Literary Travel Bucket List: The Ultimate Travel Bucket List For Book Lovers

I am so excited for this post! Today I’m sharing the best book lovers bucket list ever. It’s the literary travel bucket list of dreams and no matter where you’re going in the world there are tons of things for you do add to your itinerary.

I’ve broken it down by continent to make browsing a little easier, but it’s not divided by country at all. I do include the city/country of everything though. So, what will you find on this awesome literary bucket list?

I’m glad you asked! We’ve got unique, popular, famous, and creative bookstores around the world, book cafes, bookish museums, authors homes, famous book locations, amazing libraries, bookstores owned by authors, bookish art, festivals and events, basically everything bookish you could possibly think of to visit.

The US and Europe dominate this list, for sure, but I did find some great things for the rest of the world, too. I’m always open to additions, so if you have any (especially for Africa, South America, Asia, and Australia/NZ) let me know in the comments!

Europe Literary Travel

• Stay at The INK Hotel in Amsterdam
• Visit the Ashdown Forest in the UK, the inspiration for Christopher Robin’s Hundred Acre Wood
• Stay at Les Plumes Hotel in Paris in an area full of famous writers former homes
• Attend the Edinburgh International Book Festival
• Visit Bebelplatz, the sitee of the Nazi’s largest book burning in 1933 in Berlin
• Visit the Writers’ Museum in Edinburgh
• Stay at the Literary Man Hotel in Obidos, Portugal
• Visit Wigtown, Scotlands National Book Town
• Visit Leo Tolstoy’s house in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia, now a museum
• Stop at Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross Station in London
• Visit the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany
• Visit Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace and final resting place of Shakespeare
• Check out some poetry at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh

Read these books about Chernobyl before visiting!

• Visit the setting of Romeo and Juliet in Verona, Italy
• Attend the Le Livre a Metz festival in Metz, France
• Visit the National Museum of the Romanian Literature in Bucharest
• Attend thee ten-day Jane Austen festival in Bath, England
• Stay at the literary themed hotel Tasburgh House in Bath, England
• Visit the iconic Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris
• Visit the Keats-Shelley House in Rome
• Stay at literary themed Hotel Monte Cristo in Paris
• Visit the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England, home to over 6 million books
• Visit the home of Agatha Christie in Greenway, Devon, UK
• Visit the bookstores of Bloomsbury, England
• Have a drink at La Closerie de Lilas in Paris where french writers like Paul Verlaine and Charles Baudelaire wrote down their first drafts
• Stay at Hazlitt’s Hotel in London, a literary getaway
• Visit the Kafka Museum in Prague
• Visit Harry’s Bar in Venice, Italy where Hemingway would drink
• Visit Goethe’s House on the Via del Corso in Rome
• Visit Books for Cooks bookstore in London
• Attend the Bookcity Milano festival in Milan, Italy
• Stay at University Arms, a literary hotel in Cambridge
• Visit the Anne Frank House in The Netherlands
• Do a DIY Alice in Wonderland tour in Oxford
• Stay at thee literary themed Georgian House Hotel in London
• Visit Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London

Inspire a trip to Italy with these books

• Do a Shakespeare and Dickens walking tour in London
• Attend the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye, Wales
• If you love the arts, visit Do You Read Me?! in Berlin, Germany
• Wander the cemeteries of Pere Lachaise, Montmartre, and Montparnasse to find the graves of Oscar Wilde, Baudelaire, Zola, Stendhal and de Nerval
• Dig through the book-lined walls of Grimoire Bookshop in York, England
• Stay at the literary hotel Ambassade Hotel in Amsterdam
• Do a walking tour of sites from Ulysses in Dublin
• Visit Atlantis Bookstore in Santorini
• Visit The Abbey Bookshop in Paris
• Stay in Hagrid’s Hut at Ground Keeper’s Cottage in North Shire in the UK
• Visit The Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, one of the only secondhand all-poetry bookstores in the UK
• Enjoy some literary cocktails at The Blind Pig in London
• Explore the Harry Potter themed shops in The Shambles in York
• Attend the Stockholm Writers Festival
• Stay at the Balmoral Edinburgh hotel and enjoy all things Harry Potter
• Get a coffee at Caffe Florian Byron in Venice, Italy where writers like Shelley, Proust, and Goethe would meet up
• Stay at the Apostrophe Hotel in Paris in a literary focused neighborhood
• Attend the Prague Writers’ Festival

Reads these books about Spain before you go!

