A peace walk or peace march, sometimes referred to as a peace pilgrimage, is a form of nonviolent action where a person or group marches a set distance to raise awareness for particular issues important to the walkers.
350 km Long Peace Walk New Zealand Kharlzada Kasrat Rai, twice the World Record holder for Peace Walks, has devoted his life for the cause of Peace, Education, Health and Cultural activities. He has achieved a widespread fame for the sake of his noble cause. He has conducted several walks with the flag of peace within and beyond the boundaries of Pakistan. In 2020, he made a 350 km Long Peace Walk from Wellington to Christchurch in commemoration of the Christchurch Mosques Attack. He is doing this walk voluntarily for the sake of humanity and Peace. The Peace Walk will start from New Zealand Parliament on 5 March.
India Starting in 1951, Vinoba Bhave undertook a peace walk with many of his followers throughout India for land reform. He walked for more than a decade, asking landowners to consider him a son and give him one-sixth of their land for him to distribute to the poor. A peace walk campaign called "Freedom Walk" was organized by the Free Software Community in Kerala in 2008. Four volunteers walked 750 miles (1,210 km) from one end of the state to the other to promote free software.
Europe During the Second World War, peace pilgrimages took place across Europe with the aim of bringing an end to the conflict. In Italy, pilgrims prayed at Loreto and Assisi. In Wales they went on pilgrimage to St David's Cathedral, in France they went on pilgrimage to Our Lady of Pontmain who had saved the French in an earlier war. In Ireland and Switzerland, pilgrims prayed that the war would not spread across their borders.
Hungary and Italy In 2014, a group launched the first permanent peace walk route, which runs from Budapest along the former division between Eastern and Western Europe, and ends in Trieste, Italy. Donol Corcoran of Ireland had completed the "European Peace Walk" six times by July 2019.
A peace walk for the Unity of Hungary occurred in March 2014.
On 1 June 2024, Tens of thousands march in Budapest in a peace march. People wave flags and signs reading "No War".
United Kingdom In 1984, members of a peace camp walked 26 miles from RAF Daws Hill to Naphill through country roads to raise money for The Angry Pacifist magazine.
United States
Various peace organizations throughout the United States organized marches to protest wars, including the Iraq War, on a regular basis. Sometimes these marches are coordinated to take place on the same day across the nation. In San Diego, the greatest number of anti-war protesters, an estimated 7,000, turned out for a demonstration on 15 March 2003, five days before the beginning of the Iraq War. Native Americans have organized numerous cross-country peace walks, including the "Longest Walk" in 1978 and the "Long Walk for Survival" in 1980. The projects raised awareness not only for peace, but environmental issues and protection of native sites. In 1984, several walks crossed the nation, including "On the Line," which traced the route of trains carrying nuclear weapons from Bangor Base, Washington, to Charleston, South Carolina, and the "Peace Pilgrimage of Europeans." The Carter-King Peace Walk at Freedom Park in Atlanta opened in 2003. The 1.5-mile stretch connects the landmarks that commemorate the only two Georgia winners of the Nobel Peace Prize: Martin Luther King Jr. and Jimmy Carter. The Bridge Walk for Peace is held every year since 2008 on April 4 in Philadelphia to commemorate the assassination anniversary of Dr. King is the longest such observance in the country. The event gathers individuals at sunrise at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge to walk to the pinnacle and offer a prayer for peace. In 2025, a Walk for Peace was started by Buddhist monks from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, Texas with a destination of Washington, D.C., making a journey of 2,300 miles across 10 states.
International
From India across the world From 1963 to 1965, two members of Gandhi's Sarvodaya movement, Satish Kumar and E.P. Menon, walked an estimated 8,000 miles from New Delhi to Washington, D.C., via Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Poland, Germany, France, and Belgium. They crossed the channel and Atlantic Ocean via ships. Their prior experience of Bhave gave two gifts to Kumar and Menon: pennilessness, i.e. voluntary poverty, and vegetarianism. From 1982 through 1986, Prem Kumar walked more than 17,000 kilometers (about 10,500 miles) around the world for international peace and disarmament. He organized walks in India involving participants from all over the world and founded social service organizations.
Interfaith Pilgrimage for Peace and Life The "Interfaith Pilgrimage for Peace and Life" started in Auschwitz, Poland, on 8 December 1994, and ended in Nagasaki on the 50th anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing on 9 August 1995. It was led by Nipponzan-Myōhōji-Daisanga Japanese Buddhist monks. The monks, however, were dwarfed in number by American, European, South American, and Japanese lay people. The trip was organized to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II as well as to be a witness to suffering in contemporary war zones. From Auschwitz, the group walked to Vienna, then traveled through Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. They crossed the front lines of the Bosnian War in Mostar and held a day of vigil, fasting and prayer there. The next leg took them through Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan and Iraq. The group traveled across the front lines in Cambodia, where they joined the Dhammayietra, an annual Cambodian peace walk led by Maha Ghosananda, known by some as the "Gandhi of Cambodia." They then visited war sites in Vietnam and the Philippines before going to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This walk was one of many peace pilgrimages organized by the Nipponzan-Myōhōji-Daisanga monks, but this one was among the largest and longest. More than 1,000 people participated in at least part of the pilgrimage, including Buddhists, Quakers, Catholics, Muslims and Jews.
A Walk to Moscow
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