Temples, churches, mosques, gurudwaras, monasteries and pilgrimage sites.
42 places
Must visit
Sikhism's holiest shrine — a gold-covered sanctum in the middle of a sacred tank, open to everyone of…
Must visit
A vast working temple to Meenakshi and Sundareswarar with fourteen gopurams covered in thousands of…
Must visit
The main ghat and the site of the nightly Ganga aarti, when seven priests perform a synchronised fire…
Must visit
One of the four Char Dham shrines, built in the 12th century, home to the wooden images of Jagannath…
Must visit
One of the largest stupas in the world and the centre of Tibetan Buddhism in Nepal, ringed by…
Must visit
One of the twelve jyotirlingas and the spiritual centre of the city, reached through the new riverfront…
Must visit
A working temple to Shiva that predates the empire and has been in continuous worship for over 1,300…
Must visit
The temple of the 46-metre gold reclining Buddha, and the home of traditional Thai massage, five…
Must visit
The evening fire ceremony on the ashram's ghat, led by resident students, with chanting and lamps…
Must visit
A twelve-storey gompa stacked up a hill in the Indus valley, often compared to the Potala, with a…
Must visit
The Temple of Dawn on the west bank, its 70-metre prang covered in broken Chinese porcelain, best at…
Must visit
A hilltop stupa above the city, reached by 365 steps, with painted eyes on all four sides and a valley…
Must visit
A 1605 baroque basilica in Old Goa holding the remains of St Francis Xavier, and part of a UNESCO World…
Must visit
An enormous modern Hindu temple complex in carved sandstone and marble, built without structural steel…
Must visit
A 1,000-metre hill above the city topped by a 12th-century temple, reached by road or 1,008 steps past…
Must visit
A 1553 wooden pagoda temple to Hidimba of the Mahabharata, set in a deodar grove above the town.
Must visit
Nepal's holiest Hindu site, on the Bagmati, where open-air cremations take place on the ghats…
Must visit
An 1855 temple on the Hooghly with twelve Shiva shrines along the riverfront, closely associated with…
Must visit
India's largest mosque, built by Shah Jahan, with a courtyard for 25,000 and a minaret you can climb…
Must visit
A 15th-century mosque and tomb on an islet, reached by a causeway that disappears under the sea at high…
Must visit
The largest church in Asia, begun in 1562, with the Golden Bell and a Portuguese-Manueline exterior.
Mumbai's most visited temple, dedicated to Ganesha, with queues that stretch around the block on…
A Bahá'í house of worship shaped like a 27-petal lotus, open to every faith and silent inside by rule.
A working Sikh shrine with a gold dome and a large tank, where the free community kitchen serves tens…