When a vacation isn't just a vacation

ILLUSTRATION BY JASON FLETCHER/STAFF

One of the five pillars of Islam is to travel at least once to Mecca, to visit the place where Abraham, the father of monotheism, left Hagar and son Ishmael, trusting in God to protect them. Each year, millions of Muslims from all over the world make this journey, called hajj, which is obligatory if they have the means to accomplish it. The faithful have been doing so since the seventh century.

Gautama Buddha named four sites worth visiting: his birthplace (Lumbini in Nepal), the place where he achieved enlightenment (Bodh Gaya), the place where he offered followers his first lessons (Sarnath) and the place of his death

(Kusinara, now Kusinagar in India). A sense of place, Buddha knew, was essential to achieving balance and nirvana.

Christians and Jews like to visit the Holy Land. There, they find the sacred sites of homeland, identity, cultural heritage and miracles. There, Jesus of Nazareth was born and died. The holy temples of Judaism rose and fell. Battles were waged.

Hindus have the Char Dham, a pilgrimage circuit with four destinations in the Indian Himalayas. Yamunotri is the source of the Yamuna River and the seat of the goddess Yamuna. Gangotri is the source of the Ganges River and seat of the goddess Ganga, Kedarnath is where the god Shiva is worshipped. Badrinath is the seat of the god Vishnu in his aspect of Badrinarayan and the most important of the four sites.

Members of the Baha'i faith are supposed to visit either the House of Baha'u'llah in Baghdad or the House of the Bab in Shiraz, Iran, but it is not safe for Baha'is to go to either place, so the Shrine of Baha'u'llah at Bahji in northern Israel has become the destination of choice.

For most serious pilgrims around the world, those are a few of the really important places to go. But what about the casual spiritualist? The enlightenment seeker? The traveler hungry for meaning? What about the vacationer who is simply not content with trips designed to exploit sun and sand and fill duffle bags with knickknacks?

For many, travel entails more than fun and frolic, more than cruise-ship buffets and amusement parks. It's a chance to learn something, feel something, find one's place in the world. It's a way to trace one's roots, pay homage to history, honor God and those he anointed.

And so it is that millions of Catholics trek to Rome each year to venerate the pope, to touch the ground upon which Peter and Paul were martyred, to see the holy relics and famous churches. And so it is that they horde in Lourdes, France, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to St. Bernadette 18 times in 1858.

"I do think there are places that call out to us," Susan Hull Walker said.

Walker, a Charleston resident who spent 20 years as a Congregational minister, said some of the trips she has taken are personal journeys designed to fulfill longings. They are not necessarily rational choices meant to achieve specific goals, but rather quests of a sort, opportunities to take stock of one's life.

"Most tourists go to a place to consume a culture," she said. "The pilgrim goes thinking, 'What can I leave behind?' "

So she will prepare a simple offering before departure — a photograph, for example — and leave it at her destination. It is a way to make a connection between the person and the place, she said.

Walker soon will visit India, a place she said she always has wanted to see, a longing she is about to fulfill. She is turning 50. "I need to mark the passage," she said. "There are things that need to be left behind, and there are things that need to be taken up."

India is "so other," it is sure to challenge her sensibilities and assumptions, she said. "I need to see that face to face."

The search abroad

Sept. 19 is the feast day of San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, Italy. It is reputed that the relic of his dried blood liquefies in the cathedral each year, a miracle that draws thousands and prompts loud celebrations throughout Naples. Such phenomena serve to remind people of their heritage, beliefs and identities.

Witnessing outer transformation is often of great appeal to the pilgrim, but inner transformation is just as likely to motivate travel, according to June McDaniel, religion professor at the College of Charleston. Some people trek into the jungles of South America in search of hallucinogenic drugs — ayahuasca, a drink made from a plant, for example — and a capable shaman, McDaniel said. The real destination, however, is somewhere deep in one's soul, she said.

For some travelers, self-enlightenment takes a back seat to cultural, ethnic and historical priorities.

Culture and identity are the emphasis of Jewish pilgrimages to Israel, according to Lara Leroy, director of the Charleston Jewish Federation's REMEMBER program.

