BookTok Travel: Literary Spots for Solo Women

BookTok Travel: The New Literary Tourism for Solo Female Readers

BookTok — the TikTok community built around book recommendations, reading culture, and literary discussion — has reshaped publishing and, increasingly, travel. Literary tourism is not new: readers have been making pilgrimages to authors’ homes, fictional landscapes, and bookshop-filled cities for over a century. But BookTok has given literary travel a new vocabulary, a new energy, and a notably younger, more diverse, and more female demographic than the traditional “heritage tourism” category.

For solo female travelers, literary tourism is an ideal travel framework. Books give you a specific relationship with a place before you arrive. Walking the streets a beloved author walked, sitting in the cafe where they wrote, visiting the house where a character lived — these experiences transform sightseeing into something closer to time travel. And the BookTok community, which trends overwhelmingly female, has created an extraordinary global network of readers who share recommendations, travel reports, and bookshop discoveries that function as the best possible crowd-sourced literary travel guide.

This guide covers five of the most compelling literary travel destinations for solo women in 2026 — each connected to both a canonical author and to the contemporary BookTok conversation around their work.

Key Takeaway: Literary travel for solo women provides a uniquely rich travel framework — a built-in emotional connection to place, a ready-made community of fellow readers, and an excuse to spend entire afternoons in bookshops without any justification required.

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1. Agatha Christie’s Greenway, Devon, England

Agatha Christie is having an extraordinary cultural moment. The BookTok community has enthusiastically discovered her — the comfort mystery genre (also called “cozy mystery”) has exploded in popularity, and Christie’s 84 books, including 66 detective novels, represent the definitive canon. She is the third best-selling fiction writer of all time, behind only Shakespeare and the Bible. Her Devon holiday home, Greenway, is managed by the National Trust and is one of England’s most charming literary pilgrimage destinations.

Greenway sits above the River Dart in South Devon — a white Regency house surrounded by 28 acres of woodland garden that slopes to the river’s edge. Christie inherited the property in 1938 and used it as her family’s summer retreat for decades. Several of her novels use Greenway and the surrounding Dart estuary as their setting — most directly “Dead Man’s Folly” (1956) and “Five Little Pigs” (1943), which is set at a fictional estate on the exact same stretch of river.

Visiting Greenway: The house is open March through October (check the National Trust for current dates and booking). Admission approximately £16 for non-National Trust members. The house interior is preserved as Christie left it, with her personal library, family photographs, and the writing desk where she worked clearly visible. The gardens are extraordinary in spring and early summer. Booking in advance is strongly recommended.

Getting there: Greenway is most atmospherically reached by the Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Experience — a combination of steam train from Paignton to Kingswear and a short ferry crossing to Dartmouth, followed by a river ferry upstream to Greenway’s private jetty. This is genuinely the best way to arrive, because it uses exactly the river routes Christie’s characters used. Alternatively, drive from Torquay (Christie’s birthplace, 20 minutes away) or take a taxi from Brixham.

The wider Agatha Christie South Devon trail: Christie was born in Torquay, which has a dedicated “Agatha Christie Mile” walking trail along the seafront where she grew up. The Agatha Christie Festival runs annually in September in Torquay and draws readers and experts from around the world — an ideal solo female travel moment to connect with the global Christie community.

Solo travel note: South Devon is an excellent solo female destination — extremely safe, beautiful coastal scenery, excellent train connections from London (Exeter is approximately two hours from London Paddington, with connections to the Torbay line), and a very good independent bookshop and cafe culture in towns like Totnes and Dartmouth.

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2. Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

William Shakespeare is the world’s most performed and most translated author, and Stratford-upon-Avon — the market town where he was born, educated, married, retired, and died — has been drawing literary pilgrims since the 18th century. The BookTok connection here is partly through Shakespeare’s works themselves (the “dark academia” aesthetic popular on BookTok incorporates Shakespeare heavily) and partly through the countless novels, retellings, and adjacent works (Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020, is a BookTok favourite that is set partly in Stratford and has significantly increased visits to the town).

The Shakespeare properties: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust manages five historic properties in and around Stratford, all accessible on a combined ticket (approximately £32 for the full five-property pass).

