Literary tours deal with the prominent places where famous authors live as well as with any events and places referenced in their works. You can visit the home of one such author, grave or site where they took inspiration for their novels to following the same paths that characters in their books have taken. The Thomas Hardy Way is a long-distance walk associated with the author of the same name.
As such tourists who embark on such adventures are usually very interested in how such places have influenced the works of their favourite authors or indeed sometimes how the success of the books has influenced the creation of the place in the real world. Becoming a literary tourist is as easy as you might expect, you only need a love for books and the urge to explore these places for yourself to feel the history. As with any type of tourism, there are guides, maps, dedicated tours and even museums associated with an important place of an author’s life or career. One such example is John Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-upon-Avon, this is believed to be the birth place of Shakepseare himself.
A new breed of literary tourism is coming to light called tourism fiction, this is where stuff is written specifically to promote tourism. This is achieved by including travel guides written within the book itself showing readers how to best visit the places they are reading about, allowing them to imagine the stories coming to life around them. With digital devices such as tablets, smart phones, laptops and PCs becoming more and more accessible to more people, tourism fiction has also become digitalised. Instead of providing a guide within the book about how to visit the place being referenced there are hyperlinks to websites so the reader can instantly be taken to a place to learn about the history of the site. This also eliminates the need for the person to do any of their own research.