BookTok Travel: 12 Places That Feel Straight Out of Your Favourite Romance Books

This is the one that started it all for me, so it goes first.

Zermatt is a car-free village tucked into the Swiss Alps, watched over by the sharp, dramatic peak of the Matterhorn. Fans of Sarah J. Maas have decided, with their whole chests, that this is Velaris come to life.

The theory writes itself once you see it: the Matterhorn stands sentinel over the valley the way Ramiel looms over the Night Court, a river threads through the village like the Sidra, and the whole place glitters under some of the clearest starlit skies in Europe.

If your dream school has dragons, deadly trials, and a brooding boy who hates you until he very much does not, this is your trip.

The wild, moody landscapes of the Scottish Highlands and Ireland are pure Basgiath War College. Ancient castles perched on cliff edges, mist rolling over the hills, stone fortresses that look built for riders and their dragons. EF Ultimate Break clearly agrees, because their official Fourth Wing trip takes readers straight through this part of the world.

And if you want a single image that screams “war college on a mountain,” look at Mont-Saint-Michel just across the water in Normandy, a medieval abbey that rises out of the sea and is reached by a narrow, treacherous causeway.

BookTok’s obsession with Greek mythology is not slowing down, and honestly, why would it. From the aching beauty of The Song of Achilles to the deliciously dark Hades and Persephone of Katee Robert’s Dark Olympus, these stories are everywhere, and their settings are real places you can actually walk through.

Skyros in the Sporades is where Achilles hid in the myth. Mykonos, all whitewashed walls and impossible blue sea, is tied to a battle of the gods. Then there is Cape Sounion at sunset, the ruins at Delphi where the oracle once spoke, and Mount Olympus itself, the literal home of the gods.

Deep in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, where snow settles on the peaks and mist pools in the valleys below, sits Bran Castle, the gothic, turreted fortress the whole world knows as Dracula’s Castle. It is every candlelit, cloak-swishing vampire fantasy made real, and travellers come from far and wide to feel that delicious chill for themselves.

Base yourself in the pretty medieval city of Brașov nearby, a ski-and-hiking hub in its own right, and you get gothic romance and snowy mountains in a single trip.

Here is a fun one, because this is not a “feels like” pairing. This is the real thing.

Emily Henry has said that the lakeside town in Beach Read is an amalgam of her favourite western Michigan beach towns, specifically Holland, Saugatuck (the image to the left), and Grand Haven. The setting for Funny Story draws on towns along the Saginaw River, like Bay City. So if you want to physically stand where January and Gus fell in love, you can.

Lake Michigan is so vast it looks like an ocean, the little towns are all artsy cafés and lighthouses and boardwalks, and there is even a real donut shop fans love to visit.

If your ideal read is two best friends, one shared hotel room, and a slow burn that has simmered for years, the Adriatic is your happy place.

The sunny coastal towns of Croatia, all warm stone and turquoise water and long golden evenings, are peak Emily Henry summer energy. EF Ultimate Break runs a Croatian cruise pitched directly at People We Meet on Vacation fans, which tells you everything about the vibe.

This is the trip for lingering lunches, sea swims, and reading something swoony on a sun lounger with zero guilt.

If your aesthetic is candlelight, ancient books, and a secret you are absolutely going to uncover, you need to see this.

Admont Abbey holds the largest monastery library in the world, and it is breathtaking: soaring ceilings, gilded halls, and yes, a concealed doorway hidden in the shelves. Travel creators have been sending fantasy readers here, and I completely understand why.

It is every enchanted library scene you have ever pictured while reading, made real.

For the classic dark academia soul, nobody does it like Oxford. This is the city of dreaming spires, all honey-coloured colleges, hidden quads, and libraries that look purpose-built for keeping secrets. The Bodleian is the beating heart of it, and its Duke Humfrey’s Library played the Hogwarts library while the Divinity School became the infirmary in the Harry Potter films.

Nearby, the sweeping staircase of Christ Church College appears in the films too, its Tudor dining hall inspired the Great Hall itself, and the domed Radcliffe Camera is the single most photographed building in the city.

Edinburgh is where a certain boy wizard was dreamed up, and the city wears it proudly. J.K. Rowling scribbled early chapters in its cafés, and fans still make the rounds: the curving, colourful Victoria Street that many swear inspired Diagon Alley, and Greyfriars Kirkyard, where you can hunt for weathered headstones bearing names that echo the books, including one Thomas Riddell.

Whether Rowling borrowed them from here or not, the treasure hunt is half the fun.

But this is far more than Potter country.

If you have not yet been consumed by the Heated Rivalry phenomenon, I envy you the first read. The hockey romance adaptation has been a genuine cultural moment. Every on-ice scene was filmed at the Sleeman Centre in Guelph, and readers are showing up to take photos and buy merch. Dundurn Castle in Hamilton stood in for Russia, and the cottage scenes were shot up in Muskoka.

Some Hamilton bars are even serving Heated Rivalry themed cocktails now. It is a proper self-guided tour if you love this one.

This was the original BookTok-before-BookTok, and the numbers genuinely make the whole case for literary tourism. Forks welcomed around 5,000 visitors in 2005, the year the first Twilight book came out.

Two decades on, the town is busier than ever, with a record-breaking 78,000 visitors in 2024 and more than 90,000 in 2025. This rainy little town leaned all the way into being vampire country, and if paranormal romance is your first love, it is a nostalgic, gloriously moody trip.

For the Regency romance readers, Bath is simply the dream. The whole city is a honey-coloured stage set of Georgian crescents and columns, which is exactly why Bridgerton used it to stand in for Regency London.

You can walk the real filming spots: the Holburne Museum plays Lady Danbury’s grand house, No.1 Royal Crescent is the Featherington family home, and pretty Abbey Green doubles as the modiste’s shop where so much delicious gossip is traded.

And Bath was a romance destination long before Netflix arrived.