Nature religion, self-spirituality and New Age tourism

Abstract

Tourists encounter places of religion in nearly every corner of the world. Wherever religious people have made places of interaction with sacred powers, touristic practices are able to establish a site worthy of visitation. At religious sites that host significant numbers of tourists, a simultaneity of places emerges in parallel geographies of both the sacred and the touristic. Moreover, the meaningful content of these overlapping places relies upon narratives of identity that consolidate the bonds that religious adherents and tourist visitors feel toward the place. In short, religious tourist sites tell stories that articulate coherent identities.