UK Pilgrimage Routes and Walking Holidays

Something has shifted in how Britain walks. For decades, anyone who wanted to make a pilgrimage looked abroad: to the Camino de Santiago, to Rome, to the Holy Land. The old paths running through our own countryside were treated as footpaths with history attached rather than journeys people actually set out on.

That is changing. The British Pilgrimage Trust has been building the largest online repository of British pilgrimage routes and places since 2014, and its 2025 route data shows strong demand for both the great long-distance paths and short, accessible pilgrimages that can be finished before dark.

This guide brings that picture together: which UK pilgrimage routes people are actually choosing, which ones the walking press recommends, how a UK walking holiday along them works in practice, and how to sort out where you sleep at the end of each day.

Britain's most popular pilgrimage routes, by the numbers

To understand which routes people are actively considering, the British Pilgrimage Trust analysed route downloads from its website across England, Wales and Scotland. What emerges is not one dominant trail but a striking spread of lengths, from a ten-mile city walk to a route three times the length of the Camino Francés.

Two things stand out. The first is the range: a thirteen-mile coast-to-coast crossing in Cornwall sits alongside a 140-mile walk to a holy island and a 261-mile traverse of Scotland. The second is that the top of each national list is a route with a clear destination, a place where something happened. Pilgrimage, it turns out, is not really about the walking. It is about walking towards something.

Today's walkers cite wellbeing, connection with nature and cultural heritage as their motivations, alongside spiritual practice and religious observance for many people. That mix explains why routes as different as a Cornish micro-pilgrimage and a month-long Scottish crossing can top the same survey.

Browse our full collection of UK pilgrimage routes to see the paths we cover in detail, stage by stage.

Six routes the walking press recommends

Writing in The Sunday Times, travel writer Oliver Smith set out his picks after years of walking Britain's spiritual paths, chosen for walkers of all faiths and none. His six span very different kinds of journey, and between them they cover most of what British pilgrimage has to offer.

St Cuthbert's Way: Scottish Borders and Northumberland, 62 miles

The best known of the northern trails, linking places from the life of the 7th-century saint. It begins at Melrose Abbey, where Cuthbert trained, works through the Anglo-Scottish Borders where he preached, and passes a cave where his remains were supposedly kept safe from Viking raiders. Then comes the finish that has no parallel among any trail in Britain: the crossing of the tidal mudflats to Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, where Cuthbert became bishop. The path is only usable at certain hours, so planning is essential. Read our St Cuthbert's Way guide, or find somewhere to stay near Holy Island.

St Oswald's Way: Northumberland, 97 miles

A kind of sequel, running south from Lindisfarne along the blustery shoulder of north-eastern England to Heavenfield Church on Hadrian's Wall. Vast beaches alternate with great castles: Bamburgh, where Oswald ruled as king, and the ruins of Dunstanburgh. The route ends at the spot where Oswald defeated an invading Welsh army in AD 634. Northumberland's coastal accommodation is concentrated around Bamburgh, Berwick and the Holy Island causeway.

The Ridgeway: Berkshire and Wiltshire, 40 miles

Often claimed to be the oldest path in England, and possibly in Europe, first trodden perhaps in the Stone Age. It crosses the Berkshire and Wiltshire Downs past the Bronze Age hill figure of the Uffington White Horse and the neolithic tomb of Wayland's Smithy, and finishes at the 4,000-year-old stone circle at Avebury, the largest of its kind in the world. See our guide to the Ridgeway for a stage by stage breakdown.

St Kenelm's Trail: Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, 60 miles

One of those quiet trails you find by poring over Ordnance Survey maps: little walked, little written about, quietly threading hedgerows and copses between half-forgotten sacred places. It starts at the woodland spring where the Saxon boy prince Kenelm's head supposedly fell, and runs through patchwork fields and along canal towpaths to a second spring bearing his name above Winchcombe. Walkers on this route often report meeting no other pilgrims at all.

Pererindod Melangell: Powys, 15 miles

Welsh for the pilgrimage of Melangell, and one of the most rewarding short routes in Britain. It crosses the Berwyn Mountains past reservoirs, conifer woods and mountain streams to the Shrine Church of St Melangell, a Celtic hermit remembered for rescuing a hare from a hunter and sheltering it under her cloak. The church stands among ancient yews, enclosed by hills, and is one of the most beautiful pilgrimage destinations in the country.

The Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury: 90 miles from Southwark

The route that gave English pilgrimage its most famous story. Medieval pilgrims came from Winchester, and the London branch sets out from Southwark Cathedral, crossing the North Downs to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Modern walkers follow much the same corridor, now largely waymarked by the North Downs Way National Trail. See our Chaucer's Pilgrims' Way guide, our Pilgrims' Way guide, or find places to stay in Canterbury.

Short pilgrimages: routes you can walk in a day

Britain's pilgrimage revival is not only about long-distance walking. Some of the best routes in the country take a morning:

• St Michael's Way, Cornwall (13 miles). Lelant to St Michael's Mount, coast to coast across the western tip of Cornwall, with the Mount as your destination.
• Edinburgh Cathedral Pilgrimage in a Day (10 miles). Starts at Rosslyn Chapel and finishes in the centre of Edinburgh, with no packing required at all.
• Pererindod Melangell, Powys (15 miles). The Berwyn crossing described above, with time left over to sit in the shrine church.
• A single stage of the Ridgeway. Pick one section of the 40 miles and walk it as a day out from the Thames Valley.

