What Is Pilgrimage and Why Do People Do It?

Related traditions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism

Regions covered: Global

Pilgrimage is the act of traveling to a place believed to hold sacred power, spiritual meaning, or religious obligation. Nearly every major faith tradition practices some form of it, yet no single definition captures the full range of what pilgrimage means across cultures and centuries. For a Muslim performing the Hajj, pilgrimage is a divine command — the fifth pillar of the faith. For a Buddhist circumambulating a stupa, it is an embodied meditation. For a Catholic walking to Santiago de Compostela, it may be penance, devotion, or both. For a secular walker on the same path, it can be something else entirely: a search for meaning without a specific theological framework.

What unites these practices is the conviction that certain places matter — that geography carries spiritual weight. The pilgrim moves through ordinary space toward a destination that is, in some sense, not ordinary. This belief in the sacredness of specific locations appears in traditions that otherwise share little: the Hindu tirtha (a crossing place between the human and divine), the Jewish concept of the Temple Mount as God’s dwelling place, the Islamic understanding that Mecca is the spiritual axis of creation. Even traditions that emphasize inner experience over external ritual — Zen Buddhism, Quaker Christianity — have produced their own forms of sacred travel.

The Common Elements

Scholars who study pilgrimage across traditions have identified recurring structural features. The anthropologist Victor Turner, whose work in the 1960s and 1970s shaped modern pilgrimage studies, described pilgrimage as a “liminoid” phenomenon — a voluntary journey into an in-between state where normal social structures loosen and something transformative becomes possible. Turner’s concept of “communitas,” the spontaneous fellowship that arises among people who share a difficult passage, has been observed on routes as different as the Camino de Santiago and the Arba’een walk to Karbala.

Most pilgrimage traditions involve some combination of physical effort, ritual action at the destination, and a return home that is understood to be different from the departure. The pilgrim’s body is engaged — walking, climbing, prostrating, circling. This physicality distinguishes pilgrimage from prayer or study, which can happen anywhere. The insistence on bodily presence at a specific location is a theological claim: that matter matters, that the place where a saint died or a prophet spoke retains something that cannot be accessed from a distance.

Separation from ordinary life is another common element. The Muslim pilgrim enters ihram, a state of ritual purity marked by special clothing and behavioral restrictions. Medieval Christian pilgrims wore distinctive garb and carried a staff and scrip (a small bag). Hindu pilgrims preparing for Varanasi may observe dietary restrictions. These practices of separation create a psychological and social boundary between the pilgrim’s everyday identity and their identity on the road.

How Traditions Differ

The differences between pilgrimage traditions are as instructive as the similarities. In Islam, the Hajj is a religious obligation — one of five foundational requirements of the faith. In Buddhism, pilgrimage is encouraged but not commanded; the Buddha suggested visiting the four sites of his life as aids to practice, not as requirements for liberation. Christianity developed an elaborate pilgrimage culture in the medieval period, but mainstream Protestant theology largely rejected the idea that physical locations carry special spiritual power, redirecting attention to interior faith.

The relationship between pilgrimage and merit varies significantly. In some Hindu traditions, bathing in the Ganges at Varanasi can destroy accumulated karma. In Catholic theology, pilgrimage could earn indulgences — reductions in the temporal punishment for sin. In Buddhism, pilgrimage generates merit (puñña) that improves one’s karmic trajectory. In each case, the mechanism differs, and not all practitioners within these traditions agree on how — or whether — the process works.

The question of who can undertake pilgrimage has also varied. The Hajj is obligatory only for those with the physical health and financial means to perform it. Jewish pilgrimage to the Temple was required of adult males three times a year, though women and children often participated. Medieval Christian pilgrimage was open to all, and some of the tradition’s most vivid accounts come from women — Egeria in the fourth century, Margery Kempe in the fifteenth. Contemporary pilgrimage has become increasingly democratized, with routes like the Camino attracting people of all backgrounds, faiths, and none.

Pilgrimage in a Secular Age

One of the most significant developments in modern pilgrimage is the participation of people who do not identify with any particular religious tradition. The Camino de Santiago now draws more walkers who describe their motivation as “spiritual but not religious” than those who describe it as purely Catholic. The Shikoku 88 Temple circuit in Japan attracts tourists, hikers, and seekers alongside devout Buddhists. The growth of “secular pilgrimage” to sites like Auschwitz, civil rights landmarks, or literary locations suggests that the human impulse toward meaningful travel persists even when its theological framework fades.

This raises questions that scholars and practitioners continue to debate. Is a journey without religious content still a pilgrimage? Does the spiritual benefit depend on belief, or does the practice itself — the walking, the discomfort, the encounter with something beyond the everyday — produce its effects regardless of the pilgrim’s theological commitments? These questions have no settled answers, but the persistence of pilgrimage in an increasingly secular world suggests that the practice addresses something fundamental in human experience.

Tirtha — In Hindu tradition, a tirtha is a “crossing place” or “ford” — a location where the boundary between the human world and the divine becomes permeable. The term applies both to sacred rivers and to pilgrimage destinations more broadly, reflecting the understanding that certain places facilitate spiritual passage.

Hajj — The annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, obligatory once in a lifetime for Muslims who have the means and health to undertake it. The Hajj is the largest annual pilgrimage gathering in the world, drawing over two million participants to perform rituals that recapitulate the story of Ibrahim (Abraham).

Communitas — A term coined by anthropologist Victor Turner to describe the intense, egalitarian fellowship that can emerge among people undergoing a shared ritual passage. Pilgrims often describe the experience of communitas — a temporary dissolution of social hierarchies — as one of the most powerful aspects of the journey.

Aliyah LeRegel — Literally “going up by foot,” the Hebrew term for the three annual pilgrimage festivals (Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot) during which Jewish men were commanded to appear at the Temple in Jerusalem. The practice ceased with the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE but remains central to Jewish liturgical memory.

Kora — The Tibetan Buddhist practice of circumambulation — walking clockwise around a sacred site, mountain, or object. Kora can be performed around a single stupa in minutes or around Mount Kailash over several days, and is understood as a moving meditation that accumulates merit.