An outer discovery adventure, an inner journey for the soul. This simple phrase succinctly describes what is being called “sacred or transformational” travel. Tourism has become a multi-billion-dollar industry, but more and more people are no longer satisfied with the mass-produced, one-size-fits-all packaged vacations offered by traditional travel agents. Women in particular are searching for a deeper, richer travel experience that will leave them feeling changed on a level that embodies more of an “inside-out” experience.

More people are traveling now than ever before. On any given day approximately 250 million people around the world are on the road, on a quest for new experience and knowledge. But more travelers are feeling drawn to visit places that seem to hold unique inspiration and an unexplainable magnetic attraction.

Phil Cousineau, author of The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred, writes, “A pilgrimage is a ‘holy’ journey, not necessarily in a sanctimonious sense, but when envisioned to make one ‘whole.’ This enables us to draw from the experience for the rest of our lives when we need to touch the memory of spiritual nourishment. It goes back to the beginning, to the source as a way to recharge yourself.”

This supports an ancient Sufi saying, “some doors can only be opened from the inside.” Pilgrimage travel embodies the individuals intent that the meaning of the journey be about so much more than just a diversion or distraction from their everyday routine. It is a belief that travel with a personal/spiritual growth focus can help you with important life decisions, clarify and move you through emotional blocks, and supply nourishment for a soul starving from neglect.

The actual destination is not as important as the desire to move deeper into the experience. A walk in the woods can be a powerful transformational experience if you begin with a commitment to being open to insight and revelation through focused intent. But sometimes we need to take ourselves completely “out of the box” of everything that is familiar to us in order to grow. Traveling within our own country can provide powerful experiences but we’re still on our “home turf,” still connected to that sense of familiarity about who we are. A travel experience that is completely devoid of the things that define our normal sense of self allows us to open to the unknown and unexpected.  Stripped of our “at-home” superficial identity, we are free to move into the fertile ground of more intimate relationship with ourselves.

A sacred journey can also be symbolic for taking a risk. Whether it is exploring Machu Picchu or swimming with a wild dolphin, the entire experience is a personal growth process and that can feel “risky.” Climbing into an airplane and flying over water means placing your trust in the pilot and crew. Or perhaps you are a single on a group trip and you feel apprehension about not knowing anyone. All of the physical factors or outer components of the trip begin to nudge us out of our comfort zone, challenging us to take a risk and cultivate an attitude of trust. Taking this type of risk can be an emotionally scary time as we transform from who we have been into who we are destined to become.

Sometimes the act of acknowledging an inner calling and making a commitment to go on a spiritual journey is all that is needed to set invisible forces into motion. It can be almost as if the energy of the place begins to guide you forward via synchronicity and divine intervention long before you actually depart for the intended destination. You are being prepared, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually to receive insight and revelation that you do not yet know you are even seeking.

Janine Pommy Vega writes in Tracking the Serpent: Journeys to Four Continents, “My desire to slip away from the stories and the choices we make to secure our identity in everyday life has borne fruit again and again. To go on a pilgrimage, I discovered, you do not need to know what you are looking for, only that you are looking for something, and need urgently to find it. It is the urgency that does the work, a readiness to receive that finds the answers.”

Travel designed as a transformational journey can be a turning point in your life. You may step through a doorway and then discover there is no turning back.  The path is never ending and all you need do is keep traveling forward on that inner journey of personal self-discovery. This is truly, the grand adventure!

Gayle Lawrence, RDH, is owner of Journeys of Discovery – Mind, Body, Spiritual Travel Adventures for Women. Specializing in small group, unique, customized transformational journeys to Peru, Egypt, Greece, England, Africa and other destinations. Also wild dolphin swims in Bimini and Costa Rica, and in-water encounters with humpback whales in the Turks Caicos Islands.

Peace be with us all.