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Traveling for many is a way of unwinding and recharging their batteries but often at the end of one’s travel there is still a feeling of not feeling satisfied which is when it pays to consider spiritual travel as a means of finding fulfillment. Sometimes, all the Gothic cathedrals in the world and all the lovely Madonna portraits are not enough to lift up your spirits and so it pays to consider traveling to a place where you can find spiritual awakening.

Spiritual travel is not just a catch phrase that you hear from the lips of a travel agent because in fact people have from the very earliest times been making pilgrimages. Religious travel is therefore not something that has just become popular. In fact, in the sixteenth century Jesuits from Spain made their way to far away Paraguay and to Brazil as well as to Argentina for the purpose of establishing missions to convert the native peoples of those regions.

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.

However, for a true spiritual Buddhist experience you need to travel to Bodhgaya in India which is located in the Indian state called Bihar where Lord Buddha achieved enlightenment beneath a Bodhi tree. The place where Lord Buddha achieved his enlightenment is now the home of a vast Mahabodhi Temple complex.

This is truly an exceptional place where the surroundings are perfectly serene and where everything is truly peaceful. Here, monks from different parts of the world sit under a huge carved Lord Buddha statue. They spend their time here reading from the Holy Scriptures and spend their time in deep and thoughtful contemplation.

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.

If you are traveling from other parts of India then there is the main airport at Patna the state capital of Bihar and this airport is about eighty-seven miles distant from Bodhgaya. Of course, if you don’t mind a train journey then it is certainly more convenient to use this mode of transportation that is cheap and which will help you reach Gaya very easily.

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.

Howie Holben offers suggestions for spiritual journeys. Spirit Journeys, Howie’s company, puts together amazing spiritual travel events. They specialize in a spiritual journey for gay men.