Make your own path.
Explore Pilgrimage Possibilities
Pilgrimages Aotearoa offers a small number of guided pilgrimages, but there are plenty of other pilgrimage possibilities for you to explore on your own or other groups to support you.
Quite a number of New Zealand groups have developed walks or haerenga with a strong sense of pilgrimage.
Karuwhā Trust has a strong bicultural kaupapa. You can access their website below and look at the Haerenga Tapu /Sacred Journeys that are available each year.
The Te Araroa Trail is a superbly documented route with a useful App and The Urban Walking Festival may be of interest for more general walking (See below for more details.)
pilgrimagenz.nz is another website you can explore that offers encouragement to pilgrimage in New Zealand. John Hornblow and Jenny Boyack have recently put together a book of 100 pilgrimage sites from around New Zealand. This book, Pilgrimage Aotearoa,- Your Guide to 100 New Zealand Sites, is available from their website.
Their main focus in terms of leading groups is curating pilgrimages overseas.
Walking with intent has a power to clarify and explore what’s going on inside you. Walking with friends can be even more helpful.
If you have any sense of desire to be on pilgrimage with your family or a group of friends, then start making moves and inspiration will come to you.!
One of the easiest ways is to pick a piece of the Te Araroa Trail and walk for a day between two communities. As you walk, you will get to know the places you are walking through in a whole new way. If you want to understand the bicultural history of New Zealand you will need to find local people, mana whenua, to help you in your journey.
Te Araroa Trail
The Te Araroa Trail provides people with a ready made pathway that spans the length of New Zealand from Cape Reinga to the Bluff. If you are planning a solo or group pilgrimage one of the easiest ways is to pick a piece of Te Araroa Trail and walk from A to B between two communities. Most people walk the trail from north to south and a quick google search will provide blogs, apps and inspiration for the journey. The Te Araroa Trail - Northbound Guide is called NoBo. This is the route we are following in our Northbound Pilgrimages.
Karuwhā Trust
Karuwhā Trust can take people further and deeper into learning about Maori history by offering haerenga (journeys) to places of historical significance in the Aotearoa story. An annual haerenga to Waitingi during Waitangi Weekend is well worth attending. This welcoming group seeks to engage New Zealanders in a conversation about identity and history so that people may better understand the story that they are a part of of. They explore the spiritual, personal and communal aspects of our collective history.
Sacred Journeys Network
Established in 2014, the Sacred Journeys Network welcomes pilgrimage scholars and practitioners from all walks of life to its annual conference as well as to local and online events celebrating one of humankind's most ancient practices.. Pilgrimage is associated with a great variety of religious and spiritual traditions, beliefs, and sacred geographies. We welcome conversations that help explain journeys through lenses that respect the sacred as understood within any given community or tradition.