Top 12 cathedrals & churches
A tour inside the famous York Minster, Religious tours, General
The top cathedrals, churches, and abbeys in the U.K.
★★★
London's great Gothic abbey is packed with the tombs and monuments of British monarchs and some the world's most famous playwrights, poets, scientists, and other notables
★★★
Free
This bespired gothic 13C wonder is one of the great cathedrals of Europe
★☆☆
Free
London's 18th century church steepling Trafalgar Square hosts excellent free lunchtime concerts with a cheap cafe in the crypt
☆☆☆
Free
London's Catohlic cathedral is notable for free organ concerts and boys' choir—and for NOT being the far more famous Westminster Abbey
☆☆☆
Free
A church with a view and a cafe right in front of the Radcliffe Camera
Activities, walks, & excursions tours
- Viator.com - Best one-stop shopping site for all sorts of activities, walking tours, bus tours, escorted day trips, and other excursions. It is actually a clearinghouse for many local tour companies and outfitters, and since it gets a bulk-rate deal on pricing (and takes only a token fee for itself), you can actually sometimes book an activity through Viator for less than it would cost to buy the same exact tour from the tour company itself. (I once booked a Dublin pub crawl via Viator and later discovered that I saved about $1.50; also, the tour turned out to be sold-out, and they were turning away the folks in front of me in line, but since I had a pre-booked voucher I got in.)Partner
- Londonwalks.com - Since the 1970s, the gold standard in city walking tours and museum tours—and cheap, to boot. Just meet your guide at the appointed time and place (usually a Tube stop), pay your £10 (students or over 65s are £8; under 15 free), and prepare for a good two hours of amazing cultural insight and historic anecdotes. If you plan on taking three or more walks, buy a "Frequent London Walker" card for £2 from your first guide, then each subsequent walk costs £8. They also run popular excursions outside London for £18. Note that the fee just covers the guided tour; you pay for any admissions (or, for excursions, travel expenses) yourself.
- Contexttravel.com - This bespoke walking tour company doesn't even call its 200 tour leaders "guides." It calls them "docents"—perhaps because most guides are academics and specialists in their fields: history professors, archeologists, PhDs, art historians, artists, etc. Groups are miniscule (often six people maximum), and most docents can be booked for private guiding sessions as well. They aren't always the cheapest tours, but they are invariably the best. People rave about Context.Partner
- City-discovery.com - Chief rival to Viator (though with a less spiffy interface and often sub-par text descriptions), representing many of the same tours (at the same prices). However, it also seems to cover more destinations, especially secondary ones. When it comes down to it, City-Discovery and Viator have maybe 70% the same inventory, but then 30% will be completely different (some Viator has City-Discovery does not, other vice-versa) so it pays to check through the offerings from both.Partner
Religious tours links
- infohub.com - Various spriritual tours in England, Scotland, and Wales, from walking in the footsteps of the saints to exploring pre-Christian Celtic traditions and Alban mysticism.Partner
- Economytravel.com - A well-regarded budget airfare booking site that has a special section devoted to missionary and pilgrimage consolidator fares as well as a groups department adept at helping missionary groups (of 10 or more people) arrange their trips.
- Unitours.com - Specialist in Catholic pilgrimages (which, naturally, means Ireland and Northern Ireland, but not so much England or Scotland).
- Glory-tours.com - Tour company specializing in overseas religious tours and pilgrimages, including an escorted England, Scotland, and Ireland trip.
- Christian-travelers-guides.com - Website run by Irving Hexham—a professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary—with a sampler of sections from his "Christian Travelers Guides" books to Italy, France, Germany, and Great Britain.
- Reformationtours.com - Christian and cultural tours of Europe and the Bible Lands, focused (as the name suggests) on Protestant sights and traditions.
- Arttoheartweb.com - Intriguing take on cultural tours in Europe's great art cities: "A new way to look at art... a new way to see God. The spiritual power of music is well known. The mission of Art to Heart is to reveal the power of visual art - to inspire us; to direct our focus heavenward; to initiate an encounter with God."
More on religious travel
Sleep in a religious guesthouse or retreat at abbeys, monasteries, priories, and convents across the U.K. from just £45
Advice, resources, & tours for pilgrims, Christians, and spiritual travelers in the U.K.
