You're Invited to Travel with My Family To Italy Next Summer

My Family Friendly Pilgrimage Is Now Open To All

Next summer, from June 13-22, my family is going to Italy. And I want you to come with us. If you want, I also want you to bring someone with you: your husband or best friend, your mom or sister, and even your kids if you’re up for that.

Let me tell you why.  

When I was 25, I traveled to Wales to spend time with a friend and her family. One night, while chatting with her father, I mentioned how peaceful their little farm felt.

“Yes,” he agreed. “This is a thin place.”

A thin place, he explained, is a place where so many centuries of prayer have worn down the veil between heaven and earth. Grace feels more present there, God’s voice seems clearer, and prayers seem to travel more quickly to God’s ears.

Four years later, I knelt in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, and knew I had discovered another thin place. There, in the quiet, I heard God in a way I couldn’t hear Him at home. I felt the same way in Rome, where the very air seemed to tingle with grace. It was like the breath of the saints still lingered there, and God’s presence, made visible in a thousand tabernacles, was inescapable.

After my first visit to Assisi and Rome, I went back every year for a decade. In those thinnest of thin places, I saw how grace could transform first one heart, then a city, a country, and eventually an entire culture. I also saw how faithful God was—how He loved His people and cared for His Church, even when those tasked with leading it were unfaithful.

What I saw strengthened my faith and deepened my understanding, drawing me closer to Christ with each visit. Today those graces are with me still. They continue to make a difference in my life, my faith, and my family.

Which is why, after 10 years away, I am so excited to go back to Italy with my husband and bring our children with us.  

The graces to be had in Italy’s thin places are real. They are powerful. And I want my children to experience them. I want you and your loved ones to experience them, too. This pilgrimage will be open to people of all ages and all states in life and has been designed to be family friendly, which really just means human friendly. My prayer is for you to come back from this pilgrimage not only filled with grace, but also rested and rejuvenated, not exhausted.

To that end, we’ll only change hotels once. We’ll stay three nights in Assisi, go on a day trip to Sienna, and then spend five nights in Rome. The pace of this trip will also be a bit slower and gentler than your typical pilgrimage. We’ll still visit all my favorite spots, but we’ve built ample free time and flexibility into the schedule pilgrimage. This means there will be more time to pray and rest, to wander and nap, to sit with Christ in the Eucharist and to linger over a glass of wine with new friends. Yes, my kids will break down at some point. Your kids, if you have them and bring them, will break down too. But we’ll all be in this together, and I am trusting that the joys of this trip, will far outweigh the crazy.

You can see the full itinerary with all the trip details here.

Among the highlights of the pilgrimage will be visits to the final resting places of Saints Francis, Claire, and Carlos Acutis in Assisi; a day in Siena visiting where Saint Catherine is buried; a tour of the labyrinth of catacombs under St. Peter’s Basilica; a visit inside the Colosseum, where so many Christians were martyred; and tours of all the major basilicas and churches of Rome including the Capuchin Bone Church, which I wrote about in These Beautiful Bones.

This trip has limited registration, and is filling fast, so pray about coming with us, talk to your spouse, and crunch the numbers, but don’t wait too long to sign up if you discern this trip is for you. Deposits to reserve a space are due upon registration, but you can then spread out the remainder of payments over the next eight months, paying in however many installments fits your budget and on a schedule that works best for you. Final payments are due by April 14, 2024.

You can register for the trip here.

I know trips like this are costly and not possible for everyone. But I also know that the people who stay at home are always blessed by the prayers of those who can go. When we go on pilgrimage, it’s never just for ourselves. It’s also for all those we love and for the whole world.

Besides my own home, there are no places in the world as dear to me as Assisi and Rome, and I’m praying for your discernment about joining us. In the meantime, as you discern, if you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments below or come over to Instagram where I will be answering questions this afternoon.

Blessings,
Emily