Getting Religion on the Road

Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 04.13.06 | 9:10 PM ET

In his latest column, South Florida Sun-Sentinel Travel Editor Thomas Swick extols the virtues of attending a local religious service during one’s journey—and he theorizes why few travel writers do. “Travel writers, coming as they do from predominantly secular societies, tend to ignore the religious practices of the people they visit, especially the Christian ones,” he writes. “They will travel to Chichén Itzá fascinated by the sacred sacrifices of the ancient Mayans, but they will not join their descendants at Sunday Mass in Mérida.” Those travelers, he believes, are missing out: “In most of the world, with the exception of much of Europe, the Antipodes, and some parts of North America, religion is still an integral part of people’s lives, an invaluable key to understanding not only their culture and history but who they are: their behaviors, motives, prejudices, desires.”