• Shakespeare’s Birthplace on Henley Street: The timber-framed house where Shakespeare was born in 1564. The ground floor has been converted to a museum; the upper floors are presented as period rooms.
• Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Shottery: Shakespeare’s wife’s family home, a 12-roomed thatched farmhouse that is exactly as beautiful as postcards suggest. The garden includes a tree sculpture carved with 400 words from Shakespeare’s works. A 20-minute walk from central Stratford through pleasant fields — or a short taxi ride.
• Mary Arden’s Farm in Wilmcote: The childhood home of Shakespeare’s mother, with farm animals and costumed interpreters demonstrating Tudor farming and rural life. More interesting for families but genuinely atmospheric.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre: The RSC’s home venue on the Bancroft Gardens is worth visiting even if you do not see a performance. The rooftop terrace (free access) provides excellent views over the River Avon and surrounding countryside. RSC performances are extraordinary and tickets range from £5 (standing/restricted view) to £90+ for premium seats. Book well in advance for popular productions.

Beyond the tourist trail: Stratford’s independent bookshops are surprisingly excellent — particularly Judith Shakespeare (a women’s and feminist bookshop named after Shakespeare’s daughter) and the secondhand bookshops along Sheep Street. The Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare is buried is genuinely atmospheric — his grave is in the chancel of a beautiful medieval church, and visitors are still welcome to pay their respects for a small donation.

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3. Haruki Murakami’s Tokyo, Japan

Haruki Murakami is perhaps the BookTok generation’s most beloved living novelist — his dreamy, jazz-soaked, emotionally precise novels have generated an enormous young female readership globally. The BookTok hashtag #Murakami has hundreds of millions of views. His work is intimately connected to specific Tokyo neighborhoods — the small bars, the record shops, the late-night ramen restaurants, the Shinjuku alleys — and visiting these places while reading Murakami is one of the most rewarding literary travel experiences available.

Murakami was born in Kyoto but is profoundly associated with Tokyo, and more specifically with several distinct Tokyo neighborhoods that appear repeatedly in his fiction.

Koenji: Murakami lived in Koenji in his 20s while running a jazz bar (Peter Cat, which he owned from 1974 to 1981 before writing “Norwegian Wood”). The neighborhood appears, thinly disguised, in several novels. Today, Koenji is one of Tokyo’s most interesting alternative culture neighborhoods — vintage clothing shops, excellent jazz bars, independent record shops (Murakami’s love of vinyl and jazz permeates his work), and a relaxed anti-consumerist atmosphere that feels very unlike central Tokyo’s commercial intensity.

Shinjuku: Appears in multiple Murakami novels, particularly “A Wild Sheep Chase” and “Norwegian Wood.” The Shinjuku Golden Gai — a cluster of approximately 200 tiny bars, each holding between four and fourteen people — is one of the most extraordinary bar environments in the world. Solo women are entirely welcome and the atmosphere is intimate and conversational.

Shimokitazawa: Tokyo’s “bohemian” neighborhood — live music venues, used record shops, independent bookstores, theater cafes — is the most Murakami-adjacent neighborhood in contemporary Tokyo and an excellent place to spend an afternoon.

For solo female travelers: Japan consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world for solo female travelers — see HerTripGuide’s complete Japan solo female travel guide for comprehensive planning guidance. Tokyo specifically is extraordinary for solo women: extremely safe, efficient, and full of solo-friendly dining and cafe environments.

The literary bookshop experience in Tokyo: Village Vanguard (a chaotic, wonderful bookshop-culture-shop hybrid) and Tsutaya Books in Daikanyama (one of the world’s most beautiful bookshops, in a beautiful complex) are essential literary travel stops. Book Off secondhand bookshops can yield affordable Murakami editions in Japanese for those who read the language.

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4. Sally Rooney’s Dublin, Ireland

Sally Rooney’s novels — “Conversations with Friends” (2017), “Normal People” (2018), and “Intermezzo” (2024) — have made her one of the defining literary voices of her generation, and her work is inseparably associated with Dublin. The BookTok response to Rooney has been extraordinary; “Normal People” in particular generated a passionate community of readers (and viewers of the Hulu/BBC adaptation that filmed extensively in Dublin and County Sligo) who have made Dublin literary pilgrimages a genuinely common travel motivation.

