Book clubs are escaping the living room for resorts. From Moab “glamping” to literary tours, reading is becoming a legitimate motivation to travel.
Book Clubs Have Left The Living Room And Headed To The Resort
An interesting new trend has crept into specialty travel and conference groups: reading retreats. For years, “book club” meant someone’s couch, a bottle of something drinkable, and a group text spiraling into “wait, what chapter are we on?” Now it’s turning into something else entirely: a reason to pack a carry-on.
Travel + Leisure recently profiled the rise of “reading retreats,” including a three-day “Camp Unwritten” glamping-style experience at Ulum Moab (you can shop rates by entering password: Private) tied to World of Hyatt and Reese’s Book Club. That story hits on what’s driving this trend: reading has become social again (i.e. BookTok), and for a lot of women, the appeal is less “activity vacation” and more “permission to be unavailable.”
There’s also a simple market truth here. Even if overall reading rates have softened over time, the readers who are still in it are in it, and they want community around it. According to the T+L article, the National Endowment for the Arts reported 48% of Americans read at least one book in 2022, down from earlier years, but the demand for shared reading experiences is clearly finding new formats.
Book Club Retreats You Can Actually Book
These retreats aren’t a few sad folding chairs in a hotel conference room. These are curated trips where the main event is a book (genre, author, or series of books), and the supporting cast is wellness, scenery, and long stretches of peace and quiet.
A few real examples (with published pricing and what they entail):
- Silent Book Club “Reading Journeys” (Costa Rica): A 4-day retreat (November 5–8, 2025) priced at $1,995 early bird (first 12 spots) or $2,095 regular, with double occupancy lodging and included activities listed in the package.
- Silent Book Club “Italian Riviera & Read” (Italy): A 7-day trip (June 7–13, 2026) priced at $3,995 early bird (first 10 spots) or $4,195 regular, again structured around double occupancy, breakfasts, and guided activities.
- Retreat In The Pines “Book Lovers” (Mineola, Texas): A 2-day retreat (April 17-19, 2026) with pricing shown starting at $749, positioned as a women-only sanctuary built around reading and community.
- Ladies Who Lit Reading Retreat (UK): A long-weekend retreat model that’s explicitly “luxury meets literature,” with sample pricing shown at £900 single occupancy or £1,600 double occupancy on one retreat listing. Also, just an incredible title: The Book Club That Takes You Places
- Forest & Fawn Reading Retreats (US): A fandom-forward take (think “bookish community, curated vibes”), with one Catskills retreat listing showing $1,525 (early bird) for a shared room up to $1,875 (early bird) for a private king room.
- Away Retreats “Read And Restore” (Colorado): A literary retreat with tiered lodging pricing shown from $1,990 per person (shared bed) up to $3,410 (single occupancy), with availability that suggests intentionally small groups.
What’s interesting is how consistent the formula is. The trip is not built around rushing to “see everything.” It’s built around protecting time. That’s why these retreats keep leaning into digital detox language and why “quiet time to actually read” is treated like a premium amenity, not an afterthought.
Literary Tours And Bolt-Ons
A retreat is a product you plan your trip around. A literary tour is a product that adds meaning to a trip you were already going to take. It also creates a nice on-ramp into “book-famous” places: you do the tour, you buy the book, you start noticing the setting everywhere you walk.
I’d love to make time for a dedicated reading retreat but this feels a step too far for me. Important as reading is, taking a dedicated trip would feel selfish leaving my family at home but incorporating literary elements into trips is something I have been doing for a long time both independently and with my family. I visited this cafe in Paris, and the Hemingway House in Key West on this trip.
A couple that caught my eye:
- Mexico City Poetry Tour: Understanding the Mexican literary space through poets of the city and throughout Mexico on this 2-hour walking experience. From $53
- Hemingway Experience in Key West: This 4-hour tour walks through Hemingway’s steps, eating, touring, and experiencing the island as he did, from $185.
- Charles Dickens Private Walking Tour London: “See London through the eyes of the great Charles Dickens on this private walking tour. Rather than trying to find Dickensian sights yourself, join a guide who can provide insider details about Dickens’ work and characters for a more enriching experience. Visit places Dickens frequented, see locations that inspired his novels, and more.” From $250 USD.
Will This Create New Travel Markets Or Revive Old Ones?
I think we’re going to see two markets emerge, and they’ll feed each other.
First is the intentional “readaway.” Vrbo’s 2026 trends framing leans into the idea that travelers are craving slower, book-centered downtime, and it uses a big headline number (91%) tied to reading, relaxation, and quality time. Even if you read that as “people want calm,” the takeaway is clear: the pendulum has swung hard away from maximalist itineraries with dedicated reading time taking a priority.
Second is the destination-as-story trip. Books have always created tourism (you don’t need me to explain what Harry Potter did for the UK), but social media is turning that into a faster feedback loop. A novel goes viral, a location becomes a mood board, then the travel industry packages the vibe into a tour, a retreat, or a “stay where the main character would stay” hotel moment.
The part that feels genuinely new is how book clubs and retreats make this repeatable. A fandom trip can be a one-off. A book club retreat can be annual. It has built-in renewal because the next book becomes the next excuse to go somewhere else.
A Virtuoso study that found 71% of solo travelers were women, which lines up neatly with who these retreats are often designed for. If you’re a destination marketing organization, that’s not just a trend, it’s a high-intent audience that will travel for a very specific kind of experience: calm, safe, social, and self-directed.
Conclusion
Book clubs going “on the road” first felt to me like a trend that sounds “fluffy” until I looked closer. For resorts, they get a fresh programming lane that isn’t another cooking demo, and retreat operators lean into a niche with strong community. Travelers get something many vacations oddly fail to provide: uninterrupted time. This adds an element I have long found important for any traveler, it guides with a purpose and gives the traveler a story to tell upon their return, but in this case, that may take the form of a book report.
What do you think?
“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” – Anna Quindlen –
“If you don’t like to read, you haven’t found the right book.” – J.K. Rowling –
For those suffering from writer’s block, this new trend might be an effective solution…
I returned to Raffles in Angkor Watt to read , have tea , and scatter the ashes of friend. Anymore this is my idea of a great vacation. No book club needed
You went!
Yes. It was a very sad time. It is still . My friend had been a journalist in Cambodia for half his life. He moved near me in his final years. There’s more, it’s hard to talk about. Thank you for remembering.
I’m sorry. You are in my prayers tonight.
was just at hemingway in jan! My cuz was at key west last week. small world.