USA Literary Travel (North America)

• Go on a blind date with a book at Malaprops in Asheville, NC
• Visit An Unlikely Story in Plainville, MA (owned by the author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid)
• Attend the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival in New Orleans, LA
• Dine at Backspace Bar and Kitchen NOLA in New Orleans, LA where everything is named after a book
• Visit Louisa May Alcott’s house on Concord, MA where she wrote Little Women
• Stay at the Chelsea Hotel in NYC
• Enjoy a literary cocktail at Library Bar in LA
• See the J.R.R. Tolkien Collection at Marquette University Libraries in Marquette, MI
• Visit Birchbark Books and Native Arts in Minneapolis, MN (owned by Author Louise Erdrich)
• See F Scott Fitzgerald’s NYC style brownstone on Summit Ave. in Minneapolis, MN
• Visit the White Horse Tavern in NYC where Hunter S. Thompson drank and Dylan Thomas spent his last night alive
• Stay at The Betsy, Miami, FL’s only literary hotel
• See the Flannery O’Connor Home in Savannah, GA
• Attend The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the largest book event in the country
• Stay at the literary themed hotel Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, OR
• Visit the Library of Congress in Washington DC to see it’s collection of over 160 MILLION books
• Visit the Open Book center in in Minneapolis, MN for a writing class or to do some book themed shopping

Do a 50 states reading challenge to inspire your literary travel in the US

• See the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, CT
• Visit Edgar Allen Poe’s house in Baltimore, MD
• Get your Nancy Drew on at Books on Bay in Savannah, GA
• Visit William Faulkner’s home in Oxford, MS
• Wander Bart’s Books, the open air bookstore in Ojai, CA
• Get books delivered to your room by the Book Butler during a stay at The Commons Hotel in Minneapolis, MN
• Visit Books are Magic in Brooklyn, NY (owned by author Emma Straub)
• Visit Battery Park Book Exchange in Asheville, NC
• Visit the Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, AL
• Explore the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA
• Visit Laura Ingalls Wilder’s farm in Mansfield, MO
• Visit the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC
• Attend the annual Virginia Festival of the Book
• Attend the Tucson Book Festival
• Visit the New York Public Library in NYC
• Visit Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox, MA
• Attend the nine-day literary event, Litquake, in San Fransisco, CA
• Visit Iowa City, Iowa, the third UNESCO City of Literature
• Stay in a themed room at The Library Hotel in New York City
• Visit John Steinbek’s home in Salinas, CA
• Visit the American Writers Museum in Chicago, IL
• Browse the 150,000+ books at Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle, WA
• See the home of Ernest Hemingway in Key West, FL
• Visit Jack London’s home in Sonoma Valley, CA
• Look for rare and collectible books at Magers and Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis, MN
• Attend the Texas Book Festival in Austin
• Do a self-guided walking tour of Beacon Hill, home to quite a few famous authors, in Boston, MA
• Visit the massive Strand Bookstore in NYC
• Stay at the Algonquin Hotel in NYC where many famous writers stayed
• Visit Books and Books at the Studios of Key West in Florida (co-owned by author Judy Blume)
• Go on a walking tour in Minneapolis, MN where F Scott Fitzgerald grew up
• Attend the New Orleans Literary Festival
• Visit one of the oldest bookstores, founded in 1825, in the US: Brattle Book Shop in Boston, MA
• Attend the Unbound Book Festival in Columbia, MO
• Visit the iconic Powell’s Book in Portland, OR
• Visit Type Books in Toronto
• Visit Munro’s Books in Victoria, Canada
• Visit Librairie Drawn & Quarterly in Montreal

