Travel

Several best-selling books in the past few years have led their fans to travel to the locations in which the plots are set. A whole industry seems to have sprung up offering tours and packages built around the settings of Elizabeth Gilbert‘s memoir Eat, Pray, Love – which will likely go into overdrive with the recent release of the movie based on the book. Popular excursions based on sites mentioned in Stieg Larsson‘s Millennium series of thrillers are selling out in Sweden. One community which has perhaps benefitted the most, proportionately, from fan interest in the locale of their favorite books is tiny Forks, Wash. Ever since the first book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series was published, the community at the edge of the continent which had suffered through severe economic decline as the logging and fishing industries sagged has enjoyed a welcome influx of tourist dollars.

Certainly, this is not a new phenomenom in the worlds of publishing and tourism. Readers of Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes for years have sought locations in London and throughout the U. K. mentioned in the books penned by J. K. Rowling and Arthur Conan Doyle. (I remember my girls being thrilled, several years ago, to be traveling through King’s Cross Station, from which the Hogwart’s Express departs for the wizarding school in the Potter series.) Surely, any writer who has the skill to describe a foreign place in intriguing and enticing prose (and populate it with enchanting characters in a thrilling plot) will likely set his readers to dreaming of visiting that spot. Indeed, for many of us, our first introductions to worlds outside our familiar circuits probably came through the pages of a book.

Conversely, the memories of and lessons learned by travelers have for centuries led them to share their experiences in books that have become literary classics — and in turn sent their readers off on explorations of their own. John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways early gave me a desire to hit the road and explore our country. Even more ambitious journeys such as those related in Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft and Honeymoon with My Brother by Franz Wisner can set one to dreaming and considering the possibilities of life-changing travels of one’s own.

Do you have a favorite travel book? Is there a book, fiction or nonfiction, which has spurred you to journey to see the sights it describes (or at least dream of doing so?)? Have you chosen to read a book based solely upon its setting? How have books affected your travel plans?

– Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor