I'd hate to be a summoner from Bevelle

[Linnaete]

It's easy mode if you hail from Besaid Island. It's just a straightforward trip up north to Zanarkand, passing by all the other necessary temples on the way. Unless dire circumstances come into play, a summoner from Besaid is unlikely to make many wild detours along the way, so the trip should be fairly smooth sailing. Well, unless Sin attacks your boat, which will then make it a fairly terrifying sailing trip.

However, what if you're a Bevelle resident and you too wish to take up the mantle of a summoner and hopefully be the one to bring forth the next Calm? You're left with a particularly inconvenient trip.

Sure, you may have Bahamut as your starting Aeon, but unless you're planning to fly across the world on dragonback (along with your Guardians and all your supplies) if that is even feasible or permitted by Spiran lore, your trip is probably going to be roughly 75% longer and more arduous than that of your Besaid counterpart. You'll have to travel south from Bevelle all the way down to Besaid to reach every temple, then proceed all the way back up literally across the whole world just to reach Zanarkand.

No only is the actual trip longer, but you're going to need a bigger budget. More travel time means more Gil is required for food and for beds at travel agencies. More Gil required means a Bevelle summoner's pilgrimage is a much longer and more expensive commitment than a Besaid summoner's. A longer and more expensive pilgrimage means such a journey might only be feasible for the more financially well off aspiring summoners, unless the temples and people you encounter along the way generously offer donations. Your average Joe aspiring summoner from Bevelle might not be able to afford as many Guardians - imagine being like Donna who only has one pitiful Guardian, not because you're so arrogant as to believe you only need one, but because you're too poor to afford any more traveling companions.

tl;dr being a summoner especially from Bevelle must be a pain in the butt and such an inconvenience. I hope they at least help cover travel costs.

 

[Jack's Smirking Revenge]

I thought that too. Being from anywhere other than Besaid makes the whole pilgrimage so inconvenient and the closer to Zanarkand you are, the harder it is. You'd think that'd make Besaid some sort of summoners hub - the ideal to place to start your pilgrimage from. I guess there's actually supposed to be multiple paths up around the world but we only actually get to see Yuna's, who conveniently follows the exact same path as her father and the other two travelling summoners at the time.

On the note of multiple guardians - was Braska actually the first summoner to ever travel with more than one guardian? You'd think in 1,000 years one of the surviving guardians would have spilled the beans on the truth of the Final Aeon.
I've never really thought they were paid though. The whole point is that a guardian and summoner should have a close bond, and not an employer/employee relationship. I never really got the feeling that there were any guardians-for-hire or mercenaries in Spira.

 

[Dionysos]

There are hints at other paths, and some shrines are now neglected or difficult to reach (Baaj and Remiem, for example). Other temples have been lost to time or the Fayths have been moved suggesting they had once been elsewhere (Yojimbo’s Fayth in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth is the example seen in-game).

But even all of that considered, there weren’t nearly enough temples to make it easy for summoners hailing from other locations to make their pilgrimages via another route. They must have all needed to go in a weird, roundabout way to collect their aeons.

I do wonder how many of the summoners managed to 'catch 'em all'. Was that ever confirmed as a requirement as such? Or did summoners only need to aquire enough aeons to enhance their spiritual attunement and prepare the body for the Final Aeon? With the exception of Belgamine (who is actually an atypical case), are any other summoners seen with all Aeons? Isaaru only has three that he summons in battle. May there be other summoners who have different Aeons? Since some were ‘optional’ for the player in the game, were there other Fayths in different locations which other summoners could use instead of those only obtainable in Besaid, etc?

But this is a great thread. It almost suggests that they designed the game’s pilgrimage route with gameplay, the player and Yuna in mind. A similar thing could be said for starter towns in Pokemon games.