Literary tourism is growing in popularity, fueled in part by online reading communities and adaptations of popular books for film and television.
According to travel eSIM provider Holafly, New York City is the world's top destination for book lovers, drawing more than 187,000 monthly searches related to bookstores, libraries, book festivals and literary landmarks.
Holafly ranked 25 destinations with literary associations, analyzing factors including bookstores, book festivals and search interest. New York City finished No. 1, ahead of London and Melbourne.
Why is New York City the top literary tourism destination in the world?
Holafly analyzed 25 destinations around the world with literary associations, including writers' birthplaces, popular bookstores, historic libraries and famous book settings, to determine which
places would be most appealing for literary tourism.
For the 25 destinations, Holafly used Google Places to count the number of bookstores and literary and book festivals in each location, along with Google search trends.
New York City ranked No. 1, with more than 400 bookstores, five book festivals each year and more than 187,000 literary-related searches.
New York City is the setting for thousands of books, including "The Great Gatsby," "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and, more recently, the "Percy Jackson" and "Shadowhunters" series.
New York City is also home to the United States' largest public library system, the New York Public Library. Known for the iconic lion statues outside its flagship location near Bryant Park, the New York Public Library system has more than 17 million visitors across 92 locations a year.
Top 25 locations for literary tourism
- New York, New York
- London, England
- Melbourne, Australia
- Tokyo, Japan
- Sydney, Australia
- Stratford-upon-Avon, England
- Cartagena, Colombia
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Paris, France
- Dublin, Ireland
- Prague, Czech Republic
- Edinburgh, Scotland
- Bath, England
- Oxford, England
- Lisbon, Portugal
- Savannah, Georgia
- Porto, Portugal
- Key West, Florida
- Oxford, Mississippi
- Annapolis, Maryland
- Hay-on-Wye, England
- Concord, Massachusetts
- Verona, Italy
- Tofino, British Columbia, Canada
- Matamata (Hobbiton), New Zealand
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: New York City named world's top destination for literary tourism













