Book Your Travel :: Travel Your Book

Whether your travel is real or imaginary, via plane or armchair, these books can help you find literature set in your destination or choose your destination based on the literature and authors you love.


Off the Beaten Page : The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs, and Girls on Getaways by Terri Peterson Smith (Chicago Review Press, 2013).

The author identifies a literary theme for each of fifteen U.S. destination cities and gives background information on the theme, an annotated reading list of the city's literature, and a detailed itinerary appropriate for book groups visiting over a long weekend.  You can visit the author's blog for updates to the cities in the book and for new destinations.




Reading on Location: Great Books Set in Top Travel Destinations by Luisa Moncada and Scala Quin (New Holland, 2011). 

Organized by continent and then by country, this guide lists and briefly describes titles (fiction or non-fiction) set in the countries and their states, major cities, or regions.  It also includes some information about authors' homes and museums.

 Book Lust To Go by Nancy Pearl (Sasquatch Books, 2010).

This guide's similar in scope to Reading on Location but with a narrative approach.  Pearl shares historical tidbits, anecdotes and sometimes personal information while telling about a place and its literature, including fiction and non-fiction titles.  

Traveling Literary America: A Complete Guide to Literary Landmarks by B. J. Welborn (Jefferson Press, 2005).

This guide includes authors' homes and museums, literary monuments, and walks in all 50 states.  For each site, Welborn gives a brief frame of reference and a longer discussion of the significance of the site and its related author or works.  She also includes recommendations for nearby places of interest and further reading for each landmark.