About Us
Your Faith Travel (a division of Holiday Cruises and Tours) was started over 27 years ago and has sent (and taken) tens of thousands of people all over the world, including hundreds of countries and all seven continents. We believe that many times Faith-Based Travel is a life-changing experience by having an intimate, personal experience involving their experience. Only Faith-Based travel enables people to experience their faith physically, spiritually, socially, emotionally, and intellectually.
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Your Faith Travel provides travel opportunities with land tours, cruises, all-inclusive resorts, trains, and many other types of travel. The staff of Your Faith Travel would love to work with you or your faith-based church, parish, synagogue, or other faith-based organization to meet whatever travel goals you may have.
History of Faith-Based Travel
Religious travel is one of the earliest forms of leisure travel, dating back to the Egyptian Empire. Then, local religious festivities drew people from outside their area. As the number of visitors grew, so did the businesses which catered to the visitors' needs. And so the tourism industry was born.​
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Not long after, the Greeks caught the tourism bug, too. The Olympic Games of 776 B.C. became one of the world's earliest and biggest "mass tourism" events, spawning the health of businesses to meet the visitors' demands. By the time of the Roman Empire (509 B.C. to 476 A.D.), the concept of travel was firmly established. People traveled for religious, business, and political reasons.
By 300 A.D., the Holy Land (also called the Biblical Lands) was a top destination for travelers from throughout the Empire. Travel declined in the Dark Ages following the fall of the Roman Empire, but the Middle Ages brought renewed interest. Many of the "highways" of Europe were, in fact, pilgrimage roads. Some of the top destinations then were Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela, Canterbury, and Walsingham.
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In the 19th century, a Methodist preacher by the name of Thomas Cook began what is recognized as the first tour company. To increase the number of participants attending his religious meetings, he organized group travel to his place. Eventually, his group trips grew to include not only visits to his meetings, but also such faraway places as the Holy Land in 1861. Cook's group trips introduced the idea of escorted travel as we know it today.
In the 20th century, worldwide tourism grew to become one of the largest markets in the world. The reasons for traveling expanded greatly during this time and came to favor leisure, exploration, and culture to a large degree.