ABSTRACT
Today, in Europe and elsewhere, millions of people go on pilgrimages every year. It is indeed a very common form of travel. However, “pilgrimage” is also a charged word that implies a religious and/or spiritual quest, even though in modern parlance the word is often used to described any quest for meaning (Chemin 2012b). Taking into consideration consumer culture and the secular ethos of modern European societies, trends towards “unchurched” religiosity (Davie 2000, 2002) and new “progressive” forms of spirituality (Lynch 2007), an interesting question then arises: why do modern people go on pilgrimages?
