Monasteries.com aims to help everyone learn about monasteries, their history, and the opportunity to stay for a few nights, or attend retreats and courses. In today's day of bland hotel chains and everything done in a rush, monasteries are certainly unique, and can encourage a slower, more contemplative form of travel. They are also often affordable and well located.
How come I can stay in a Monastery?
You do not have to be Catholic to stay. In fact, there are normally no faith-related requirements, but one is expected to respect their customs and traditions since you are being “invited into their home.” If there are faith-requirements, we have listed the property as "religious only".
Monks or nuns will often make themselves available to talk with visitors and guests, and sometimes you can eat with them in the refectory. In other monasteries, you will eat with other guests in a separate dining room.
A mixture of single, twin, some double and family rooms, many with ensuite bathrooms are available, normally on a bed and breakfast basis. See our Top Tips for Staying In Monasteries for more information.
Monasteries have welcomed guests for centuries, as an important source of income, as well as the obvious religious function for pilgrims. A number of monasteries and abbeys have closed or consolidated, and thus many are confronted with questions about the future. Bucking this trend, however, many monasteries have decided to advertise their spare rooms on Monasteries.com, and introduce retreats and courses, responsive to the needs of the contemporary world. This enables others to sample the spirituality of their historic buildings and traditions, as well as assisting with their maintenance and running costs.
History of Monasteries.com
In 2007, Charlie Ramsay set up a website to help people book rooms in Universities, when students move out in the vacations. Launched in 2019, Monasteries.com was born of a similar idea: helping travellers find somewhere a bit different, and helping monasteries generate a little extra income to help with maintenance and running costs.
We charge a small service fee but it's more than a business: we love knowing that we are helping great organisations and institutions survive, and providing customers with more interesting ideas for where to stay and sample some of their peace, quiet, traditions, and perhaps spirituality.
We hope that this website will contribute to a renewed interest in, and understanding of, the monastic world.
Supporting the environment
We give a small contribution from every booking (at no extra cost to you) to World Land Trust. By booking through Monasteries.com, you are contributing to this success story: thank you for your support.
Sign up your monastery
Over the next few years we hope to gradually add more monasteries throughout the world. If you are a monastery and are interested in hearing more about our service, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will provide information about our service, how much revenue you could generate, and answer any questions you might have.
If you would like to see a particular monastery added to our website, please do suggest they get in touch with us. We are committed to both a long-term relationship with our monasteries and the long-term success of this service.
Partner with us
If you would like us to share our availability and content with your website, please get in touch and we can investigate setting up a partnership.
This website is part of the SpeedyBooker Network.
