Drawn by the subject of pilgrimage, I began reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and found myself asking new questions. With the modern corrosion of organized religion and the emergence of quick spiritual fixes and alluring self-help seminars now available in exchange for little more than money, why was the religious pilgrimage -- a practice that reached its height in medieval times -- not only still thriving at the end of the twentieth century but enjoying a marked resurgence? How had the ease and swiftness of modern travel altered the traditional pilgrimage? What stories lay behind contemporary searches, who undertook them, what exactly constituted a pilgrimage? ... Why do certain places on earth seem to possess a greater holiness than others? The self can certainly be transformed by a physical journey, but in what way would it be changed by a physical journey with a spiritual intent?