Five dream trips to sacred places

Whatever your beliefs, theses sacred sites and pilgrimage routes will leave you enlightened

1. Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Walking from the Pyrenees to Galicia is an experience you will remember for the rest of your life. 

Why it’s special 

The pilgrimage is often a transformational experience – both mentally and physically – and for many people it is a way of coming to terms with a life-changing event. 

Walking or cycling across Spain – a distance of around 500 miles – may sound ambitious, but thousands of perfectly sane and not particularly sporty people do it every year to reach Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, where Saint James is buried, according to legend – continuing a tradition that began in the ninth century. 

While for many the journey is still a religious experience, pilgrims these days are just as likely to be doing it as a fitness challenge. There are eight main routes but the most traditional and popular is the Camino Francés, where you start from Saint Jean Pied de Port in France, cross the Pyrenees into Spain, then head west through the magnificent landscapes of Navarre, La Rioja, Castilla y León and Galicia. 

The route, punctuated by Romanesque churches and medieval villages, takes around five weeks on foot or half that time cycling, but lots of people tackle it in weekly chunks. You could also tackle one of the shorter, less busy options, such as the English Way from Ferrol, which takes a weekend. To qualify for an official pilgrim certificate when you reach Santiago de Compostela, it isn’t essential to have covered the entire route. You just have to walk the final 60 miles or the last 120 miles on a bike. 

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2. The Holy Land

This is the oldest holiday in the world – and it’s still a classic.

Why it’s special 

A visit to the Holy Land – a journey undertaken by Africans, Europeans, Jews and Arabs since at least the fourth century – is a wonderful travel experience whether or not you are a person of faith, and in ways that might surprise some people. 

Tel Aviv is a very cool city, with a great bar and restaurant scene. Ancient Jaffa, right beside it, is one of the oldest ports in the world and has an Arab feel. From here, the options of sites with historical heft are near countless: Nazareth, an Arab city, has an ancient bath house, plus the multilayered, weirdly affecting Church of the Annunciation and some great cafés and restaurants; Jericho, in Palestine, is where Jesus was supposedly tempted by the devil; Masada, where Sicarii rebels committed mass suicide following a long siege by Roman troops in AD73-4, is dramatic and evocative; the caves at Qumran, where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in the mid-Forties, occupy a lunar-looking clifftop. The Dead Sea is a place to linger awhile. 

In the end, all roads lead to Jerusalem – the holiest of cities, with those legendary stations of the cross on the Via Dolorosa, and the Dome of the Rock, where Islam, Judaism and Christianity merge, collide, face off and speak to one another in prayers. But Jerusalem is also a modern city, with fascinating updates of its ancient buildings around the edges of the walled old city. Art quarter Musrara, the enticing Machane Yehuda Market and cosmopolitan Nahalat Shiva challenge the notion that Jerusalem is purely about politics and religion.Find out more about this adventure, including how to book it

Find out more about this adventure, including how to book it

3. The magic of Uluru, Australia

Gawp in awe at Australia’s sacred, iconic rock formation as its vibrant colours change at sunset.

Why it’s special 

Since October 2019, climbing Uluru has been forbidden – a long-overdue act of respect to the Anangu, custodians of the landmark. For aboriginal Australians, all the natural features of the desert are Tjukuritja: physical expressions of an ancestral presence dating back some 30,000 years. Songs, stories, dances, walks and ceremonies connect descendants with their past. Non-aboriginal visitors can take inspiration from this way of looking at the natural world. The most popular option is to go at sunrise. A walk around the base opens up woodlands, claypans and waterholes. 

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4. The temples of Tamil Nadu, India

Tamil Nadu is one of India’s best kept secrets, a state of small pleasures and treasures that will delight the Indophile.

Why it’s special 

In many ways, Tamil Nadu is a better introduction to India than Rajasthan. Age-old Hindu rituals are still central to daily life, the pace is slow, the sales patter relaxed, and the lush green landscape a visual feast. Everywhere there is fine craftsmanship, a rich musical tradition and a warm welcome.

Coastal highlights include the rock temples of Mahabalipuram – a celebration of the skill of 7th-century stonemasons whose descendants still tap away in this seaside village – and the elegant 18th-century French port town of Pondicherry.

Inland, a verdant plain of rice paddy and traditional mud-brick villages is punctuated by ancient temple towns built a thousand years ago by the great Chola kings. More worldly is Chettinad, where flamboyant neoclassical mansions testify to the wealth of the Chettiar clans, bankers to the British Empire. The village of Kanadukathan has some of the finest.

The Western Ghats and the hill station of Kodaikanal offer a refreshing respite from the heat and dust of the plains and beautiful walks through highland subtropical forest.

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5. Ethiopia: land of legends

Carved into the honeycomb cliffs and plateaus of northern Ethiopia’s Gheralta Mountains, a collection of remote rock churches tells a story rarely explained in history books.

Why it’s special 

Myth and mystery shroud Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where the faithful believe the original Ark of the Covenant is locked away in a Christian church. Although the sacred tablets are hidden from view in the ancient city Axum, it’s possible to have an Indiana Jones-style adventure learning about their significance, by hiking through Gheralta’s sandstone mountains where hand-hewn hermit holes are still used by worshippers today.

Between the 6th and 17th centuries, monks constructed religious caves in inaccessible places – clinging to the edge of rocky spires and reached by clambering up a sheer cliff face or jumping between gullies. There are 28 churches (most are open to tourists), all decorated with frescoes and containing a replica of the biblical Ark. Although popular sites Maryam Korkor and Abuna Yemata Guh can be combined in a day trek from Megab, a more enriching option is to travel by foot, camping along the way. Rest beneath the sprawling boughs of a sycamore tree in the Debre Zion Valley; pitch a tent in an overhang used by political rebels as a hideout in the 1980s; and share injera (sourdough-risen flatbread) with local farmers in Agoza village several hours from the nearest road.

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