Saint Bona of Pisa Medal Necklace – Patron Saint of Travelers, Pilgrims and Flight Attendants

Saint Bona of Pisa, Patron Saint of Travelers, Pilgrims and Flight Attendants

Bona was born around 1156 in Pisa, Italy, and abandoned by her father as a young child. At fourteen she traveled to Jerusalem in search of him, only to be captured and wounded by pirates on the return voyage before being ransomed. Rather than retreat from travel after that ordeal, she devoted her life to it, becoming an official guide for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago under the Knights of Saint James and completing the route nine separate times, alongside additional pilgrimages to Rome and the shrine at Monte Sant'Angelo. She died in Pisa in 1207 after illness forced her to abandon a tenth attempted journey, and was canonized in 1962. She's since become the patron of travelers broadly, including couriers, tour guides, pilgrims, and, in modern devotion, flight attendants.

A Gift For...

• A flight attendant, tour guide, or travel professional
• Anyone who spends their career getting others safely from place to place
• A pilgrim preparing for the Camino de Santiago
• Someone who's survived a frightening journey and kept traveling anyway
• A frequent traveler in need of a patron of their own

A Confirmation Gift for Bona

Considering Bona for a confirmation name? "Guided the Way" or "Faithful Traveler" both fit within the 20-character line limit. She suits confirmation well because her response to a genuinely traumatic journey was to spend her life making other people's journeys safer, a strong model of turning a hard experience into service.

The Saint Bona of Pisa Medal

The design shows Bona haloed, wearing a crown of flowers referencing her virginity, holding a scallop shell against her chest, referencing her nine pilgrimages along the Camino de Santiago and her patronage of pilgrims, travel guides, and flight attendants. The natural gold or silver of the metal forms the illustration itself. Black ink is applied to the pendant surface and the metal shows through as the image. A shatterproof liquid glass coating seals the surface. The result has a depth and precision that printed medals don't achieve.

Personalization and Engraving

Reverse engraving available in Tangerine cursive, 2 lines, 20 characters max each. Well-suited pairings: a hire date paired with "Guided the Way," or a name with "Faithful Traveler."

Saint Bona's feast day is May 29th. She's one of the only saints whose patronage extends naturally into modern air travel, invoked today by flight attendants who spend their careers doing exactly what she did on foot eight centuries ago: getting people where they're going, safely.

Related Devotions for Travelers, Pilgrims and Flight Crews

• Saint James the Greater Medal. The Camino de Santiago that Bona walked nine times as a guide is literally the Way of Saint James, making this the most direct pairing in the entire catalog, her patronage as guide alongside his as the destination.
• Saint Brendan the Navigator Medal. Brendan covers travelers and sailors on the water, while Bona covers pilgrims and guides on the road, two patrons for two very different ways of getting somewhere far from home.
• Saint Joseph of Cupertino Medal. Joseph's patronage extends to aviators, pairing naturally with Bona's modern patronage of flight attendants, ground and air covered by two very different saints.