Faith-based travel is an emerging sector of the travel industry, comprising pilgrimages, mission and humanitarian trips as well as pastor-led retreats and congregational leisure trips. Group travel planners should choose an operator with experience in faith-based travel when organizing such an itinerary.
Experience Europe’s rich religious history through visits to places that inspired great spiritual and artistic works, from Martin Luther’s Reformation Tour or London and Paris history tours.
The Beginning
Faith-based travel in Europe dates back to the early 1700s when religious groups first started traveling around for religious reasons and pilgrimages began becoming popular pilgrimages with an array of activities included.
Religion-themed tours provide guests with an enhanced knowledge and connection to their religion and church, while pastors and denominational leaders witness how these trips change lives within the congregation.
Explore Europe and deepen your faith as you experience spiritually significant sites of Europe. Follow in the footsteps of Reformation thinkers such as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin at Lutherhaus museum with its priceless Luther relics including his desk and pulpit; discover stunning churches and cathedrals featuring remarkable architectural designs that have stood for centuries; travel through Holy Land or Italy’s revered sites – these itineraries are designed to motivate, uphold and enrich. Take your spirituality on an extraordinary journey!
The Middle
Faith-based group travel encompasses pilgrimages, visits to religious sites, mission and humanitarian trips as well as pastor-led retreats and congregational leisure tours, Such travelers seek an in-depth spiritual experience.
We recommend choosing a tour operator with experience planning religious travel excursions and an effective track record in doing so. A specialist can then create an itinerary tailored specifically towards meeting the goals and interests of your group as well as provide special event recommendations unique to particular destinations.
Oberammergau Passion Play in 2020 will draw a large crowd to this German hamlet; similarly, Hierapolis UNESCO World Heritage Site boasts surreal mineral forests and petrified waterfalls made of calcite-laden waters that create an extraordinary surrealist landscape of mineralized waters and petrified waterfalls.
The End
Faith-based travelers are those who travel for religious or spiritual reasons, whether to deepen or refine their own beliefs, engage other cultures, or build bridges of understanding between cultures – their aim being to find deeper meaning to their journey.
Our faith-based tours and vacations give travelers an incredible opportunity to experience the world in a new light, from Italy’s revered cathedrals to Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia Basilica still under construction nearly 100 years after it laid its cornerstone – these itineraries will both inspire and enrich!
Globus and Cosmos have expanded their religious pilgrimages by offering two new faith-based tours: a Camino de Santiago tour to Portugal and Spain; as well as an inspirational trip to Oberammergau in Germany where local residents host a Passion Play every 10 years in their quaint Bavarian village. These faith-based journeys go beyond simply physically traveling the route; they take you deep within yourself too!
The Future
Millennials, middle-class families and senior travelers all seek vacation experiences that reflect their moral and spiritual values – with globalization only making this trend stronger. Cultural understanding becomes even more crucial today.
COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous effect on travel worldwide and while restrictions are slowly being eased off, its recovery may take more time than anticipated.
Faith-based travel, such as religious pilgrimages or general tourism to sites with symbolic or sacred meaning, poses unique challenges.
Globus Faith specialize exclusively in religious and spiritual tours to Europe; moreover, many OTAs also provide religious tours within their overall vacation options.
