich merchant's clothing in front of his father and the bishop, renouncing wealth for radical poverty in one of the most dramatic conversion gestures in Christian history.