Reading, like travel, allows us to experience a world beyond our own.
As intellectual Mason Cooley famously put it: “Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.”
But when we don’t have to stay where we are, why not visit those places we’ve come to love on the page? Here are some of the best destinations for book lovers based on your favorite novels and authors.
If you liked: Pride & Prejudice
You’ll love: Bath and Peak District, England
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a traveler in possession of a passport, must be in want of an adventure.
If that sentence made your heart pitter-patter, take that passport to Bath, England, to pay homage to Jane Austen. The authoress wrote both Persuasion and Northanger Abbey in Bath and is considered the city’s most famous resident.
Bath is home to the Jane Austen Festival each September — 2025 is the festival’s 250th anniversary — as well as The Jane Austen Centre. Don your bonnet, have a cup of tea, and travel back in time to Regency England when Jane penned her classics.
About a four-hour drive north of Bath is Chatsworth House in the Peak District. It’s believed that Jane based Pemberley on this real-life estate, which she would have seen when she stayed in nearby Bakewell.
Parts of Chatsworth and its grounds were used in the 2005 film adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. It's now a museum, housing countless pieces of art. You can even wander through the Sculpture Gallery, which filmmakers used for Lizzie’s first visit to Pemberley in 2005.
If you liked: Peter Pan
You’ll love: Moat Brae House in Dumfries, Scotland
Dumfries, in southwest Scotland, is home to rocky coastline and rich cultural history. It’s also the birthplace of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, and home to J.M. Barrie, author of the forever-young Peter Pan.
Visit Moat Brae, the home where Barrie spent time as a teen, and the Neverland Discovery Garden. Now a family-friendly museum, it’s designed for exploring and imagination. No outing is complete without taking your own trip to Neverland. Get pleasantly lost in the Discovery Garden, complete with pirate ship.
If you liked: Murder on the Orient-Express
You’ll love: Istanbul, Türkiye
Arguably one of Agatha Christie’s most famous novels, Murder on the Orient-Express is believed to have been penned at The Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul. She had such an affinity for the luxury hotel, and Room 411 in particular, that the suite was named in her honor.
Even if you aren’t staying at the hotel, you can visit the Agatha Christie Room. Its original antique furniture, typewriter, and collection of mystery novels replicate how the room would have looked during the author’s many visits.
The Pera Palace Hotel was built more than a century ago to host passengers of the then-newly constructed Orient Express. Although the original train is no longer in operation, you can take the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, which re-creates the luxury train experience of the 19th century. Ride it from Istanbul to Paris, dining in extravagance and soaking up the views along the way.
If you liked: The Book Thief
You’ll love: The Bebelplatz in Berlin, Germany
Set in Germany during World War II, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief tells of the power of words and literature. The Nazis’ burning of books is key to the story, and real-life book burnings continue to be an integral lesson in our world history.
Whereas the other destinations on our list showcase books, this site’s impact is made through the lack of books. Empty underground shelves in Library, an art installation in Berlin’s Bebelplatz, represent the 20,000 books destroyed by Nazis in that same square in 1933.
If you liked: The Lord of the Rings
You’ll love: Wellington, New Zealand
JRR Tolkien created a vividly diverse landscape in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit. Few actual places would be able to make the fictitious Middle-earth come to life quite like New Zealand. Its blend of rolling green hills, jagged mountains, and endless coastline seem to have come directly from the pages of a magic-filled book.
A weekend visit to Hobbiton, a village built on a dairy farm for the movies but is now a permanent tourist site, is always a treat.
Head to Wellington to follow in the hobbits’ (large) footsteps. Although Wellington is New Zealand’s capital, the city’s parks and greenspaces set the scenes for the books’ movie adaptations. Mount Victoria was transformed into Hobbiton Woods. Kaitoke Regional Park became Rivendell. And Queen Elizabeth Park provided the backdrop for the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
If you liked: A Farewell to Arms
You’ll love: Key West, Florida, or Kenya
Ernest Hemingway lived an interesting life. While most readers know him for books like A Farewell to Arms, he also served with the Red Cross and was seriously wounded during World War I, covered the Spanish Civil War and World War II as a journalist, and traveled around the globe writing, exploring, and developing quite the international reputation.
Among the many places Hemingway lived was Key West, Florida, where you can now visit The Hemingway Home & Museum. Tour the estate and give some head scritches to the famous six-toed cats which are believed to be descendants of Snow White, Hemingway’s first feline.
If you’re more into big cats than polydactyl ones, follow in the author’s footsteps to Kenya. A 10-week safari led to one of his lesser-known books, Green Hills of Africa, and multiple short stories.
Hemingway’s 1930s safari had little to do with rewilding; he was more of a hunter than anything else on his trips to Africa. But you can travel more sustainably by booking a trip with reputable guides. The Mount Kenya Safari Club arranges safaris on bike or horseback to reduce the stress on animals caused by vehicles. They also contribute financially to reintroduction efforts for the endangered mountain bongo population.
