By: Howie Holben

Traveling is a great way to find something to take your mind off everyday routines though sometimes you may come away feeling dissatisfied when you return home from your travels which is the main reason to consider the benefits of spiritual travel.

Cathedrals and Madonna portraits can only provide a certain level of satisfaction and often you won't feel spiritually awake and so it pays to consider traveling to be spiritually awake.

Spiritual travel is of course not a buzzword that travel agents use to entice customers. In fact, people have traveled on pilgrimages from the very earliest times of our history and so it is something that has always held attraction to a certain type of person. From the 16th century onward it was common for Spanish Jesuits to travel to places such as Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay where they established missions to educate natives of those countries.

Nowadays, there are many places that you can visit if you want some spiritual satisfaction and some of these places are vastly different to the Vatican and to Yucatan and even to Egypt. There are for example numerous monasteries that have been erected by Buddhists which though mainly located in Asia are also found in the US and also in Europe.

For the real Buddhist spiritual travel experience you ought to consider making Bodhgaya (located in Bihar in India). This is the very place where the revered Lord Buddha sat and obtained enlightenment beneath a huge Bodhi tree. Today, this place has seen a huge Mahabodi Temple complex being constructed here and which is inhabited by Buddhist monks from every part of the world.

This particular place is truly exceptional as the surroundings are serenity personified and everything here is absolutely peaceful so as to promote true spiritualistic experiences. It is here that monks read the Holy Scriptures and spend their time contemplating the complexities and meaning of life.

Bodhgaya is home of many a Buddhist monastery each of which is maintained by Buddhists from different countries. If you are planning on flying here, there is an airport at Gaya that is about seven miles away from Bodhgaya and which sees a few flights arriving here from the not too distant metropolis of Kolkata.

For those who are planning to travel from the rest of India the closest airport is Patna which is also the capital of Bihar and which is 87 miles from the town of Bodhgaya. You can also choose to travel by train which will mean getting off at Gaya that is close to Bodhgaya and which means traveling at leisure and for considerably less cost.

If you want a truly uplifting spiritual travel experience then visiting Bodhgaya should be at the top of your list of travel priorities. You should time your travel for the months November through February while the worst time to come here is June through September which is the monsoon season in this part of India.

About the Author

Howie Holben offers suggestions for spiritual journeys. Spirit Journeys hosts extraordinary spiritual travel tours and they have a spiritual journey for most everyone.

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