Someone has said that for many Christians, church history began with the first Billy Graham crusade. They think that as long as they derive their beliefs from the Bible, they can ignore the two thousand years of history between the apostles and the present.
A Reformation tour is what happens when Christians decide to learn what they’ve been missing.
Here is what a Reformation tour to Europe is, what it includes, and why the people who go almost universally say it changed how they understand their own faith.
In 1517, a German monk named Martin Luther nailed a list of 95 objections to a church door in the small town of Wittenberg. He was not trying to start a new church. He was trying to reform the one he was in.
What followed over the next century was the most significant disruption to Western Christianity since the early church: the Protestant Reformation. It produced new denominations, new translations of the Bible (including the King James Version), new theologies, and eventually new countries. It also produced martyrs — people who died for the right to read Scripture in their own language.
The Reformation matters to every Protestant Christian today because the tradition they stand in was born in these events. The Bible translation they read, the hymns they sing, the theological concepts they take for granted — these were fought for, often at great cost, in the cities that a Reformation tour visits.
A Reformation tour is a specific category of Christian heritage travel. Rather than visiting biblical sites from Scripture, it visits the sites where the history of the church was made in the centuries after the apostles.
A typical Reformation tour in Germany includes: Wittenberg (Castle Church where Luther nailed the 95 Theses, the world’s largest Reformation museum, Luther’s home), Erfurt (where Luther was ordained as a monk), Eisenach and Wartburg Castle (where Luther hid from the Pope and translated the New Testament into German), Worms (where Luther refused to recant before Emperor Charles V in 1521 — “Here I stand, I can do no other”), and Eisleben (where Luther was born and died).
A Reformation tour in Scotland includes Edinburgh (Castle where James VI authorized the King James Bible, St. Giles’ Cathedral where John Knox preached), St. Andrews (where Knox lived and Reformation martyrs were burned), Iona (where Celtic monks preserved Christianity through the Dark Ages), and Stirling.
A Reformation tour in England includes Oxford (where C.S. Lewis taught, where Tyndale and Wesley were educated, where the Martyrs’ Memorial stands for those burned for translating the Bible), London (Westminster Abbey, John Wesley’s Chapel), and the Cotswolds.
Germany is the most popular destination for Reformation tours in Europe. Luther’s story is concentrated in a relatively small geographic area, and the sites are extraordinarily well-preserved. Most Germany Reformation tours run 9–10 days.
Scotland and England together form a natural second itinerary, covering the English Bible’s history (Tyndale, Wycliffe), the Methodist movement (Wesley brothers), the Scottish Reformation (Knox), and the Celtic Christian heritage (Patrick, Columba, Aidan). 10–12 days for a combined Scotland and England tour.
Czech Republic and Germany combined tours follow Jan Hus — who preached Reformation a century before Luther and was burned at the Council of Constance in 1415 — through Prague, Dresden, and Wittenberg. This tour connects the Hussite movement to the Lutheran Reformation in a narrative arc that most Christians have never encountered.
Ireland is increasingly popular for Celtic Christianity tours — tracing St. Patrick, the monasteries that preserved learning through the Dark Ages, and the tradition of prayer and creation spirituality that influenced Western Christianity from the edges.
On a regular Europe trip, you visit the Eiffel Tower, walk the Champs-Élysées, take photos of Neuschwanstein Castle.
On a Reformation tour, you visit the door at Wittenberg and read the document Luther nailed to it. You stand in the Cathedral of Worms where Luther was put on trial before the Holy Roman Emperor. You walk the streets of Edinburgh where Knox preached sermons that changed the country. You visit the cell in Oxford where Cranmer was held before being burned at the stake for his Protestant beliefs.
The sites of Reformation history are not primarily beautiful or scenic (though some are both). They are primarily significant. They are the places where things happened that shaped the world you live in and the faith you hold. That’s a different kind of travel.
No. And most travelers on these tours aren’t.
What you need is curiosity and a basic familiarity with names like Luther, Wesley, or Knox. The guides on Reformation tours are teachers — often pastors, theologians, or church historians who explain the events in context, connect them to Scripture, and help you understand why each site mattered.
Most travelers say they come back having understood their own tradition — and the Bible itself — in ways they never expected. You don’t need to know what the Diet of Worms was before you go. You’ll know what it was when you come home.
The majority of Reformation tour travelers are Christians in their 50s, 60s, and 70s who have been practicing their faith for decades and want to understand where it came from. Many are pastors or church leaders who want to bring what they learn back to their congregations. Some are younger Christians who have become interested in church history and want to go deeper than books can take them.
What they consistently report afterward: they read the Bible differently. They understand their own denomination differently. They have a sense of the cost paid by those who came before them — the translators, the reformers, the martyrs — that changes how lightly or seriously they hold their own faith.
One of the most frequently quoted moments on Germany Reformation tours comes at Worms, where Luther stood before the Emperor and refused to recant: “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” Standing where he said that — reading the words in the place where they were spoken — is the kind of moment these tours produce.
There are more than 15 European Christian heritage routes available through FAVOR Travel in 2026 and 2027, including: Germany Reformation tour, Celtic Christianity in Scotland, Lions of English Faith (Wesley, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien), Saints & Stones of Ireland, Footsteps of St. Francis in Italy, Footsteps of Bonhoeffer, Poland Protestant Trail, and more.
Group tours start from $4,798 per person. Custom private itineraries are available from a $100 planning fee.
👉 Browse our European Christian heritage tours for 2026 and 2027 — or tell us which country calls to you and we’ll help you find the right route. → View the Europe tour page
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