Pilgrimage: Journeys of Meaning

A Thames & Hudson publication by Peter Stanford.

Far from being an ancient religious tradition that is on the wane, especially with religion itself ever more marginalised in Western culture, the opening decades of the twenty first century have seen pilgrimage become ever more popular, most spectacularly on the Camino, through France and across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. Elsewhere too it is tempting more travellers, as Pilgrimage: Journeys With Meaning explores. But what is that meaning, especially for today’s pilgrims who describe themselves as without religion - at least as they set off.

At 12 destinations - the Camino, Rome, Jerusalem, Mecca, Lalibela in Ethiopia, Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the North Wales Pilgrims Way, the Kumbh Mela, the Buddha Trail of northern India, Shikoku in Japan, the Mormon Trail to Salt Lake City and Machu Picchu in Peru - describes how pilgrimage is resonating once more in a troubled world.