The movement of people around the globe has increased in the past decade. Throughout prehistory and historic time the movement of people has been both voluntary and mandatory.

The Alliance of Religions and Conservation provides some statistics on religious pilgrimages by country. In 2014 the United Nations at the UNWTO International Congress on Tourism and Pilgrimages released a study finding that of every three tourists worldwide, one is a pilgrim, a total of 330 million people a year.

Travelers, homeless wanderers, foreigners,and wayfarer, the enchanted and the disenchanted, search for holy or existential meaning. Some seek to retrieve something they believe they have lost or something they have never found. Some seek a total immersion or at least a splinter of enlightenment in the residuals of the past - in a medieval church or Roman ruin, or they seek some forgotten enchantment. Some hope for a religious experience. Others seek perhaps a broader and secular spiritual experience.

In America there have been many pilgrimages to the Lincoln Memorial as well as the home of  Elvis Presley. One woman in 2015 felt a desire to visit the Lucille Ball museum. Asked why, she said...."I needed a pilgrimage."

A pilgrimage has varying yields. Some may find the spiritual residue in the act and a few transformations. Others may have insights after they return home. Others might end up with a bumper sticker.

Generally, what separates tourism from a pilgrimage might be capsulated in a word -

Culturally and socially, a pilgrimage might have been a judicial mandate in the middle ages. More recently, an Indonesian minister misquoted a Qur'anic verse and was sentenced to an enforced pilgrimage to Mecca. In the 1990s certain Belgian magistrates gave minor offenders the choice of serving time in jail or walking the Santiago de Compostela and back (not a bad idea).

There are examples of recent trends for pilgrimages. Pilgrims come from all over the world and travel throughout Asia and Europe. Increasingly more pilgrims represent an older age group many of whom spread out a pilgrimage over several years. People of Jewish faith have made increased pilgrimages to reaffirm ethnic roots, to seek sage wisdom, or legal advice, or to visit the concentration camps of WW11. Summarily, in contemporary times, the number of people around the world making pilgrimages has increased and this holds more or less cultural and historical meaning.

Many countries, particularly including the U.S., sent a message that said there is no more room at the inn despite the fact that according to some estimates some 37 million people are refugees or displaced victims of the U.S. War on Terror. At least 50% of these "pilgrims" are women and most of reproductive age.

These are people who are survivors with hopes and fears as they face the unknown. Given the challenges refugees face, if liminality is walking until you can't step another step and yet you do because for some reason or another you have to, whether driven internally or by outside circumstances, than liminality applies here. The questions following Victor Turner is what does this mean? Where is the rite (and right) of passage for those who are unrecognized and living between different worlds? They are also pilgrims.

Ready for a walk? There are many sacred destinations around the world accessed through tours, buses, etc. The pilgrimages mentioned here are primarily related to walking trails. Some trails are quite long and blisters may come before liminality, but even a taste can be life changing.

Mount Kailash in Tibet is identified to those seeking “spiritual enlightenment.” The moutain area is considered to be sacred to five religions: Buddhists, Jains, the Ayyavazhi branch of Hinduism, and the ancient Bon religion of Tibet. The actual mountain is forbidden territory, however in recent years the Chinese government has begun to build a road on the sacred pilgrimage path known as the Kora. Its 32 miles encompasses waterfalls, the sacred cave of Zuthal Puk, the 18,600-foot Dolma La Pass and Lake Manasarovar. At 15,060 feet, it is one of the highest lakes in the world. According to Hindus, the waters purify bathers, and ablutions here complete the Kailash pilgrimage.

There are two UNESCO recognized pilgrimage walks. The Camino de Santiago and the trail to Kumano located in the mountains of the Kii  Peninsula. Besides the Kumano trail there is the Koyasan the Yoshiko and Omine. The trail system is called Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes of the Kii Mountain  Range. The three sites were established as sacred sites  sometime around the 11th century. The architecture of the many temples and shrines along the route represent a syncretic blend of Shintoism and Buddhism.

Amenities or wilderness? - The American Appalachian Trail is over 2,000 miles long and has its share of modern day pilgrims.

The International Appalachian Trail takes one back in time beyond all trails in the world and spans geographies and culture. The trail represents a primordial mountain range that traversed part of the supercontinent of Pangaea more than 200 million years ago before separating into multiple ranges. What remains of those peaks in North America has become the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. The trail was the brainchild of former Maine Governor Joseph Brennan, who wanted to connect the cultures spanned by the mountains. The remains of those mountains stretch from Labrador to Greenland and then down to the European continent, with vestiges in Scotland, France, Spain, and even across Gibraltar to Morocco.

The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is probably one of the most well known pilgrimages. There are people who believe the Camino has been co-opted by too much development, that does not stop the growing number of pilgrims walking "The Path."There have been significant infrastructural changes over the years. This includes new roads with lanes set aside for walking, government projects, and commercial interests. 2. This is nothing new.

The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage - the Camino way of St. James, has a network of alternative walking route there are different access points to enter Galcia which stretches 500 miles (800km) across northwest Spain - from the French Pyrenees to the coast of Galicia. The Galicia Guide is a well organized site that presents the French route in 32 stages. It has comprehensive information on the routes including historical background on each village.

The Knights Templar, The Route of Santiago de Compostela

Pilgrimage to the end of the world: The Road to Santiago de Compostela, Conrad Rudolph, University of Chicago Press.

If you want to walk the walk and steps beyond....Shortly before the year 900AD the tomb of St. James / St.Jacques / Santiago the Great / Major / Elder was ‘discovered’ in the part of Spain known as Galicia. News of the discovery rapidly spread throughout Christian Europe and very soon pilgrims were making their way from all parts of the continent to visit the site.

As Spain is a part of the Iberian Peninsula, this meant that at some point most of the travellers would have to make the hazardous journey across the Pyrenees. Many routes led to the crossing point from places further north and east, like so many tributaries feeding into a river.

The badge of these pilgrims became the scallop shell, known in French as the coquille St.Jacques.

2. The Camino pilgrimage system included lodgings, hospitals and abbeys where the needs of the travellers could be met.The International Order of the Knights Templar was founded during the Crusades when in about 1120 Hugues de Payns created a highly disciplined militia to defend and guide pilgrims. Nine Frankish Knights Templer made a vow to police the roads of the holy land for the protection of pilgrims. The number of knights who took this vow grew to 30. They were originally headquartered on the site of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.To safeguard pilgrims on their long journeys a whole infrastructure grew up around the pilgrimage ‘business’. Those setting up these undertakings - religious and lay people alike- quickly developed commercial and entrepreneurial possibilities. The economic holdings of the Knights Templar played an important role in funding the protection of pilgrims.

Secondary routes for pilgrims headed for the Pyrenees passed through the Charente and the Charente Maritime where  Romanesque churches in the area lay claim to a  with the historic journey of pilgrims since the churches provided comforts to the travellers. Some churches also claim a link with the Knights Templar - the warrior monks -  who besides protecting pilgrims,  also provided a rudimentary banking system so that travellers did not have to risk carrying large amount of cash with them. ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose’ as a famous French author once said.