If you liked: Anne of Green Gables
You’ll love: Prince Edward Island, Canada
Imaginative Anne — with and e, thank you — grew up in the fictional town of Avonlea, but that town was in the very real Prince Edward Island, Canada. Author L.M. Montgomery based the setting off her own childhood memories growing up in PIE. The area celebrates its place in the iconic children’s story today.
Visit Prince Edward Island and you can immerse yourself in the books come to life. There’s the Anne of Green Gables Museum, which is small but packed with memorabilia dedicated to Anne and her author. You’ll also find the Lucy Maud Montgomery Birthplace, Cavendish Home, the country school where Montgomery taught briefly, and more, all in the area.
If you liked: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda
You’ll love: Casa de Isla Negra, El Quisco, Chile
Poet Pablo Neruda had a few favorite houses in Chile, all of which he personally designed and decorated in his own unique style. His most loved house, though, was the seaside Casa de Isla Negra. It’s now a museum.
Take the tour that leads you down narrow passageways and through rooms with low ceilings and round porthole windows, all intended to give you the feeling of being aboard a ship. Take your time combing through Neruda’s vast collections of nautical and natural items, of which there are many, often containing a deeply personal meaning to the author.
Before you leave, you can pay your respects to Neruda and his third wife Matilde Urrutia (an author in her own right), both of whom are buried on the hillside.
About an hour’s drive north in Valparaíso is another of Neruda’s houses, La Chascona. Neruda built the house for Urrutia when she was still his mistress. It also has a nautical theme and vast collections of memorabilia, including an original portrait of Urrutia by the famed Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera.
If you liked: Love in a Time of Cholera
You’ll love: Aracataca, Colombia
Gabriel García Márquez, one of the most prominent authors in magical realism, called Colombia home. His award-winning novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in a Time of Cholera feature fictitious Colombian towns but draw heavily from the port cities near Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
With that pristine Caribbean coastline to the north, the towering Andes Mountains slicing through the middle, and the mighty Amazon rainforest to the south, Colombia has a patchwork of landscapes unlike any other country. In urban areas like Bogotá, modern skyscrapers intermingle with Spanish colonial architecture to create a dynamic mix of old and new.
Include the Gabriel García Márquez House Museum in Aracataca, Colombia, on your itinerary. It isn’t the original childhood house, which was demolished years ago, but it has been rebuilt as a museum to give you a glimpse at the author’s life.
Where to Refill Your TBR
El Ateneo Grand Splendid — Buenos Aires, Argentina
National Geographic called it the world’s most beautiful bookstore, so you know it’s going to be something special. In the heart of Buenos Aires is a former theater that now serves as a bookstore. Private viewing boxes have been transformed into cozy reading nooks. The stage is now a cafe.
You’ll likely do as much gawking as you will shopping. Give yourself time to enjoy the atmosphere as much as the titles on the shelves.
Wigtown, Scotland
We’re not sure how you get to be declared a National Book Town, but Wigtown in Scotland managed to pull it off.
Three hours south of Edinburgh is a town of about 900 people. It hosts an annual book festival, 10 days filled with hundreds of events. Many of the businesses in town are either independent bookshops or cater to the literary crowd.
Hay-on-Wye, Wales
If one book town simply isn’t enough, continue your tour into Wales and the village of Hay-on-Wye. You’ll find it right on the Welsh-English border and packed full of secondhand bookstores.
What makes this village especially enticing — besides the sheer quantity of bookshops given Hay-on-Wye's small size — is the mix of genres. While some shops carry anything and everything, others specialize. Murder and Mayhem is stocked full of mysteries and crime novels. Mostly Maps is ... well, mostly antique maps and prints. And The Addyman Annexe is said to have one of the best paperback fiction rooms in the UK.
New York City
Between being home to some of the oldest and most influential libraries in the country and some epic shopping, New York City is a grand destination for book lovers.
The New York Public Library is renowned for its research collection as well as its beauty. It’s worth a visit to snap a few pictures and take in the classic architecture.
You can also visit The Morgan Library & Museum. Originally banker J.P. Morgan’s private library, it’s now open to the public. (We recommend the fictionalized account of how he grew his collection in the novel The Personal Librarian.)
The Strand Book Store is home to literally millions of new, used, and rare books. You could spend hours browsing the shelves, from the discount racks on the sidewalk to the endless rows of shelves inside. If you can’t find something special, then you must have your eyes closed.
Wuguan Books — Kaohsiung, Taiwan
If you’ve ever wanted to read a book but worried what others would think of you for buying it, then you need to go to Wuguan Books in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The bookstore is kept almost completely in the dark, the only light illuminating each book.
While the light — or lack thereof — gives it the feel of an art installation, it also allows you to shop in anonymity. The owners intentionally designed the shop this way so that you could leave inhibitions at the door, letting your true bookish self come through.
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