A day's walk removes almost every logistical obstacle: no luggage transfer, no succession of bookings, very little equipment, and one hill at a time. It is also the most honest way to find out whether a longer pilgrimage is something you actually want to do.

Why people are walking, and what holds others back

Since 2014 the British Pilgrimage Trust has met, spoken with and guided thousands of pilgrims. In its own surveys, people most commonly cite emotional and mental wellbeing, connection with nature, spiritual curiosity and Britain's rich cultural heritage. Faith remains central for many, but it is no longer the only door in.

Historically, pilgrimage has often resurfaced at moments of social change. What feels different now is that people are rediscovering pilgrimage not only as a religious practice, but also as a shared human one. It has become a way of walking with intention and care, whatever your beliefs.
Guy Hayward, co-founder of the British Pilgrimage Trust

YouGov research commissioned by the charity in 2025 helps explain the gap between curiosity and setting off. Curiosity about pilgrimage is high, but the single biggest barrier is the perception that pilgrimage is only for the religious. Cost, time constraints and logistical complexity come next.

Most of those barriers soften on contact with reality. A meaningful pilgrimage does not require a fortnight off work, a new kit list or a flight. It can be a day, on foot, from where you already are. And for those drawn to the longer routes, the obstacles are mostly about information rather than difficulty.

Churches are part of the answer. Through the British Pilgrimage Trust's Sanctuary Network, pilgrims can sleep in churches along the way, which keeps costs down and puts you inside the buildings that gave these routes their purpose in the first place. Organising a group journey along a route is another way in: we run bespoke pilgrimages for churches and groups from the UK.

Choosing a route: a practical comparison

How you choose depends on how much time you have and how much you want to carry. A few rules of thumb:

• Most walkers on a long-distance pilgrimage cover 8 to 15 miles a day. Plan 10 to 12 miles for a first multi-day route until you know how your legs behave.
• Terrain matters more than distance. Forty miles of downland is a different proposition from 40 coastal miles with cliffs.
• Check both ends. A linear route needs transport at the start and the finish, and some stages have no station within walking distance.
• Ask about the destination. The routes that hold people's attention all end somewhere that means something: a cathedral, a shrine, a holy island, a stone circle.

Planning where you sleep: the part that decides the trip

The walking is rarely what stops a pilgrimage. Accommodation is.

On a long-distance route you need a different bed almost every night, each one within reach of the path at the end of a day's walking, for your specific dates, for the size of your group. In many parts of Britain the settlements along a route are small and the choice of places to stay at any one stage is measured in single figures. One fully booked guesthouse can force a whole itinerary to change.

That is the problem Pilgrim Stays UK exists to solve: choose your route, enter your dates, and work through the nights along the way rather than treating every stop as a separate booking exercise. Every route page lists accommodation stage by stage. You can also search the St James' Way, look for pilgrim accommodation across England, or read how booking works before you commit.

When you are comparing places to stay, these are the details that matter to walkers:

• Distance from the path, not just distance from the town.
• Flexible check-in, because you cannot always predict when you will arrive on foot.
• Somewhere to dry boots and waterproofs, which matters more than any other single facility in a British summer.
• A packed lunch, if you are leaving before breakfast.
• Safe storage for a rucksack, if you want to walk a circular section without carrying it.

A few traditions are still alive. On the St James' Way, walkers can claim the Wayfarer's Dole of bread and ale at the Hospital of St Cross near Winchester, a practice dating back to the 12th century and one of the oldest surviving acts of hospitality to pilgrims anywhere in Europe. See our places to stay near Winchester if you want to start there.

When to walk a UK pilgrimage route

May to September gives the mildest weather and the longest days. That matters when you are walking between fixed overnight stops: an extra two hours of daylight is another four or five miles of margin if something goes wrong.

Spring and early autumn are quieter and can be beautiful. Between November and February the short days make long stages difficult, some rural accommodation closes for the season, and the tidal crossings that define routes such as St Cuthbert's Way need much more careful timing.

Whatever the season, book ahead for summer weekends, bank holidays and school holidays. Accommodation along the popular routes is limited and the numbers walking these paths are rising. Our pilgrimage and walking travel guides cover seasonal planning in more detail.

Walking holidays, with or without the word pilgrimage

Not everyone who walks these routes would call themselves a pilgrim, and that is rather the point. The appeal extends well beyond the explicitly religious: a break from screens and schedules, time outdoors, and a way of seeing parts of Britain that conventional sightseeing skips past.

What pilgrimage adds is a layer. These paths connect walking with history, faith and architecture, and with the stories of the communities that shaped them. A day that ends in a Norman cathedral, a chapel on a tidal island or a church among ancient yews is a different kind of walking holiday from one that ends in a car park.

For visitors from overseas, that combination is the attraction: rural Britain at a pace no coach tour allows, with a route, a destination and a history already built in. Our city listings, including Christian hotels in London, make a useful first night if you are arriving by air before heading out to a route.

The long-term aim for Pilgrim Stays UK is to make the practical side of these journeys as straightforward as the walking itself, so that the route can be the hard part and the organising does not have to be. You can read more about why we think British pilgrimage needs a better way to plan walking holidays.