Travel

Paul’s travels throughout the world, including to sacred sites and on pilgrimage.

Meditation & Healing: A Spiritist Perspective

Paul McCarthy has been a meditator since 1998 and has been facilitating meditation and healing in the Spiritist tradition since…
What is a “sacred travel” consult?

I offer guidance to advanced souls considering using sacred travel to advance their soul’s growth. This post discusses how I…
35,000 words… not

A picture is worth a thousand words — and these are worth thirty-five thousand. A photo essay from forty years…
How would you describe Australia to a foreigner?

Three Tourism Australia films that brilliantly capture what it feels like to be in Australia — the blue water, the…
When pilgrimage is not an option

Pilgrimage is a calling — not a requirement. For those who cannot travel to the world’s holy places, there are…
Bones and holy dust – relics of the saints

Bones, skin and holy dust — the relics of the saints once drew millions of medieval pilgrims across Europe, and…
I touched the Crown of Thorns

In 2012, I venerated the Crown of Thorns in Notre Dame Cathedral — a relic of the Passion of Jesus…
Some inspiring pilgrims

A carefully curated selection of inspiring and uplifting videos about pilgrimage and sacred travel: The extraordinary 14th century story of…
More inspiring pilgrims

Looking for a more intentional, spiritually rich pilgrimage? This post recommends five deeply loved books on sacred travel—from The Art…
My top ten sacred sites

A suggested list of sacred sites from 17 countries to inspire your travels, including Christian and Muslim holy places and…
Annecy, France

A detour from Turin to venerate the relics of St François de Sales and St Jane de Chantal in the…
Turin revisited

Turin may be the most beautiful large city in Italy — grand boulevards, magnificent churches, and the shrines of Don…
Materialisation over a relic in the Basilica of San Antonio

A day of prayer and unexpected grace in Padova — multiple visits to the Basilica of Saint Anthony, and a…
Convent of the Visitation, Treviso

A visit to the Convent of the Visitation in Treviso to venerate a relic of St François de Sales and…
Bologna again

Back in Bologna for a second time — revisiting the shrines of St Catherine of Bologna and St Dominic, a…
Pisa!

Pisa rewards the pilgrim as much as the tourist — four remarkable museums, an extraordinary Eucharistic miracle, the church where…
Chasing Caterina around Siena

A full day following St Catherine of Siena through her city — the duomo, the pilgrim hospital, San Domenico, and…
My first time in Siena

First impressions of Siena — medieval brickwork, a guided tour with the remarkable Anna Piperato, a Eucharistic miracle still unexplained…
Gubbio

A peaceful day in Gubbio — said by some to be second only to Assisi for St Francis — visiting…
Foligno – “where it all began”

A brief but meaningful pilgrimage stop in Foligno — the town where St Francis sold his father’s cloth, setting in…
What can we learn about San Francesco from Perugia

Perugia holds an important place in the story of St Francis — he was imprisoned here, and it changed him…
Under the Tuscan fog in Cortona

A day trip from Assisi to Cortona in the Tuscan fog — visiting the Franciscan hermitage at La Celle, relics…
Revision line – Veneration of the relic of St Francis… and St Carlo Acutis

A third veneration of the relics of St Francis of Assisi using the guided option — more intimate, more intentional…
Second time line – Veneration of the relic of St Francis of Assisi

A second visit to the relics of St Francis in Assisi — mass in the upper basilica, the Basilica of…
First time line – Veneration of the relic of St Francis of Assisi

The bones of St Francis of Assisi — hidden for 600 years, exhibited for one day in 1978, and now…
On the pilgrim path in Rome

Two days on the pilgrim path in Rome — Trastevere, San Francesco a Ripa, the Station Churches, St Peter’s, the…
On my way to Rome again

Arriving in Rome for the 2026 Italy pilgrimage — Il Gesù, St Ignatius, a spontaneous confession with a Jesuit, and…
Meet me in the library – I love books

Let me introduce myself through my love of books. From novels that survived a flood to saints’ lives, Spiritism, Islamic…
There is a gift in Kagoshima

Following St Francis Xavier to Kagoshima — where he made landfall on 15 August 1549, the first European missionary to…
My pilgrimage to Japan begins in Nagasaki

My Japan pilgrimage begins not where Xavier landed, but in Nagasaki – the Rome of the East, home of the…
Leaving on Uzbek Airlines

Departing Uzbekistan from Tashkent — the Usman Quran stained with the blood of the third caliph, the Soviet metro as…
Far from deserted, you can hook up in a yurt if you want to

Crossing the Kyzyl Kum desert on the Royal Road from Samarkand to Bukhara — a holy Islamic site in Nurata,…
The holiest place in Samarkand

Shakhi-Zindi — the holiest site in Samarkand, a necropolis of staggering beauty that brought me to tears. A place so…
To be in Samarkand

To be in Samarkand — the Mirror of the World, the Jewel of Islam, the Centre of the Universe —…
My introduction to Tashkent

First impressions of Tashkent — a city still finding its feet after Soviet rule, with bare trees hiding its beauty,…
Why are you going to Uzbekistan?

Why Uzbekistan? Because a decade ago I saw an image of Shakhi-Zindi necropolis and could not let it go. A…
Ending the old and beginning the new with St Francis

New Year in Assisi — a fourth pilgrimage to my spiritual home, deepening connections with St Francis, St Rita, the…
Iran: extraordinary beauty, culture, refinement and hospitality

Six weeks ago I had one of the best holidays of my life — a guided tour of Iran visiting…
Lithuania – divine mercy, the hill of crosses and great cake

Lithuania — green, sunny, beautiful, and filled with extraordinary cake. The original Divine Mercy painting in Vilnius, the Hill of…
Դուք սիրում եք Հայաստանը

Eight days in Armenia — the first country to convert to Christianity, and a land of extraordinary beauty, faith, ancient…
Is the Maltese Terrier nearing extinction on Malta?

Malta is interesting, cultured and devout — but her quieter sister Gozo is the real treasure. On pilgrimage to the…
Valetta: European capital of culture or a plastic pig’s arse?

Valletta is the European Capital of Culture for 2018 — so why is its Maritime Museum the worst I’ve ever…
The perfumed underpass

A stopover in Abu Dhabi — a perfumed underpass, a woman in silver shoes, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque (the…
Pilgrimage for the feast of St Francis of Assisi

A parish address for the feast of St Francis of Assisi — on the real Francis, untamed and radical, not…
Pilgrimage to the shrine of Padre Pio

Padre Pio — the greatest mystic of the 20th century, who bore the stigmata for fifty years and promised to…
Francis of Assisi and the Holy Land

What we owe to St Francis of Assisi in the Holy Land — how his extraordinary visit to the Sultan…
Doughnuts with an ultra-orthodox Jew

A walking tour of ultra-orthodox Jerusalem with Kitty — bad wigs, long temple curls, charity boxes on every corner, and…
Taking a tour on pilgrimage is akin to wearing a swimsuit to church

A tour of the holy sites of Galilee — Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee — that left me feeling more…
The doughnut divinity is definitely Jewish

OMG! Jerusalem is life changing — and it has taken me to the point of seriously considering giving up pastry…
Getting into a convent is much easier than getting out

Locked in a convent on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem — no wifi, no telephone, and the call to prayer…