When clients book with Original Travel, we provide them with a list of books about their destination, ranging from biographies of famous residents to travel writing and children’s books related to the country in question. Clients can then choose what to read around the trip, but we find that most clients want to read novels set in situ. With that in mind, and putting the cart before the horse, here are our best destinations with literary connections, so you absolutely know what to read when you’re there, or can even choose the trip based on the book.
- Colombia and anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Kefalonia and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
- Steam Ship Sudan and Death on the Nile
- Kenya (Laikipia) and I Dreamed of Africa
- Chile and The House of the Spirits
- Kerala and The God of Small Things
- Japan and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
- Naples and Elena Ferrante
- Transylvania and Dracula
- Long Island and The Great Gatsby
Colombia and anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Known as the father of ‘magic realism’, the wondrous style that blends dreamlike fantasy with reality, Gabriel Garcia Marquez set most of his novels in his homeland, Colombia. His magnificent literary love story Love in the Time of Cholera is set in an unnamed location, but it bears a striking resemblance to Cartagena, the walled city on the Caribbean coast draped with bougainvillea that many consider the finest of all the Spanish colonial cities. Macondo, the fictional town in his other masterpiece, One Hundred Years of Solitude, is believed to have been based on GGM’s hometown of Aracataca.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: Highlights of Colombia
Image by Grant Harder
Kefalonia and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
There was a time, after its release in 1994, when it felt as if every person on the bus was reading this war-time romance set on a beautiful Greek island in the Ionian Sea. The (slight spoiler alert) tragedy that plays out between the local Greeks and the occupying Axis troops from Germany and Italy is all the more poignant when set against a backdrop as beautiful as Kefalonia, which is lovingly described by the British author Louis de Bernières.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: A Duo of Greek Islands
Steam Ship Sudan and Death on the Nile
We may be prone to bias here, given that we own the Steam Ship Sudan, but we think she fully warrants a spot on this list anyway. Sudan is the last surviving ship from the Thomas Cook fleet that plied the waters of the Nile during the Golden Age of Egyptian travel in the 1920s and 30s. One passenger on board in 1931 was a certain Agatha Christie, who later used the voyage and her fellow passengers as the inspiration for one of her most famous books, Death on the Nile. A cruise on Sudan today is to vividly recreate her experience – the decor on board is almost identical, as are the engines and paddles, and the crew still wear elegant livery and fezzes. It’s like a small hit of time travel.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: Nile Cruise Aboard the Steam Ship Sudan
Image by Matthieu Salvaing
Kenya (Laikipia) and I Dreamed of Africa
A memoir rather than a novel, I Dreamed of Africa chronicles the life of Italian author Kuki Gallmann from her childhood in Europe to her and her family’s move to Kenya. They settled in Laikipia, a part of the country that we at Original Travel adore and know extremely well. At the time of writing, Gullmann is still alive and in her 80s so you can’t visit her home, but you can explore the rest of this remarkable region between Mount Kenya and the Great Rift Valley, which is home to amazing wildlife and Samburu tribespeople.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: Classic Kenya
Chile and The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende doesn't even name the Latin American country in which The House of the Spirits is set, let alone the locations within it, but this glorious debut novel is very clearly rooted in Chile, the author’s homeland. Follow the action in Santiago, visiting the Plaza de Armas square, cathedral and Pablo Neruda’s old house, all of which appear as fictionalised versions in the book. The story, set across four generations of the same family, also clings close to Chile’s turbulent 20th-century history from the 1910s to the arrival on the scene of General Hertado, very obviously based on General Pinochet, who had overthrown Allende’s first cousin once removed, President Salvador Allende, in the 70s.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: Highlights of Chile
Image by Jerome Galland
Kerala and The God of Small Things
Another first novel, another classic that evokes a place and time to perfection, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy chronicles a family living in the southern Indian state of Kerala during the 60s, when it had recently become the first place on Earth to democratically elect a communist government. Aside from the beautiful characterisation and plotting, the book offers an excellent insight into the caste system in India.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: Family Adventure in Kerala
Japan and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Japan is the hottest ticket in town right now, so it's strange to think that for nearly 250 years from the early 1600s, Japan effectively banned foreigners. This period, known as Sakoku, is the intriguing backdrop for this novel by David Mitchell centred on a tiny island off Nagasaki where the Dutch East India Company eked out a position as Japan’s sole European trading partners. Nagasaki, so beautifully described in the book, is on the less-visited island of Kyushu, which gets a handful of the visitors received by the main Japanese island of Honshu. We highly recommend taking the newly extended bullet train there from Tokyo, and reading The Thousand Autumns en route.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: Kyushu in Style
Naples and Elena Ferrante
A literary phenomenon, Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels (My Brilliant Friend; The Story of a New Name; Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay; and The Story of the Lost Child) have, quite simply, put Naples back on the map. That might be a strange thing to say about a city that’s been around for 2,800 years, but somewhere that used to be a staging post for the Amalfi Coast or Capri has now become a destination in its own right. We couldn’t be more delighted about that because Naples has a secret sauce all its own, and that’s not just the tomato sauce used on the city’s pizzas that can only be made from San Marzano tomatoes grown on the slopes of Vesuvius. With one of our expert guides, you can explore Ferrante’s Naples, including the second-hand book shop, markets and doll’s hospital featured in the books.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: Naples, Sorrento & the Amalfi Coast
Transylvania and Dracula
One of the great gothic novels, Bram Stoker’s Dracula skips between settings in Transylvania (in modern Romania) and England. Latter-day Romanians are rather bored of being associated with villainous vampires, but there are plenty of intriguing literary connections in Transylvania, which also happens to be, in our humble opinion, one of the most beautiful places in Europe. Stoker took the infamous Vlad the Impaler, who was nicknamed Dracula by his father, as the model for his monster, and there are plenty of Vlad/vampire locations in Transylvania, including the house in the pretty city of Sighisoara where young Vlad lived, and Bran Castle, which Vlad also owned in later life. Nearby is the stunning Piatra Craiului National Park, full of walking trails, wolves and bears.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: A Transylvania Holiday
Long Island and The Great Gatsby
Considered by many as the ‘Great American Novel’, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s examination of the American Dream through the lens of the hyper-rich inhabitants of Long Island is as relevant today, in an era of billionaires and rampant inequality, as it was in the Jazz Age of the 20s. While the villages of West and East Egg are fictional creations of the author’s imagination, it’s still eminently possible to see the 0.01%ers at play in other havens along the Atlantic coastline between NYC and Boston, with the Hamptons, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard as suitable substitutes.
Feeling inspired? Check out an example itinerary here: Chic New York Combo
Written by Tom Barber | Header image by Mathie Richer