The Joys of Bookish Travel
by Marci Rae Johnson
When I first came up with “bookish travel” for the title of this article, I was so proud of myself for making up a new phrase! However, when I googled the term, 5,360,000 results appeared — so I guess I’m not the first person to think of this. Goodbye, fame and glory! But anyway, with pandemic restrictions easing and vaccination levels rising, summer travel is back! And for book lovers, this often involves a stop at an independent bookstore or an architecturally interesting library, a pilgrimage to a favorite writer’s childhood home, or a day at a museum that displays literary artifacts.
I’ve done all of these things, but my very favorite travel activity is to stop at every single independent bookstore I can find along my route, no matter where I’m going. In 2017, because I’m a huge nerd and I also love lists, I bought myself a cute notebook and designated it for book and literary events, and I began to document each bookstore I visited, every literary conference I went to, and every readathon I participated in. Needless to say, I love this notebook! The photo from my notebook here is from ONE trip, from Michigan to Kentucky, with some overnight stops along the way.
Now, I find the best way to go about a trip with bookish stops is to plan ahead, so I look at my route and then do a little Google research. (If you love to travel, you know that the planning is one of the best parts!) It helps that places like Bookshop and Indie Bound have indie bookstore maps now. And three more pieces of advice: strike up a conversation with one of the booksellers (sometimes it’ll be the owner of the store!), buy at least one book while you’re there, to help support the bookstore, and make sure to pick up a bookmark (they’re usually free). It’s a great way to remember the bookstores you’ve visited!
And don’t forget the used bookstores. One of the most amazing used bookstores I’ve found during my travels was one with a massive amount of used books in one of the tiniest towns I’ve ever seen (and I live in an area of small towns, so that’s saying a lot). Pete & Freddy’s Pages Aplenty is located in the downtown area of Menton, IN, and it was nearly the only business still running among the mostly boarded-up storefronts when I visited. This place is one of those stores that is pleasantly just cluttered enough to make searching through the books feel like an exciting treasure hunt. If you visit, give yourself several hours to look through it!
If you’re not quite up for traveling to bookstores yet in person, we’ve got some charming books about bookstores (which I think should be its own genre now, since it’s a subject that’s expanded a lot lately), including The Art of the Bookstore, which features oil paintings of bookstores by Gibbs M. Smith, including some of the most iconic bookstores in America like the Strand in New York City and Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. Also check out this novel called A Novel Bookstore about two people who open a new bookstore in Paris that quickly becomes amazingly popular. Because anyone who loves books has always dreamed of opening their own bookstore, am I right?
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Marci Rae Johnson is a content curation specialist at Legible. She’s also a poet with several books, and an editor, and if you Google her you can find some of her poems to read online if you’re so inclined. In her spare time she likes to read, bake, garden, and hang out with friends and family.
