Tourism invokes images of 5-star hotels, private beaches, expensive restaurants, and shopping till we drop. Pilgrimage on the other hand sounds austere, sober, and–to a civilization that has deified pleasure–decidedly dry and un-fun.

I think we’ve misunderstood pilgrimage completely and overidealized its richer, slicker counterpart.

Pilgrimage is one of the earliest forms of travel known to agricultural societies. For centuries it was a journey you took just once in your life, and honestly, were not certain if or when you would return home. It was transformative without fail and was something you prepared (and saved) for your entire life!

Tourism on the other hand: is much more casual (sometimes last-minute), with assurances of safety and luxury (even coddling), and often on a tight schedule. It is about checking off boxes, seeing new things, but especially capturing them on our phones and cameras, as if we could own the moment forever–not to mention tell everyone we went there or did that. #lookatmyperfectlife

I’ve taken both kinds of trips. When I’m on pilgrimage, informed and spiritually prepared, I am bound to have a profound and life altering experience, yet what fascinates me most is how, inevitably, even when I’m being a tourist, curious and even slightly open minded, I end up having a powerfully awakening experience too!

That is the power of journeying. No matter what condition you arrive in, you will be different on the other side.

Reintegration, though, that is secret difference between pilgrimage and tourism. The definitive pilgrim goes somewhere searching for something very specific and once they find it they bring it back into their lives in small and large ways. Mere tourists on the other hand, settle inevitably back into the life they had before, changed but asleep to the internal landscape that has shifted, soon pining again for the next escape.

I think, if we approach travel as pilgrims, we are better prepared and more open to the actual experience at hand, rather than the projection of the experience we had planned on having.

On pilgrimage we embark with the knowledge that this journey is not unlike life itself. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It won’t go perfectly, but it’ll be so worth it for having lived it well.

Be a pilgrim. Tourism is overrated.