Lynne Baab

Journey and pilgrimage

Lynne Baab • Tuesday August 12 2025

I’ve been pondering the relationship between five words: travel, trip, journey, vacation, and pilgrimage. I looked for synonyms for these words online, and the other words often appeared as synonyms, so the overlap between these words is substantial. To me, however, they don’t feel identical. I’ll give you definitions that I got from online dictionaries. Several of these words can be used as verbs or nouns, making their connections more complex. See what you think about how these words relate.

• Travel - go from one place to another, typically over a distance of some length.
• Trip - an act of going to a place and returning; a journey or excursion, especially for pleasure.
• Journey - an act of traveling from one place to another.
• Vacation - an extended period of leisure and recreation, especially one spent away from home or in traveling.
• Pilgrimage - a journey, often of considerable distance, to a sacred place or shrine, undertaken for religious or spiritual reasons. It can be a journey of faith, seeking forgiveness, fulfilling a vow, expressing devotion, or finding deeper meaning in life.

In this post, I want to focus on that last specific form of travel — pilgrimage. Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, in her ever-helpful Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, writes that the desire in pilgrimage is “to go on an outer journey that will lead me closer to God.” Key components of a pilgrimage, Calhoun writes, are “prayerful intention to be more than a tourist, as well as prayerful attention to the Holy Spirit’s movement within.” [1] She italicizes “intention” and “attention” to emphasize two important considerations as we contemplate what exactly is a pilgrimage and how to take one. She juxtaposes our outer and inner worlds. Travel is an outer journey, but our intention, our purpose in the travel, hopefully enables us to pay prayerful attention to what’s going on inside.

A recent issue of Christianity Today has a long article on pilgrimage. It affirms the growing popularity of many forms of pilgrimage, including these:

• Tours of Israel, visiting sites mentioned in the Bible
• Study abroad programs. The article cites the example of a group that traveled to New Zealand, where students learned about the spirituality of the indigenous Māori people
• Visiting communities like L'Abri Fellowship or Taizé
• Many traditional pilgrimage routes [2]

Under the second to last bullet point, I would add visiting monasteries and entering into their rhythms.

Under that last bullet point, I want to round out their mention of the various branches of the Camino de Santiago in Portugal and Spain. Other popular pilgrimage routes include: The Pilgrims’ Way in England. St Cuthbert’s Way in Scotland and England that leads to Holy Island. In Japan, the Kumano Kodo and the Shikoku Pilgrimage. Via Francingena in Italy.

I will also add trips to places connected to family history like Omaha Beach and Gallipoli. Many people find spiritual meaning in visiting places where family members fought or died. Closely related are trips to places where ancestors are buried or lived at one time. Some of those trips resonate deeply and feel like pilgrimages.

The Christianity Today article quotes a missionary to pilgrims on the Camina de Santiago, Bruce Harkins:

“It’s not just the ongoing conversation, it’s the kinetic motion of putting one foot in front of the other, both sides of one’s brain connecting as they walk. It’s not just the body, it’s the soul. It’s not just the mind, it’s the heart.” [3]

The goals described by Calhoun are likely met on pilgrimages in part because our whole beings are involved.

Two years ago, I wrote a blog post about trips I’ve taken that felt like pilgrimages, and other trips to places on Christianity Today’s list that did not feel holy or sacred. My experience reinforces Calhoun’s perspective that some form of prayerful intentionality and attention is required to experience an “outer journey that leads me closer to God.”

In the past few months, I’ve talked with four people who walked the Camino de Santiago. For all of them, the experience was rich and full. I expected to hear a variety of aspects of their inner journey, and to a small extent, I did. But I was surprised by one consistent theme they all talked about quite a bit. Stay tuned for next week. I’ll tell you about those conversations.

Some questions to ponder:

When you think of the words travel, trip, journey, vacation, and pilgrimage, what do you think are the priorities for each one? What memories come to mind?

Have you ever gone anywhere with “prayerful intention to be more than a tourist, as well as prayerful attention to the Holy Spirit’s movement within?” What fruit did you experience?

God, you created all places and inhabit them. Thank you for the awareness of your presence and provision that people throughout the ages have experienced on pilgrimages. Thank you for the model that pilgrimages give us of prayerful intention and prayerful attention. Help us bring both of those priorities into our daily lives.

֍ ֍ ֍

Next week: Journey and God’s song in the house of pilgrimage. Illustration by Dave Baab: Market Church, Wiesbaden Germany. I lived in Wiesbaden for five years of my childhood. Dave’s and my trip there in 2011 felt like a pilgrimage as I experienced God’s presence in locations from my childhood.

Related posts:

• Prayer and pilgrimage
• Pilgrimage and the Celtic sense of place
• Jan’s story about her pilgrimage

֍ ֍ ֍

Two ways to subscribe.

If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up below under “subscribe.” That email and the posts on this blog are free and accessible for all.

If you’d like to help me cover the expenses for this blog and website, plus get a bonus post every month, you can subscribe on Patreon for $3 or $6 per month. My bonus posts focus on one or more of the hundreds of vivid quotations I’ve collected over five decades.

[1] Both quotations are from page 68 of the 2015 edition of Spiritual Disciplines Handbook (InterVarsity Press).
[2] Abby Perry, “Wandering as a Form of Worship,” Christianity Today, May/June 2025, 111-119.
[3] Ibid., 111.

Lynne M. Baab, Ph.D., is an author and adjunct professor. She has written numerous books, Bible study guides, and articles for magazines and journals. Lynne is passionate about prayer and other ways to draw near to God, and her writing conveys encouragement for readers to be their authentic selves before God. She encourages experimentation and lightness in Christian spiritual practices. Read more »

Quick links:

• Two latest books: Draw Near: A Lenten Devotional and Friendship, Listening and Empathy: A Prayer Guide (illustrated with Dave Baab's beautiful watercolors)
• Most popular book, Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest (audiobook, paperback, and kindle)
• quick overview of all Lynne's books
• more than 50 articles Lynne has written for magazines on listening, Sabbath, fasting, spiritual growth, resilience for ministry, and congregational communication

You can listen to Lynne talk about these topics: 

• empathy

• bringing spiritual practices to life

• Sabbath keeping for recent grads

• Sabbath keeping for families and children

• why listening matters

• listening skills

• listening for Mission and Ministry

• why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry

"Lynne's writing is beautiful. Her tone has such a note of hope and excitement about growth. It is gentle and affirming."
— a reader

"Dear Dr. Baab, You changed my life. It is only through God’s gift of the sabbath that I feel in my heart and soul that God loves me apart from anything I do."
— a reader of Sabbath Keeping