Are any of you book-lovers to the extent of taking a book-centric vacation?

[MsAmerica]

There are a few towns that are devoted to readers - that is, full of bookstores - and I thought it might be interesting to see one some time.

I was just reading about this one:

Inside Urueña, The Spanish Town That Is Home To More Books Than School Pupils
By Raphael Minder

The plan was to keep Urueña alive with book tourism, modeling it after other rural literary hubs across Europe — notably, Montmorillon in France and Hay-on-Wye in Britain. Hay has long hosted one of the continent’s most famous literary festivals.

www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/world/europe/uruena-spain-book-hub.html

bdnews24.com/travelandtourism/2022/04/22/welcome-to-a-village-with-more-booksellers-than-school-pupils

www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/welcome-to-a-village-with-more-booksellers-than-school-pupils

allthatsinteresting.com/uruena-spain

My parents took me to Hay-on-Wye when I was a child. I loved it! I will take DD when she's a bit older.

I once, aged 18, took a detour on a trip to Paris to visit Louveciennes, where Anaïs Nin lived with Hugo Guiler. A sort of literary pilgrimage!

I've been to Hay-on-Wye and want to go to Sedbergh and Wigtown.

I've done a few literary pilgrimages - Haworth (for the Brontes), Chawton (Jane Austen), Rye (E F Benson - annoyingly, the house was closed), Newstead Abbey (Byron) and Corfe Castle/Isle of Purbeck (ahem, Enid Blyton). Love it.

My dream would be to spend the entire Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye going to as many events as possible! Sadly, I have a family who aren't interested and I can't just disappear to a literary festival for two weeks. One day ...

I often make small literary pilgrimages though, like visiting the home of a famous author when we're on holiday (Beatrix Potter, Wordsworth), or visiting the iconic bookshop in any city or town we visit and buying a book, preferably one about the place, as a memento.

I'll also go out of my way to visit a place that I've read about in a book e.g. after reading 'HHhH' by Laurent Binet I went to the basement of the church in Prague where the assassins of Heydrich had their last stand. DH had no interest in going, so I went on my own and it was so atmospheric, knowing what had happened there.

I’ve had two or three short breaks to Hay on Wye purely for book buying!

We had a Famous Five holiday in Dorset last summer.

We went on a Powys brothers pilgrimage, also in Dorset one year.

Lovely idea.

We stayed in a cottage near Hay-on-Wye one Christmas so we could go and comb the bookshops numerous times. We've also stayed in Ruskin's house in Coniston in the Lakes (highly recommended - it’s a beautiful apartment to rent for 2) and drove over to Sedburgh for a day.

One fantastic thing I'll always treasure is having a private tour of Chawton House (through a friend with connections there) - we went into the archive and they took out one of Jane Austen's letters specially for us to see. The Austen house was closed when we eventually got there, disappointingly - but we couldn’t really complain much after such an amazing experience!

I've not been to one of the famous book towns. However I do include literary pilgrimages where possible, e.g. we went to Anne Bronte's grave in Scarborough, when I lived in Oxford one of the first places I went was The Bird and the Baby (aka The Eagle and Child pub), we went to Shakespeare and Company in Paris (lovely bookshop but too touristy by far). There is always a possible book to read wherever you go and lots of places are popular partly because of books about them (The Yorkshire Dales because of James Herriot, the Lake District and Norfolk Broads because of Arthur Ransome etc etc).

The private Austen tour is deeply enviable, Terp.

I stayed in Shakespeare & Co in Paris back in the days when George Whitman would let you sleep there in exchange for work in the shop, provided you didn't mind the bedbugs. I've had his Sunday morning brunches with ice tea and pancakes, and I met his daughter, the current owner, when she was 12 and visiting her father. I took her friend and her to the swimming pool. Shameless boasting here, but I loved it so much.

I'm currently in the final stages of Tristram Shandy and I'm booked for a tour of Shandy Hall in mid-May.

My current wish-list: I really, really want to stay in Gladstone's Library, and I also quite fancy a trip to Agatha Christie's house.

Treasured Island by Frank Barrett and Footnotes by Peter Fiennes both have alluring ideas for literary pilgrimages around the UK.

