In this case, food and sightseeing took a backseat to reading and books. These travelers were part of a growing style of vacation called Book in Places, where reading becomes the focus of the trip.
Lyn Margerison described booking her first Book in Places retreat after noticing an advertisement online that perfectly blended her two favorite pastimes, literature and travel. Since then, she has traveled from Dorset to Florence to Budapest for these retreats, all of which she describes as a perfect combination of cultural discovery and reading.
Books in Places and Broadening Literary Tourism
Paul Wright started Books in Places in 2023 when he planned the trip with his own book club. Since then, Books in Places has expanded out of Europe, to retreats in Portugal, Crete, Egypt, and trips to Italy . For Wright, "location is everything". “When you walk the same streets as the characters, taste the same food, or feel the same light, the story comes to life,” he said.
Participants have stepped inside Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird in Alabama, experienced Jamaica, the site of writing Dr No by Ian Fleming, or travelled to the ruins of Spinalonga in Crete, which is the inspiration for Victoria Hislop’s The Island. Margerison describes the experience as “like living inside the story for a few days.”
The interest in this type of travel is growing. A 2025 KAYAK survey found that nearly half of UK travellers selected their destination based on reading opportunities and education, rising to 60% among Millennials. The survey also stated that 89% of holidaymakers now consider travel as a way to invest in themselves.
Future Market Insights reported that the global literary tourism sector was worth $2.4 billion in 2024 and potentially will be worth $3.3 billion by 2034, so this is reflected in Wright’s reporting of a significant increase in interest from two trips in 2023 to about 25 in 2025, many of which filled in a day.
Broader Expansion of an Idea: New Opportunities
The concept has inspired others to create retreats tailored to the audience and audience preferences. In the UK, Megan Christopher launched Ladies Who Lit, designed for women and non-binary travellers, and offers a safe communal experience, along with independent reading time (am) with communal meals and film nights.
Guests can address a “book of the retreat” but without any obligation, using the time for togetherness and not having to take care of the normal burdens of day-to-day living.
In the United States, Page Break employs a more immersive approach. Guests can spend the weekend experience reading a single novel aloud, stopping for conversation about themes, then dining on dishes inspired by the book. At a retreat in the Catskills, chefs recreated the sushi from Nini Berndt’s There Are Reasons for This, which involved torching tuna belly in front of the group as they explained the ingredients.
CEO Mikey Friedman calls it “the magic of shared reading” and says that by reading as adults, it revitalizes social relationships and enhances memory and comprehension.
Reading as Ritual Travel
These retreats also reflect a larger literary trend, such as the interest in book blogging or clubs, the influence of “BookTok”, and an increase in literature festivals. Now, travellers are seeking out destinations corresponding to their books, such as walking through the streets of St Malo discussing Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, riding along the river that served Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, or following the trail of fossil hunter Mary Anning through Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures.
As Jeanette Winterson once said, “Books are like doors; when you open a book, the door opens to a new world.” Today, reading retreats are not only opening those doors, they are guiding you through them – into community, friendships, and experiences into, through the lens of literature and into life.
