ABSTRACT
In common usage 'sacred journey" could be considered as another term for a pilgrimage, but a strict theological explanation demonstrates that there is a difference between them. Pilgrimage in the modern world is usually pardy a religious journey and pardy touristic. The sacred journey has no secular or touristic characteristics; it is devoted to religious reasons for travelling or, simply, it has only a religious component. In the anthropology of tourism, the modern practice of tourism has sometimes been described as a sacred journey because certain characteristics of its journeys are analogous with the stage of rites of passage, especially the alternation of profane and sacred time and the liminal stage in the ritual process.
