Every Pilgrim's Guide to the Holy Land

I used this excellent little book to plan a 10 day trip to Israel back in 2012. I also bought several other guides at the time, but found this one the most helpful for me. This guide is written by someone, who like me, believes the Bible and so it guides you around these points of interest for the various sites. For example, you arrive at some sites and there might be very little to see. This guide will point out, "If you look here you can see this, which connects to this event in the Bible, etc." The guide helped me understand a lot more about what I was seeing. The other thing I used this book for was to plan the trip. We had 5 days stay in Old Jerusalem, 4 in Galilee and 1 in Tel Aviv. Using the book, I was able to plan for each day by looking at the descriptions in the book of the possible sites of interest and then make a workable plan to see as much as possible in the time available. Because of this book, we were able to see and experience a lot in our time there. Since we were not part of a tour group we could spend longer at sites that were of more interest to us and also avoid some that the book described as more heavily commercialised. If you are part of a tour group then this book still gives helpful information, but it is especially useful to those not on tours. My visit was more than 10 years ago, so some details might have changed, but most will still be relevant. Maybe getting this book along with a very up-to-date secular guide which could provide you with e.g. the latest travel information.

We bought Every Pilgrim's guide to the Holy Land ahead of a 10 day trip to the Holy Land. The book is a pocket sized paperback, with standard book paper. It hardly has any pictures (pictures are concentrated in 16 pages of the book and are not particularly great), the book has some drawings and simple maps that we found adequate and allowed us to follow the indications and visit the sites without getting lost. We have to say that the book is not a substitute for a roadmap or a city map if you want to walk about. In our group, mostly everyone had bought guides with lots of glossy maps and pictures. I would say that we were treated with a bit of contempt at the beginning when we were following our simpler, smaller guide. We soon started loving our guide. It is amazing the amount of information packed into the book that even includes relevant readings from the Bible for each site. The information is very well organized, mostly by proximity, and for each site you get an introduction, historical evidence, history, what to see, a suggested tour, relevant reading from the bible, opening times, custodian order, brief author's comments which we found very accurate (good place for meditation, views from the site, disappointing...) and additional useful information (toilets!, souvenir shop). I can only say that after the 3rd day of our trip, all the glossy guides from our friends in our group disappeared, and everyone was asking us to read out of our guide and lead the visit. We would strongly recommend this guide to anyone visiting the Holy Land. If you want pictures or a road map, this is not for you.

Having just returned from a trip to Israel I found this little book very useful. I have been before and know my way around but the Pilgrim's Guide supplied useful information. However, some of the signage could have been more specific e.g. turn off to Caesarea Philippi (Banias) and the Jordan Baptismal site (Kinneret). Also, I was disappointed at the absence of any info on Mt. Carmel, a favourite of mine.

I bought this book to take to Israel on my first visit. I was planning to see the sites in general.This guide was so detailed and helpful with useful advice so that it was easy to find my way round the sites such as the Via Dolorosa and it even helped my understanding of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which was a very complex building . The guide was a constant companion from the first to the last day and was completely helpful. When reading it every day afer my visits I noted that the text was very detailed and that the tour guides gave much of the same information. I think that they used this guide also for information to use on their guided tours!The short bible texts which give relevance to each scene were also helpful to make the sights very meaningful.In the end it was a great surprise how useful the Pilgrims guide was, and I totally agree with the positive reviews that encouraged me to buy the book in the first place.

The top of one of the pages was torn slightly thus reducing the value if I wanted to resell elsewhere after reading

I bought this for my mum when she went to the Holy Land, everyone on her trip wanted to borrow it including the minister. She loved reading about where she was going the night before and loves looking at it now to remember the trip. It was invaluable, it may be £10 or so but it is the best money you will spend. I have ordered at least another 5 for her. It is a bit ironic that those going on such a trip won't always buy one for themselves. This is a great book, my mum loves it....

I bought this book as I am about to go on Pilgrimage and wanted some background information. Having read through the book I think it is excellent. It gives useful general information on visiting the Holy Land, as well as detailed directions and background to the sites - even tells you if there are toilets, souvenir shops and whether tips are expected etc.The colour photos are poor but otherwise it is a must have. This book would be particularly useful if you were visiting the sites on your own.

A very useful, handbag sized guide focussing on the sites and their associated history. Excellent for the first time pilgrim

The amount of information, the size of the book and the sketches inside are just perfect to carry with you.Thanks for a great book!

Very informative. Still read in it. Will take with me on my trip to the holy land.