Field guides
Guides to sacred places and pilgrimages
Plan a respectful visit, explore a place or route, or follow a sacred theme across traditions.
Where will you go?
Explore places and journeys
Begin with a country, a regional cluster, or a pilgrimage route, then move into the sacred places that shape it.
Country guide
Japan sacred sites
Major routes, canonical traditions, and representative sacred places across the country.
Route guide
Buddhist pilgrimage routes in Japan
A route-first walk through the major Japanese Buddhist circuits: Shikoku, Saigoku, and Bandō.
Regional guide
Angkor Wat and sacred temples of Cambodia
A map-first guide to Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Phnom Kulen, and Cambodia's Khmer temple landscape.
Regional guide
Sacred sites in Sedona
Sedona's most visible sacred landscapes and vortex sites in one regional view.
Regional guide
Megalithic sacred sites of Britain and Ireland
Stone circles, dolmens, sacred mountains, and tidal islands from Orkney to Cornwall and Ireland.
Before you arrive
Visit with care
Start with the universal principles, then read the guidance for the tradition or community you are visiting. Local custodians and posted rules always come first.
Trust layer
Respectful visitation guide
How to visit temples, shrines, churches, mosques, monasteries, and sacred landscapes with care.
Tradition guide
Buddhist temple etiquette
Shoes, silence, offerings, photography, monastic space, and basic temple conduct.
Tradition guide
Hindu temple etiquette
Shoes, dress, darshan, offerings, sanctum boundaries, and photography at Hindu temples.
Tradition guide
Christian pilgrimage etiquette
How to visit churches, monasteries, relic chapels, basilicas, and pilgrimage routes respectfully.
Tradition guide
Shinto shrine etiquette
Torii gates, purification, prayer, offerings, shrine space, and photography at Shinto shrines.
Tradition guide
Islamic sacred-site etiquette
Dress, shoes, prayer times, mosque prayer space, shrines, and visitor photography.
Tradition guide
Indigenous sacred-sites etiquette
Community authority, restricted knowledge, photography, low-impact access, and sacred landscapes.
What draws pilgrims?
Explore sacred themes
Trace recurring forms of devotion, sacred story, and pilgrimage across regions and traditions.
Hopes and intentions
Sacred sites for life’s goals
50 places where pilgrims bring hopes for work, learning, relationships, healing and renewal—with the beliefs and practices behind each visit.
Family, faith and care
Pregnancy and childbirth
50 places of childbirth devotion, pregnancy protection and historical tradition, with local stories and sources.
Sacred water
Sacred lakes
18 lakes and lake landscapes, with attributed stories, living traditions and respectful visitor boundaries.
Sacred water
Sacred springs and holy wells
A sourced worldwide collection of sacred springs, holy wells and spring sanctuaries, with local traditions and visitor guidance.
Worldwide collection
100 sacred mountains
Sacred mountain traditions, public stories and visitor boundaries across five regions.
Sacred theme
Sacred origin sites
The places where the world's traditions locate the beginning — navels of the world, primordial mounds, points of emergence, and the cosmic mountain.
Sacred theme
Solstice and equinox sites
Ten sacred places shaped by seasonal light, with documented solar alignments, living traditions and visitor guidance.
Sacred theme
Healing pilgrimage sites
Explore 100 sacred places associated with healing devotion, purification, and care, with traditions and practical visitor guidance.
Sacred theme
The Black Madonnas
Twenty of the most-venerated dark-skinned images of the Virgin across Europe and the Americas.
Sacred theme
Marian and Christic apparition sites
Twenty places where Christian visionaries reported being met — by date, with canonical status.
Sacred theme
Sacred relic shrines
From Saint Peter's bones to the Buddha's tooth — twenty of the world's great relic shrines.
Sacred theme
Sacred sites venerating Shiva
The twelve Jyotirlingas, Mount Kailash, Kashi Vishwanath, and the great living temples of South Asia.
Sacred theme
Mary Magdalene pilgrimage sites
From Magdala on the Galilee to the Provençal cave at La Sainte-Baume and the relic-shrines of medieval France.