Serious cultural travel began about 12 years ago for Leroy when, as a youth director with the JCC Association, she spent two weeks in the Holy Land on a planning mission. The idea was to develop an itinerary and find contacts — government, security and religious leaders — with whom teenagers from the United States could interact during an organized trip.

The teenagers would learn about Jewish culture, the land of Israel and the conflicts that have been brewing there for decades, she said. It was about heritage and respect. "It was to show these teens there's more to life than rock bands and football games," Leroy said.

The following summer, sure enough, several students from Charleston joined others on a tour.

In recent years, Leroy has led excursions to Poland's Nazi concentration camps, part of the March of the Living international program designed to teach young generations about the horrors of World War II.

Ian MacKenzie runs Brave New Traveler, an online magazine he started in October 2006 to help people figure out how to make travel more rewarding.

"It's not about the best restaurants," MacKenzie said in a telephone interview, it's about cultivating open-mindedness.

Generally speaking, he said, people who go from place to place fall into two groups: tourists and travelers. Tourists "go on vacation"; travelers seek enculturation, where the practices of another land are experienced and internalized, MacKenzie said.

Brave New Traveler attempts to fill a void in the travel literature market by encouraging people to reconsider what it means to experience a new place and why one is drawn there, he said. It helps to capture the experience — and share it — by maintaining a blog and posting video podcasts. Technology is one way to meld the modern with the ancient, and it can help people figure out what their travels mean to them, MacKenzie said.

Domestic bliss

Travel abroad is not the only way to take an inner journey. The United States has much to offer the spirit-seeker. If a trip to the Holy Land is impractical, there's always the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Fla. Or the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte. Or the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky. How about a trip to Amish country? Or a retreat to a Buddhist sanctuary in the woods or a Cistercian monastery not far from Moncks Corner?

Mepkin Abbey invites "retreatants" to spend a week in spiritual communion with the monks. Such a guest stays in an austere room (bed, desk, chair, bath), eats in a dining room adjacent to the monastic refectory, observes the same silence as the monks and attends the same prayer services. Spiritual counsel is available upon request. The abbey sits on a bluff above the upper Cooper River.

Men who are particularly serious about their faith can apply to stay for a month as a monastic guest. Unlike a retreatant, the monastic guest lives like a monk, experiencing the same routines, liturgy of the hours and labor obligations.

The Rt. Rev. Stan Gumula, abbot of Mepkin Abbey, said he hosts about 1,500 guests each year, and more than half of them are repeat visitors. Most are laypeople, and less than half are Catholics, he said.

"What (the retreatants) are coming here for is not necessarily what we're doing, they're coming to take stock of their own lives," Gumula said. "We provide the environment, a spiritual atmosphere."

Guests should not expect preaching, conferences, events or souvenirs. "What we have here is a life that's being lived," the abbot said. "They plug into that whatever way they wish."

Everything about the abbey — the church, herb garden, library, living quarters, offices, Christmas creche and special music concerts, Nancy Bryan Luce Garden and riverside views — bespeaks of beauty, peace and meditation. It is a place at once part of the world and removed from it.

But it's not the only place in the Lowcountry that offers the spiritual traveler something special. There are the historic churches and graveyards (some more than 300 years old). There are the plantations and their gardens.

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens is restoring its Romantic garden, replete with varieties of azaleas and ancient camillias. It's a place of discovery, a place set apart from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, garden director Tom Johnson said. It's a place to lose oneself ... and to find oneself.

At Middleton Place, a plantation just four miles up the road from Magnolia, many visitors come to learn about antebellum history, the legacy of slavery and the significance of larger-than-life figures such as Arthur Middleton, who helped establish this country, according to Shon Rainford, Middleton Place's vice president of operations.

"Once I was about to lock up 'Eliza's House' " — the exhibit describing slavery at the plantation — "and there was this lady in tears," Rainford said. "She was amazed, grateful. 'Why didn't I learn this in school?' she said."

The big agenda is not necessarily conducive to getting the most out of the travel experience, Rainford said. "A meaningful experience is not just about checking off your to-do list."

It's about discovery, he said. It's about discovering something about yourself.

Reach Adam Parker at 937-5902 or aparker@postandcourier.com.