I've been visiting Hay regularly since I was a small child. It has changed a lot over the years, and the festival has very little to do with the rest of the town, but it is worth visiting both in and out of festival season. Booth's has to be somewhere in my top-ten favourite bookshops, though it may have slipped in the rankings since its cafe has been closed for a couple of years www.boothbooks.co.uk

Wigtown is on my must-visit list, but I haven't made it yet. What I do tend to do when travelling is look up any interesting bookshops, often but not necessarily ones with English-language books, to visit while I am in an area. So I have been to great, quirky little bookshops in Tallin, Budapest, Amsterdam, Krakow etc. Massolit in Krakow is one of my favourite bookshops ever: www.inyourpocket.com/krakow/massolit-books-cafe_16807v

I haven't been to Paris for years, but when I next go, Shakespeare & Co will be on my list.

Has anyone been to Obidos in Portugal? That's also on my wish-list.

We sometimes have a long weekend in Wigtown, choosing it because of the bookshops. Planning a week in London included Persephone, Daunt, Hatchards etc and a holiday in the Forest of Dean included 2 trips to Hay.

Also planned holidays so we could visit Chawton, Bateman's and Haworth - are planning on going back to Haworth because we went to the parsonage when COVID restrictions were still very much to the fore and it, well, not spoiled, but hampered our visit.

DH was excited about visiting T E Lawrence's 'hut' when we were in Dorset.

I think it's a lovely idea.

Place marking for inspiration.

We are a bibliophile family and we had a wonderful day trip to Hay on Wye during a family holiday in Wales. We spent hundreds of pounds on dozens of books and had a great day. I wouldn't stay there for a whole holiday though. Lovely though it is, it's expensive and unnecessary to do more than a day trip. Better to be holidaying somewhere cosy in the surrounding countryside within a couple of hours drive from Hay. One can stock up on books and then retreat to a good sofa by an open fire and just read for the rest of the holiday.

Persephone have moved to Bath now, darlingdodo, but there are plenty of other great London bookshops, as you say. Have you looked up John Sandoe? Maybe worth adding to the list

Could be combined with literary houses/museums. The Dickens museum in Doughty St, Carlyle's House in Chelsea, Dr Johnson's house…etc etc.

Shaw's Corner in Hertfordshire is a nice place to visit.

We did Corfe castle as well because of Enid Blyton.

My book club are planning a trip to Lyme Regis because of The French Lieutenant's Woman and I was thinking about Whitby as well for Dracula.

A couple of years back we were on the Isle of Wight and stumbled across their Literary Festival. It was really good. Quite intimate but with some serious authors and journalists attending and speaking. Really impressed.

Ooh yes to Lyme Regis (Jane Austen associations as well as French Lieutenant's Woman) and yes to Whitby too. I'd also love to stay in Moonfleet manor.

Persephone's move to Bath makes it even more of a bookish destination: that plus Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delight plus the beautiful new branch of Toppings are pretty much enough for a whole day's browsing, particularly if you factor in a museum and cafe or two.

Ooh I have just googled Moonfleet Manor! That looks really good.

Bookshops rather than fiction-based trips, but I love Scrivener's Books in Buxton. And Madrid has wonderful indie bookshops.

Anick ( Northumberland ) for Barter Books is another great place for a visit.

Oh yes ,Barter Books is lovely!

I was coming on to say Hay on Wye and can see almost everyone has already said it! 😂

I love that place.

I have very limited money for travel and holidays but before kids I went to a lot of crime fiction events, and met up with friends from online reading groups at many of them. I also spent a lot of time shopping for books, both new and secondhand, and still haven't caught up with a lot of them.

I carried on catching at least a few events from the Harrogate Crime Festival in July until 2015, and combined it with visiting my mum in Ilkley and having a look round the
charity shops in Harrogate and Ilkley.

As I was brought up in Leeds, the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth near Bradford was somewhere we took lots of visitors on days out, and my dad took me to Jane Austen's house in Chawton, Hampshire.

So yes, to me events talking about books, meeting up with friends I've come across on and offline at those events or otherwise, shopping for books and literary pilgrimages all sound like great ingredients for a holiday!