ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the phenomenon of secular pilgrimages. It focuses on areas of agreement, disagreement, and subsequent convergence in the literature and individual scholarship regarding religious and secular pilgrimage. National parks, such as Yellowstone, also carry touristic, pilgrimage, and pecuniary valuations. Visiting war memorials and sites of remembrance are also generally viewed as secular pilgrimages, even though they have religious connotations, in part because of their bent toward peace education. With increases in travel technologies and both full-service and budget airlines advertising discounts on fares, air travel has become accessible to people across a much broader spectrum of socioeconomic classes than in the past. In breaking down religious and cultural barriers, people can learn to live and let live, and in so doing help with seeing the difference with openness of mind and a willingness to question assumptions, as the author willing to do.