To get excited about visiting Mexico: Books to read before you go

South America Literary Travel

• Visit some of the 690+ bookstores in Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Visit Cafe Literario to read, enjoy coffee, or work in Santiago, Chile
• Visit El Ateneo Grand Splendid bookstore in an old movie theater in Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Visit the tiny San Librario in Bogota, Colombia
• Visit Biblioteca Nacional, the national library, in Santiago, Chile
• Visit Pablo Neruda’s homes in Chile
• Attend Feria del Libro book fair in Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Visit Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s home Aracataca, Colombia

Read these books before visiting the Amazon Rainforest

Africa Literary Travel

• Have a coffee and read at Townhouse in Cairo, Egypt
• Take a “Mma Ramotswe’s Botswana” tour inspired by the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books
• Attend Cairo’s International Book Fair
• Visit the Alan Paton Centre in Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, home to author Alan Paton
• Visit the Karen Blixen Museum in Nairobi, Kenya, former coffee plantation and home of author Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa
• Visit the Jazzhole bookstore in Lagos, Nigeria
• Visit Librairie des Colonnes in Tangier, Morocco
• Visit Serowe, Botswana, home and burial place os author Bessie Head
• Look for affordable old and rare books at El Azbakeya Wall in Cairo
• Cozy up at Les Insolites bookstore in Tangier, Morocco
• Attend the International Books and Arts Exhibition of Tangier in Morocco

Check out these books before visiting the Himalayas

Asia Literary Travel

• Visit Wuguan Books in Kaohsiung, Taiwan
• Visit Eslite Bookstore, the 24 hour bookstore in Taipei, Taiwan
• Visit the “Loneliest Library” in Qinhuangdao, China (Seashore Library)
• Stay at a Book and Bed hostel in Japan
• Wander the Starfield Library in Seoul, South Korea
• Visit Pagandi bookstore in Pune, India
• Stay at the Taj Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad, India and enjoy it’s 5,000+ book library
• Visit Shrine of the Book museum in Jerusalem, Israel to see the Dead Sea Scrolls

Instead of visiting North Korea, read these books

• Visit the wooden library in Taipei (Taipei Public Library)
• Visit the Zhongshuge Library in Yangzhou, China
• Wander around Jimbocho Booktowns 160+ used bookstores in Tokyo, Japan
• Stay at The Library Hotel in Koh Samui, Thailand
• Relax in a reading pod at Cafe Comma in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
• See the Insta famous Tianjin Binhai Library in Tianjin, China
• Have a drink with your book at Library Lounge THESE in Tokyo, Japan
• Wander College Street and find some secondhand books in Kolkota, India
• Visit the library, bookstore, bar, restaurant The Bookworm in China

Read these books before visiting India

Australia (and New Zealand) Literary Travel

• Have a snack and drink at Sappho Books, Cafe, and Bar in Sydney
• Browse through Gertrude and Alice by Bondi Beach
• Visit Reader’s Feast Bookstore in Melbourne
• Find some great LGBTQ+ books at The Bookshop in Darlinghurst
• Cozy up in Ampersand Cafe and Bookstore in Paddington
• Find some pre-loved books at The Book Station in Caringnbah
• Go on a blind date with a book at Elizabeth’s Bookshop in Newtown
• Attend Melbourne Writers’ Festival
• Enjoy a cup of joe at The Press Book House in Newcastle
• Get married at Berkelouw Book Barn Bookshop and Cafe in Berrima
• Get into graphic novels at Kinokuniya in Sydney
• Look for some banned books at The Paperback in Melbourne
• Visit State Library of Victoria, the oldest library in Australia
• Explore Unity Books in Auckland, NZ
• Stay at the Hobbit Motel in Waitomo, NZ