GLOBETROTTERS WRITING PROMPT

December Monthly Challenge — Spiritual Sites

Religious and spiritual places of worship

As the holiday season is coming closer and closer most people fall into a season of stress, fights and unhappiness. But why is that? While Christmas is celebrated around the world in the most random places and forms, barely any of those celebrations have anything to do with the original idea of the festivity. I’d even go as far as saying many children don’t know anything about the religious origin but crave the presents they receive.

And I say that as someone who was raised as a Christian but turned into a non-believer. Nothing is further from my feelings about Christmas than the commercialized event our society has turned the holiday into.

So, in order to calm down this season and find our own spirituality, we are asking you to share with us your very personal and authentic experiences in different places of worship. Religious or spiritual sites you have visited and explored.

Churches, synagogues or temples

The most obvious and most visited places are religious sites from one of the world religions. We’ve all been to one or the other. We have taken pictures of them. We’ve walked past them.

But I would like to hear something a little deeper.

Like when I was in Ghana and visited a church on Sunday that didn’t look like any of the churches in Germany I had been to as it had no tower, no organ pipes or even solid benches.

We were sitting on plastic chairs but then again, most of the time we were standing and dancing. While I didn’t understand half of the sermon, I felt such a sparkle in the community I didn’t know what to do with those butterflies in my stomach.

Cemeteries

While this is mostly a sad part of our culture to bury the deceased ones, it is also somewhat of a spiritual place. Cemeteries don’t look the same around the world and there are many different ways to handle the process.

While I like the idea of spreading someone’s ashes off a mountain or into the sea making that landscape feature a personal spiritual site, the most recent observation I have made is trees planted on the graves.

I love the idea of having a new life growing right there where someone else was buried.

Have you visited cemeteries or maybe even forests built from ashes? Something special you learned and experienced while traveling the world? We’d love to hear about it.

Memorials

And while we are at the sad part of things, I can’t continue without mentioning memorials. They are built out of the most diverse reasons and in the most unique places.

Some are rather visible and out on display while other memorials are hidden and only there for those who know. I will not go into detail with this one as I’m sure you know what I am talking about.

Feel free to submit a series of rider monuments or other collections but I’d like to hear on each of them what the sky looked like that day, if there were many people around and how you felt reading about the history of the memorial.

Hiking in the great outdoors

There are many great walks around the world such as the Camino de Santiago with quite a religious and spiritual background.

Can't a hike be a spiritual site? Or is it more like an event? I'm not sure as I've never done such a hike stretching over several months but I do know from those who have, that they certainly have found some spirituality doing it.

Why is that?

If you have done it, I'd love to hear about your experiences and feelings. Was it the landscapes, the interactions with people or the places you stayed at that turned the hike into something holy?

Natural spiritual sites

And then there are natural sites and destinations that are holy or spiritual for one or the other reason. Some of the older and native societies have many such spiritual sites.

I can’t remember such a designated place I visited but I do have one specific place in mind that had for me a special meaning. I have returned countless times and it will always bring me peace just looking at this rock arch.

Other places designated as spiritual sites

Give me ideas. I am sure there are a lot more spiritual places out in the world than the ones I can think of and mentioned. Please feel free to submit even if your topic doesn’t fit into any of my listed categories.

As long as it is travel-related, written in a personal narrative and has some connection to a spiritual site, I’m sure we will be happy to read and learn about it.

Share with us your inspiring travel memories

I think you got the idea. We are looking for different places of worship or those very unique spiritual sites not connected to any of the world religions.

Spiritual Sites.

We want to go back to the basics of where and how people worship and most importantly, how you experienced such places. We do not want a dictionary-style article telling us how people visit Mekka. We'd like to hear how you disappeared in the crowds and what you felt upon looking up.

Be creative.

Pull us in with your captivating narrative.

If you need some ideas, here we go:

The Ultimate Place to Find Spirituality

My First Time Seeing a Synagoge From the Inside

I Have Been Walking Down an Alley When I Found This Spiritual Place

The Most Fascinating Religious Sites Around the World

This is How I Experienced Visiting a Temple in XXX

My Favorite Temple in the World

I Didn’t Know I’d Fall in Love With the Meaning of Spiritual Sites

A Very Different Kind of Spiritual Site

I Never Understood Why People Would Visit Churches

A requirement for the monthly challenge submissions is to tag 2 articles that either inspired you to go to this place, have quality content about the same country you’re talking about or maybe it’s just a travel piece you really enjoyed reading.

You can use the search function to review our publication and look for articles about your destination. It’s easy and a great way to show appreciation to other writers out here.

We’re looking forward to your submissions. As always, at the end of the month, the editors of Globetrotters will announce their winners. While we also submit our entries, we do not participate in the competition.

Please remember to follow our guidelines when submitting an article:

• The maximum article length must be 10 minutes.
• Always credit your images. We only accept your own photographs. Please review our image policy if unsure.
• Write your article in the form title-subtitle-title image.
• Please add the tag “monthly challenge”.
• Make sure that travel is still a focus of your story.
• List 2 articles and tag the writers who created them
• The challenge will run from December 1st until December 28th. We reserve the last days of the month to post the results from the challenge.
• For more clarification on submissions, visit the Globetrotters submission guidelines.

We, the team of editors at Globetrotters (JoAnn, Adrienne, Jillian, Michele & Anne) want to thank each of you for contributing to our publication. You’ve sent so many fascinating articles on past challenges and we can’t wait for the next ones.

Thank you.

Jillian Amatt has kicked off the challenge with the first prompt submission. She takes us to the depth of the pandemic where she was locked down in Marocco. With an interesting backstory, she leads us to an old Mosque and then explains further how she felt safe around the Muslim prayer calls. Get inspired by her creative travel essay.

Read here the final post of our previous monthly challenge. We asked you to share stories on the topic of gray. In this article, the editors announce their personal winners: