Literary journey concepts for each type of e-book lover

One of essentially the most fulfilling points of journey is the time to learn a very good e-book, so it is not that stunning that holidays constructed solely round books and authors are on the rise. Thanks to forces equivalent to BookTok, superstar e-book golf equipment, and area of interest tour operators, literary journey has develop into a dominant pattern.

“Book vacations offer a built-in point of connection,” says Gabi Valladares, founding father of the in-person and digital e-book membership The Literary League who has led studying retreats of her personal and for the Catskill Mountains resort Scribner’s Lodge. Not solely do they supply a pure dialog starter, Valladares notes, they’re “low-lift,” providing alternatives to work together with authors and different bibliophiles as nicely additionally loads of time to learn.

From celebrated bookstores to curated excursions to particular programming at motels, listed here are simply a number of the methods you possibly can dive right into a e-book trip with as a lot pleasure as diving into a very good e-book. 

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Hotel programming

In 2024, Scribner’s Lodge launched their Booked In literary retreat. A now annual three-day occasion, it’s dedicated to writer chats, lit conversations, and thematic dinners. “The Catskills have long been a retreat for writers, artists, and creatives,” says the lodge’s co-founder Marc Chodock, noting the occasion faucets into that legacy, together with a quarterly e-book membership the lodge additionally hosts. This previous 12 months’s occasion, curated by Valladares, featured debut novelist Zoe Dubno and cookbook writer Lee Kalpakis. In addition to listening to the authors talk about their inspiration and publishing journeys, friends have been in a position to mingle and browse for hours by the lodge’s cozy fires.

As a nod to the Hawaiian custom of “talk story,” or sharing concepts, opinions, and occasions of the day, Kona Village, A Rosewood Resort on Hawaii’s large island, launched a program in 2025 referred to as The Village Shelf. Every month, a novel, equivalent to Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time, is left in every of the property’s 150 rooms with a bookmark detailing this system. Not solely are friends inspired to learn the e-book and talk about it with others on the property, however the employees is as nicely. “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 throughout communal gatherings in addition to small, surprising moments of connection. 

Curated excursions and retreats

The writer Elin Hilderbrand has written 24 New York Times bestsellers, largely set on the island of Nantucket, the place she lives. This previous spring, her sister, Heather Thorpe, began a bus tour with Nantucket Island Tours primarily based on Hilderbrand’s information, The Blue Book. The two-hour tour is obtainable thrice every week between May and October, taking as much as 25 friends to a number of the writer’s favourite outlets, eating places, and seashores together with places from her novels. “The fans have their favorite characters, favorite books, and favorite stories,” says Thorpe of the passion and camaraderie that bubbles up amongst tour attendees.

For a deeper immersion, there are multi-day studying retreats. When Kayla Janachovsky launched the female-focused Slow Travel Co. in 2025, studying retreats have been a giant a part of the providing. “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 holidays for teams of as much as 12 are in places as assorted because the Cotswolds in England, Costa Rica, and the coast of Maine and embody lodging, most meals, and native excursions, although the main target is on having unstructured time to easily learn.

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Literary facilities and libraries

When the prolific novelist, essayist, and screenwriter Larry McMurtry was alive, he owned a store stuffed with uncommon and used books within the one-stoplight city of Archer City, Texas. The bookstore, Booked Up, was shuttered upon his dying in 2021 however the nonprofit Archer City Writers Workshop reopened it within the spring of 2025 because the Larry McMurtry Literary Center. In addition to the roughly 300,000 books he had collected, the middle shows memorabilia, together with two typewriters on which McMurtry wrote The Last Picture Show and a part of Lonesome Dove. They additionally provide lectures, workshops, and e-book launches. As the middle’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 number of programming at e-book festivals and festivals is simply as numerous because the occasions themselves. Take Litquake for instance. What began as a one-day studying collection in San Francisco in 1999 is now two weeks of readings, panels, workshops, and literary fare to please e-book lovers throughout ages, genres, and appetites. A UNESCO-designated “City of Literature” and residential to the acclaimed Iowa City Writers’ Workshop, the week-long Iowa City Book Festival has hosted scores of acclaimed writers in its 17-year historical past, starting from poets to journalists to memoirists, offering distinctive alternatives for followers to get nearer to favourite skills. The Texas Book Festival, which has been working since 1996, brings as much as 250 authors from across the globe collectively for 2 days in downtown Austin. These, as many e-book festivals, run within the fall months, but additionally have smaller year-round occasions.

Author bookshops

Bookstores are sometimes favourite locations for bibliophiles, and after they’re owned by writers, they acquire additional cachet. Ann Patchett, who’s printed greater than a dozen novels, non-fiction and kids’s books, owns Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee. Its traditional wooden inside is residence to a rotating residence of worker canines, plus densely packed cabinets of all genres, together with signed editions of Patchett’s books, which could be customized upon request. Lauren Groff, writer of seven books, opened The Lynx together with her husband in Gainesville, Florida, spotlighting books and authors which might be banned or challenged within the state, in addition to BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and Florida authors. And Emma Straub’s unique Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic, which she opened in 2017 together with her husband, has develop into such a hub for e-book lovers that the pair needed to open a second Brooklyn location in 2022.

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