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In addition to places associated with Jesus, Egeria sought out Old Testament sites because she understood the history of the Israelites to be part of the Christian gospel. She visited many sites in Egypt, including the "plain above the Red Sea … where the children of Israel cried out when they saw the Egyptians pursuing them" and the "city of Pithom, which the children of Israel had built."

She described the arduous climb up Mt. Sinai: "By the will of Christ our God, and with the help of the prayers of the holy men who were accompanying us, I made the ascent, though with great effort, because it had to be made on foot, since it was absolutely impossible to make the climb in the saddle." Her joy at visiting the place where God spoke to Moses is evident: "Once all your wishes have been fulfilled and you have come down from there, then you can see it in the distance."

Egeria was not a tourist but a worshiper. At holy places she read appropriate Scriptures, sang Psalms, prayed, and shared the Eucharist. She was as eager to meet holy men and women as to visit holy places. Monks had settled at many places associated with events from the Bible. Their ability to point out the historical details of nearby biblical sites reveals how Palestinian and Egyptian Christians guarded communal memories. They were concerned about historical accuracy and confessed their inability to preserve certain sites. Egeria explained why she was unable to see the pillar of Lot's wife: "The pillar is said to have been covered by the Dead Sea. … The bishop of that place … told us that for some years now the pillar has not been visible." Some Christians viewed the physical remains in the Holy Land as symbols of spiritual realities in a believer's life. But Egeria saw the holy sites and the Christians who lived there as witnesses to the historical reality of Scripture.

Egeria had scholarly motives that corresponded with her spiritual ones. In Edessa she obtained copies for her own monastery's library of the legendary correspondence between Jesus and King Agbar of Edessa. Egeria promised her sisters at home that they should read them: "Although I had copies of them at home, I was clearly pleased to accept them … in case the copy which had reached us at home happened to be incomplete; for the copy which I had received was certainly more extensive." This shows that women's monasteries in late antiquity were centers of learning as well as prayer.

The focal point of Egeria's entire account is her description of worship in Jerusalem. She carefully observed how the Christians there observed the liturgical year, paying particular attention to the services of Holy Week. In many respects, worship in the Holy Land, with its daily pattern of prayer at appointed hours, vigils, singing of psalms, and the celebration of the Eucharist, would have been familiar to Egeria's fellow Christians in the West: "Everything is done which is customarily done at home with us."

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