Rooney studied at Trinity College Dublin and the university is the setting for significant portions of her novels. Trinity’s campus — a Georgian oasis in the center of Dublin — is open to the public and entirely worth an afternoon’s visit. The Long Room of the Old Library, housing 200,000 of the library’s oldest books and the original Book of Kells, is a genuinely extraordinary space. The Book of Kells exhibition costs approximately €18; the Long Room is included.

Normal People Dublin locations:

• Trinity College Dublin campus: The park at the center of campus, the Arts Building, and the surrounding area feature in the novel and its adaptation.
• Kehoe’s Pub (South Anne Street): One of Dublin’s most perfectly preserved Victorian pubs and a Rooney character-type hangout — the kind of genuinely good old pub where conversations happen.
• National Gallery of Ireland (free entry): Marianne takes Francis to an art gallery in a pivotal scene. The National Gallery’s permanent collection includes extraordinary works by Caravaggio, Vermeer, and Yeats.
• Dún Laoghaire: The coastal suburb south of Dublin appears in several Rooney scenes. Easy DART (coastal rail) access from Dublin city center; a pleasant afternoon walking the pier and the Victorian seafront.

Dublin for solo female travelers: Dublin is an excellent solo female destination — English-speaking, genuinely warm and sociable (the Irish pub culture is one of the world’s most welcoming environments for solo travelers), and extremely bookshop-rich. Winding Stair Bookshop & Café (Ormond Quay) and Books Upstairs (D’Olier Street) are the best independent bookshops. The city is expensive by European standards but manageable with good planning.

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5. Hemingway’s Paris, France

Ernest Hemingway’s Paris is the Paris of the 1920s Lost Generation — the Left Bank cafes, the Shakespeare and Company bookshop, the Hotel de Fleurie, the Luxembourg Gardens where Jake Barnes thinks in “The Sun Also Rises.” Hemingway’s memoir of his Paris years, “A Moveable Feast,” remains one of the most perfect accounts of a writer’s relationship with a city ever published, and BookTok’s rediscovery of Hemingway (often filtered through academic debate about his work and personality) has created renewed interest in his Parisian haunts.

Shakespeare and Company bookshop (37 Rue de la Bûcherie) is the single most essential literary travel stop in Paris — not the original Shakespeare and Company (which was Sylvia Beach’s legendary 1920s bookshop on Rue de l’Odéon, now marked with a plaque), but the spiritual successor founded by George Whitman in 1951 that has become one of the world’s most beloved independent bookshops. The shop’s history of providing free accommodation to writers (“Tumbleweeds”) in exchange for reading and working in the shop is one of literature’s most romantic ongoing traditions. Browse the creaking shelves, attend an evening reading event (check the website calendar), and buy a stamped “Shakespeare and Company, Paris” copy of whatever you are reading.

Hemingway’s cafe circuit:

• Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots (St-Germain): The legendary literary cafes where Sartre, de Beauvoir, and the entire existentialist Left Bank scene gathered. Expensive but worth one coffee for the atmosphere and the literary history.
• La Closerie des Lilas (Boulevard du Montparnasse): Where Hemingway wrote portions of “The Sun Also Rises.” A plaque marks his table. The brasserie menu is excellent and appropriately indulgent.
• Brasserie Lipp (Boulevard St-Germain): Appears repeatedly in Hemingway’s Paris writing. An Alsatian brasserie that has barely changed since the 1920s.

For solo female travelers in Paris: Paris is safe with standard urban awareness — be alert to pickpockets on the Metro and in crowded tourist areas. The Left Bank cafes and bookshops are excellent solo environments — sitting alone with a book and an espresso at a Parisian cafe is the most Parisian thing you can do, and it will never earn you a second look. HerTripGuide’s dining alone guide for solo women has specific Paris cafe and restaurant strategies for getting the most out of solo dining in the city.

The BookTok travel community has created an excellent resource for finding fellow literary travelers at each of these destinations — searching destination hashtags on TikTok and Instagram before you travel often surfaces recent visitor experiences, current bookshop recommendations, and potential meetups with the global reading community. Literary travel is one of the most naturally social forms of solo travel, because books create immediate connection between strangers who love the same words.