Travel Tours

Pilgrims perform darshans (offerings) as near as possible so much that water flows through the ice wall underneath the terminal moraine.

2. Mt Kailash (Tibet)
As being the source of several of Asia’s mightiest rivers, such as the Ganges, Karnali and Indus, it’s little surprise that peak of Mt Kailash in Tibet is revered in a lot of religions. To circuit holy Kailash is a pilgrimage for Buddhists, Hindus, Bonpos, Jains and, more recently, trekkers. Probably the most ardent pilgrims walk the 52km circuit in a day, as the truly pious prostrate themselves surrounding the mountain, lying down with arms outstretched, then standing and laying again at the point that their hands reached.

3. Camino de Santiago (Spain)
One of several great Christian pilgrimages is towards the tomb of your apostle St James in the Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela. It’s an outing of such spiritual observe that it is named Europe’s Premier Cultural Itinerary and it is on the Unesco World Heritage register. 6. Shashemene (Ethiopia)
With Rastafarianism founded on the belief that Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie is an African Messiah, it’s unsurprising that a Rasta community has taken root in Ethiopia. Around 240km from Addis Ababa, Selassie himself granted land in the town of Shashemene to Jamaican Rastafarians while in the 1960s. It was first settled by 12 Jamaicans but the community has now grown to number hundreds. In the late 1970s essentially the most famous Rasta of all, Bob Marley, visited Shashemene, and in recent years his widow has talked of relocating his remains here, which would indeed turn this southern town into a site of rock and Rasta pilgrimage.

7. Mt Athos (Greece)
Known to be the Holy Mountain, Mt Athos can be a self-governing community of 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries sprinkled all around the slopes of 2033m-high Mt Athos on Greece’s Chalkidiki Peninsula. A strict entry-permit system applies: 100 Orthodox pilgrims and 10 non-Orthodox visitors are allowed in during a period; only men over 18 years of age can visit; permit applications from non-Orthodox visitors must be made at least six months ahead; and diamonitiria (permits) usually allow stays of just four days. The Holy Mountain is reached by boat, and you then walk between monasteries, each of which contains a guesthouse.

8. Mashhad (Iran)
With a name that translates as the Place of Martyrdom, Mashhad is sacred to Shiites to be the place where the 8th imam and direct descendant of your Prophet Mohammed, Imam Reza, died in 817.

9. 88 Temple Circuit (Japan)
On the Japanese island of Shikoku you will find 88 temples, a number equal towards the evil human passions as defined through the Buddhist doctrine. If you want to free yourself from every one of these passions in a single hit, you can do so by completing the 88 Temple Circuit.

10. Adam’s Peak (Sri Lanka)
In the highlands of Sri Lanka there is a mountain that’s things to all religions. Depending on your spiritual persuasion, the indent on the summit of Adam’s Peak is either the place at which Adam first set foot on earth, or a footprint left by Buddha, Shiva or St Thomas. Small wonder the track to the summit is like an ant trail inside pilgrimage season (December to May).