Literary travel ideas for every kind of book lover

One of the most enjoyable aspects of travel is the time to read a good book, so it's not that surprising that vacations built entirely around books and authors are on the rise. Thanks to forces such as BookTok, celebrity book clubs, and niche tour operators, literary travel has become a dominant trend.

“Book vacations offer a built-in point of connection,” says Gabi Valladares, founder of the in-person and digital book club The Literary League who has led reading retreats of her own and for the Catskill Mountains resort Scribner’s Lodge. Not only do they provide a natural conversation starter, Valladares notes, they’re “low-lift,” offering opportunities to interact with authors and other bibliophiles as well also plenty of time to read.

From celebrated bookstores to curated tours to special programming at hotels, here are just some of the ways you can dive into a book vacation with as much pleasure as diving into a good book. 

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Hotel programming

In 2024, Scribner’s Lodge introduced their Booked In literary retreat. A now annual three-day event, it’s devoted to author chats, lit conversations, and thematic dinners. “The Catskills have long been a retreat for writers, artists, and creatives,” says the hotel’s co-founder Marc Chodock, noting the event taps into that legacy, along with a quarterly book club the hotel also hosts. This past year’s event, curated by Valladares, featured debut novelist Zoe Dubno and cookbook author Lee Kalpakis. In addition to hearing the authors speak about their inspiration and publishing journeys, guests were able to mingle and read for hours by the lodge’s cozy fires.

As a nod to the Hawaiian tradition of “talk story,” or sharing ideas, opinions, and events of the day, Kona Village, A Rosewood Resort on Hawaii’s big island, launched a program in 2025 called The Village Shelf. Every month, a novel, such as Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time, is left in each of the property’s 150 rooms with a bookmark detailing the program. Not only are guests encouraged to read the book and discuss it with others on the property, but the staff is as well. “We designed the program to remove barriers that can exist at traditional hotels, both between guests and other guests and between guests and associates,” says Daniel Scott, the resort’s managing director. Scott notes this opens up conversations during communal gatherings as well as small, unexpected moments of connection. 

Curated tours and retreats

The author Elin Hilderbrand has written 24 New York Times bestsellers, mostly set on the island of Nantucket, where she lives. This past spring, her sister, Heather Thorpe, started a bus tour with Nantucket Island Tours based on Hilderbrand’s guide, The Blue Book. The two-hour excursion is offered three times a week between May and October, taking up to 25 guests to some of the author’s favorite shops, restaurants, and beaches along with locations from her novels. “The fans have their favorite characters, favorite books, and favorite stories,” says Thorpe of the enthusiasm and camaraderie that bubbles up among tour attendees.

For a deeper immersion, there are multi-day reading retreats. When Kayla Janachovsky launched the female-focused Slow Travel Co. in 2025, reading retreats were a big part of the offering. “We felt that they are a natural extension of our philosophy, which is combining travel with uninterrupted time to rest, read, and disconnect from daily demands,” she says. The five-day vacations for groups of up to 12 are in locations as varied as the Cotswolds in England, Costa Rica, and the coast of Maine and include accommodations, most meals, and local excursions, though the focus is on having unstructured time to simply read.

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Literary centers and libraries

When the prolific novelist, essayist, and screenwriter Larry McMurtry was alive, he owned a shop full of rare and used books in the one-stoplight town of Archer City, Texas. The bookstore, Booked Up, was shuttered upon his death in 2021 but the nonprofit Archer City Writers Workshop reopened it in the spring of 2025 as the Larry McMurtry Literary Center. In addition to the approximately 300,000 books he had collected, the center displays memorabilia, including two typewriters on which McMurtry wrote The Last Picture Show and part of Lonesome Dove. They also offer lectures, workshops, and book launches. As the center’s managing director, Kathy Floyd, notes, “We have enough so that whether someone is a McMurtry fan or a book fan, they'll leave with a smile.” 

Fairs and festivals 

Marathon readings, poetry slams, storytelling workshops—the variety of programming at book fairs and festivals is just as diverse as the events themselves. Take Litquake as an example. What started as a one-day reading series in San Francisco in 1999 is now two weeks of readings, panels, workshops, and literary fare to delight book lovers across ages, genres, and appetites. A UNESCO-designated “City of Literature” and home to the acclaimed Iowa City Writers’ Workshop, the week-long Iowa City Book Festival has hosted scores of acclaimed writers in its 17-year history, ranging from poets to journalists to memoirists, providing unique opportunities for fans to get closer to favorite talents. The Texas Book Festival, which has been operating since 1996, brings up to 250 authors from around the globe together for two days in downtown Austin. These, as many book festivals, run in the fall months, but also have smaller year-round events.

Author bookshops

Bookstores are often favorite destinations for bibliophiles, and when they’re owned by writers, they gain extra cachet. Ann Patchett, who’s published more than a dozen novels, non-fiction and children’s books, owns Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee. Its classic wood interior is home to a rotating residence of employee dogs, plus densely packed shelves of all genres, including signed editions of Patchett’s books, which can be personalized upon request. Lauren Groff, author of seven books, opened The Lynx with her husband in Gainesville, Florida, spotlighting books and authors that are banned or challenged in the state, as well as BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and Florida authors. And Emma Straub’s original Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic, which she opened in 2017 with her husband, has become such a hub for book lovers that the pair had to open a second Brooklyn location in 2022.

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