ROME (AP) — The Vatican on Wednesday announced a busy and lengthy foreign travel schedule for Pope Leo XIV in the first half of 2026, confirming the pontiff will visit Monaco, Spain and four African nations — Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.

The announcement sets the stage for one of the busiest papal travel schedules in years, since Leo will also be undertaking a grand tour of Italy starting in May that will take him up and down the peninsula in a half-dozen one-day visits.

After Leo’s election last May as the first U.S.-born pope, papal travel had largely been on hold. Leo had a packed calendar ministering to the 33 million pilgrims who came to the Vatican during the 2025 Holy Year.

But with the Jubilee now over, the 70-year-old Leo is freer to travel to meet his new flock. He is making similar get-to-know-you visits this Lent by visiting a Roman parish each Sunday.

The former Robert Prevost, who lived for two decades as a missionary in Peru, has said he loves to travel. He was on the road for much of his 12-year stint as Augustinian superior, visiting the order’s communities around the world.

He took his first and so far only foreign trip as pope late last year, visiting Turkey and Lebanon. The trips fulfilled promises made by Pope Francis that he was unable to complete because of his failing health.

Now looking ahead to his own agenda, Leo will make a one-day visit to Monaco on March 28.

His next trip is a 10-day voyage starting soon after Easter: He will visit Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea from April 13 to April 23. In recent times, only Francis undertook such an arduous and long foreign trip, when he visited Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore in 2024. The Algeria stop is particularly significant to Leo given its strong connection to the life and death of St. Augustine of Hippo, the 5th-century inspiration of Leo’s religious order.

Francis had largely avoided big, traditionally Catholic European countries during his 12-year pontificate, preferring to visit instead smaller Catholic communities on the peripheries. Leo will spend nearly a week in Spain, from June 6 to June 12.

He is widely expected to be in Barcelona on June 10 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Antoni Gaudí, the architect of the famed Sagrada Familia basilica. The massive church just last week reached its maximum height with the placement of the church’s soaring central tower piece.

While the Vatican didn’t announce further foreign travel, Leo is also expected to visit his beloved Peru, and possibly Argentina and Uruguay, in the second half of 2026. The Vatican has confirmed he will not travel to the United States this year, skipping out on the country’s 250th independence anniversary.

On the anniversary itself, July 4, Leo will be visiting the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, the main arrival point of migrants who are smuggled to Europe from north Africa.

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