Literary Travel to Inspire the Imagination

Welcome to The Word Travels, specialists in literary travel, adventures and literary tours.

Here you’ll find information and inspiration for stimulating journeys that extend your experience within and beyond the book.

Going where the plot takes us

Why literary travel? Fiction can provide a map to fascinating places to explore in a city or country, often taking you to places you would not otherwise visit or discover.

See more, see better

Books can also offer a ‘way in’ to greater appreciation of the people and places you visit – as well as a greater understanding of the author and the book itself.

“Walking” great books, experiencing them through the feet, opens up new perspectives and fresh understanding of the work – and sharpens our senses to the world around us. For example, walk the moors on a windy day and you’ll experience, better than any dictionary definition, the meaning of ‘wuthering’.

'Literature always seems richer when you visit the place that inspired it.’ John Sutherland

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'I find proximity very moving' 

Patti Smith speaking in an interview with the BBC about her 'pilgrimage' to Haworth, before her special benefit performance of an evening of words and music at the Bronte Parsonage (on 19th April 2013):

'I find proximity very moving ... walking on the floorboards where Charlotte walked ... [to] be in the room and the atmosphere where so much happened.'

Listen to the interview here.

Photograph: the telegraphandargus.co.uk

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Where to start your literary journey

Right here! Explore this website and whatever your literary passion, you will find inspiration and expert advice for planning and making your literary journey:

Walk the landscapes that inspired Hardy in Dorset; pursue the shade of Kafka in Prague; visit the haunts of the lost generation in Paris; eat a Madeleine in Combray; explore the London of Dickens and Shakespeare; swim the Hellespont, that ancient dividing line between east and west….

For ideas and inspiration for literary travel, browse our growing resource of trails, including:

Journeys into history, myth and legend in Ancient Greece and the classical world

Virginia Woolf, exploring Mrs Dalloway, To The Lighthouse and beyond.

Yorkshire, the Brontes, and more, literary walks exploring the Yorkshire moorlands and other locations that inspired the Bronte sisters, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Bram Stoker, Elizabeth Gaskell, Laurence Sterne and many others.

Lorca and Granada, a guide to the exciting and sensual city of Granada and the surrounding villages that inspired Lorca, Washington Irving, Gerald Brenan and the composer Manuel de Falla.

We are continually adding to our trails and literary tours. Subscribe to our blog or XML feed for all the latest updates.

Interested in an author or place we haven’t covered yet? Let us know what you’d like to see. Know a great place with literary connections that you have visited? Do contact us, and tell us all about it.

Literary tours and guiding

Specialists in literary travel, we provide a complete tour service for groups, including all planning, arrangements and bookings, to provide the tour you are looking for.

We also provide expert guiding services for whole or part of a tour, whether organised privately by you or as part of a tour organised by other tour operators. For more information, please see our section on literary tours.

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. And inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx