Listicle: 10 holidays that immerse you into your favourite novels

Julia Quinn’s stories are set in a fictional town in England’s Regency era. The social intrigue and spice more than make up for historical inaccuracies. The show is filmed at the 400-year-old Hatfield House, where Queen Elizabeth I spent much of her childhood. This is where Lady Trowbridge’s ball was filmed for Season 1. Parts of it were used as the interior of the Bridgertons’ London residence. Dashing rakes not included in the tour.

Austen spent only five years at this spa town, but it’s where she set many of the scenes for Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. More than 200 years later, the English town remains a pilgrimage spot for her fans. There are Austen-y things to do all year round, and a ten-day Jane Austen Festival every September. Guided walking tours, Regency-costumed balls, plays, book readings. Mrs Bennet would have been giddy with delight.

Arundhati Roy’s 1997 Booker Prize-winning debut not only introduced the world to a new talent, but also to her hometown of Aymanam, where the novel is set. Rich, sensory descriptions immediately transported readers to the sleepy, wet, humid Kerala backwaters, with twins Rahel and Estha. An Aymanam highlight is the Meenachil River, which flows through the village and plays a key, albeit mostly tragic, role in the story.

Patricia Highsmith’s best-known novel had already been made into a hit film, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law, in 1999. The sinister story is getting a black-and-white series reboot, with Andrew Scott (aka, hot priest from Fleabag), and Dakota Fanning. What stays the same: The charm of summer in Italy. Highsmith’s fictional Mongibello from 1955 is recreated in Rome and Venice.

The marshy, swampy side of the US has already featured on One Tree Hill and Dawson’s Creek. But it comes alive in the 2022 film version of zoologist Delia Owens’ bestselling 2018 novel. Barkley Cove is fictional. But readers will find bits of heroine Kya’s world in the Croatan National Forest, Patsy Pond Nature Trail, Carolina Beach State Park, and Fort Fisher State Recreation Area.

Sarah Winman’s 2021 novel, set largely in a post-WWII Florence, is a sparklingly original love story involving art, found family, and humanity. Scenes unfold in Santo Spirito, a lively piazza on the opposite side of River Arno as the Duomo, where Ulysses Temper runs a pensione with his motley crew. The book offers wonderful inspiration for readers wishing to explore the city and the vivid Tuscan countryside.

Last year’s series was a pale adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s 2014 Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel about a blind girl and a young soldier, holding on to hope on opposite sides of World War II. Both versions, however, bring alive Saint-Malo, a walled port city on the Brittany coast in northwestern France. The book stays true to its geography, so fans can follow in the footsteps of Werner and Marie-Laure and visit the rebuilt ramparts, the port, the castle, the cathedral and the buzzy streets.

The 2024 Netflix show, based on David Nicholls’s 2009 book, is sentimental, mushy, cheesy, yes. But gosh, it makes Greece look so intimate and sexy. Paros, a ferry ride away from the tourist towns, is far less crowded. That means it’s possible to drink too much wine and admit your feelings for a close friend, go skinny dipping in the moonlight with them, and shove them underwater for a bit to mask your rejection.

The 19th-century whaling port (and summer getaway for old-money Americans) has been immortalised in Melville’s Moby Dick. But Hildebrand, the queen of the summer beach read, spotlights her hometown in her own ways. Swan Song, final of her Nantucket series, is out in June 2024. Plenty of time to catch up on the first three novels, book a Bucket List Weekend with Elin at the Nantucket Hotel, and dine at the Pearl. Just don’t murder anyone!

Moriarty sets most of her novels – all bestsellers – in Sydney’s posh North Shore where lives. The series version of Apples Never Fall is out soon, and was filmed in Queensland. The Last Anniversary, a 2023 series, was filmed in Sydney’s Hawkesbury region. Moriarty has said that Scribbly Gum island was inspired by Dangar Island on the Hakesbury river.