A Travel Boomlet in 2000

Twenty-five hundred years ago, the founder of Taoism, Lao Tzu, said, "The longest journey begins with a single step." At the dawn of the millennium, people across the spectrum of world religions will take their first step with a spiritual goal in mind as many plan religious travel.

Spiritual travel - journeying for the purpose of spiritual transformation - is at an all time high. In a good year, the Catholic Church welcomes 3 million tourists to Vatican City, but this year they expect as many as 29 million. Israel, home to religious sites sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, has dubbed itself "The Land Where Time Began" for the millennial year, and has spent $600 million to attract tourists of all religious backgrounds. Mecca, Saudi Arabia has reported slightly increasing numbers of pilgrims to Islam's holiest city over the last several years, and now expects some 2 million from 100 nations in the coming year.

Not every religious group plans to mark the millennium with some kind of travel. Indeed, most of the world's major faiths do not consider 2000 a religiously important year because their calendar is not based on the Christian calendar. For Jews, 2000 is really the year 5760. Hindus mark time from about 1000 B.C.E., while the many branches of Buddhism have different ways of counting the years, usually from the birth of the Buddha in the 6th or 5th century B.C.E. Muslims count the years from 622 C.E., making 2000 the year 1421. And most Christians recognize that Christ was not actually born in the year 0, but more likely in 4 or 6 B.C.E, making 2000 the anniversary of his fourth or sixth birthday.

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