New Orleans
Have you ever seen a movie that was filmed on location, where the location was so much a character in the story that you just knew you had to visit there? Or, maybe you’ve read a book set in an exotic destination that is so expertly described that you’d like to be transported there on the spot?
For example, Anne Rice so poetically describes New Orleans that it’s hard not to go there and expect to see her vampire Lestat leading one of the nightly ghost tours. Jim Butcher makes a gritty city like Chicago seem like the most interesting place on the planet, especially when wizard Harry Dresden is your guide. Candace Bushnell makes New York seem like more than a city – it’s one of your best friends.
As a fan of J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter books, I think a trip to England would be a delight. Even though I’m a Muggle, I sure would like to have a tour of Harry Potter’s London and surrounding areas. I can’t believe that London hasn’t been crossed off of my travel bucket list yet, but I look forward to standing on Platform 9 3/4 (there’s actually a plaque in King’s Cross Station that denotes it), where I will imagine the Hogwarts express pulling into the station. Then, I’ll hire a car (because they won’t let non-wizards through the barrier to board the train) to take me to Oxford University and Gloucester Cathedral, where the scenes at Hogwarts were filmed for the movie versions of the book. I’ll head over to Hogsmeade for a butterbeer, which is actually Goathland, a village in Yorkshire.
Maybe Harry Potter books aren’t your cup of tea. Perhaps you are more drawn to books like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, and the movies that followed. A trip to the Vatican and St. Peter’s Square takes on a whole new meaning when you’re looking for statues of Angels to lead you to the Illuminati, just as Professor Robert Langdon did. There are several “official” and “unofficial” tours to be found in Rome for fans of the series, but either way, you’ll see some of Rome’s top sites while guides read passages from the books to remind you of their literary significance, as well as their historical significance.
Do you have a literary journey you’d like to take?
Carmen, you hit the nail on the head with Anne Rice’s vampire series. It’s what I think of when I think of New Orleans. Probably because I read the books back to back in my twenties so they were in my brain for a long time.
Sex and the City made me see a fashionable side to New York, whereas before I’d just thought of it as a big city I’d get lost in.
So many places I need to visit!
Malena: New Orleans is as cool as Anne Rice made it seem.
New York is what you make of it, I suppose. I don’t have the money to go shoe shopping there. 
Let’s go!
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil wood be that book for me. A stark portrayal of Savannah throught the eyes of an outsider. It does a great job of tying local myths and legends into it’s tale. It made life in Savannah, GA so intrigueing to me.
I love New Orleans and would love to visit it again and see some of the places portrayed in Anne Rice’s books that I missed on my first visit so many years ago.
Would take a trip to Europe to see it through Harry Potter’s eye’s in a heartbeat! Definitely something worth looking into
Ooh – I was in King’s Cross the day “Order of the Phoenix” came out, and they had set up a fake Platform 9 3/4 that you could actually run through (complete with a trolley and “Hedwig” in a cage). I think I was the oldest one lined up to run through, but it made me so unbelievably happy!
For me, “Memoirs of a Geisha” was so lush. It made me really want to visit Japan, especially Kyoto.
Vivian, ah yes. Savannah is quite romanticized in that book. Though my sister, who lived there, may disagree with the book’s characterization
Jenny – Me. Jealous.
I would’ve lined up, too!
When I lived in Washington DC & Northern VA, I got hooked on the books of James Patterson and Patricia Cornwell, whose thrillers ran through the streets and buildings where my feet carried me every day. You said it well – sometimes that great location is like another primary character in a great read!
Mari, I used to love that about DC when I lived there, too.
Once while traveling through Colorado, I got to tour the hotel that Stephen King’s “The Shining” is based on. Atmosphere is a HUGE part of that book!!
Patty, I think I’d have been too scared for that one.
You’re braver than me!