Beaufort draws fans of the "Peachtree Bluff" books, and an annual festival in honor of the bestselling series transforms the North Carolina town into a Hallmark holiday wonderland. It's one of the growing number of literary tourism events across the globe.
For one weekend in December each year, Beaufort, North Carolina, a picturesque small town on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast, transforms into “Peachtree Bluff,” the setting for Kristy Woodson Harvey’s bestselling book series following three sisters finding love and themselves.
This year, more than 50 superfans flocked to the village for a special dinner with Harvey held at the Woodson at Beaufort Grocery, a homey bistro located in a former grocery store. Readers, though, are more familiar with it as “Peachtree Grocery.”
Besides visiting Beaufort’s historic homes and cute boutiques, “Christmas at Peachtree Bluff” attendees also had the chance to take a tour of the city on a double-decker bus. The tour, narrated by Harvey, a Beaufort resident, pointed out the real-life equivalents to the landmarks found in her books, including restaurants, stores, character’s homes, and the bar where the community’s residents—real and fictional—hold town meetings.
“On the bus tour, it’s so neat to hear her talk about the houses that were in Peachtree Bluff,” said Kristen Michel, who traveled from Maryland to attend the event with her sister. “We got all this history, a lot of Beaufort history, but also Peachtree Bluff history.”
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Living in a Hallmark Movie
Harvey first fell in love with Beaufort, one of the Tar Heel State’s oldest towns, when she was 19, drawn to the rows of charming old homes, wild horses on a nearby nature preserve, and fresh seafood. She and her husband bought a fixer-upper that, like many historic homes in the town, has columns made from an early 1900s ship. Her latest book, A Happier Life, is set in Beaufort—not a fictional version—and stems from Harvey’s experience working on the village’s annual Old Homes Tour.
Beaufort hosted its first “Peachtree Bluff Takeover” in 2019, when The Southern Side of Paradise, the third book in the series was published, as a fundraiser for the town’s historic society. Harvey said they planned to keep it “very small” and aim to sell 60 tickets, enough people to fill the tour bus. Instead, tickets quickly sold out. Harvey and the other organizers quickly added more events and tickets, ultimately running five bus tours.
When she later published Christmas in Peachtree Bluff, the town began celebrating with a festival of the same name, drawing a crowd annually, at least in part, Harvey said because “it’s about the closest to living in a Hallmark movie as you’re going to get.”
“I loved creating Peachtree Bluff so much. With these trips, people blend the fact of Beaufort and the fiction of Peachtree Bluff. I hope they can feel it’s such a happy place for me,” Harvey told me at the Beaufort Hotel, a resort-style facility overlooking Taylor’s Creek.
Groups of friends and family have made Christmas in Peachtree Bluff part of their annual holiday celebrations. Michel picked up one of Harvey’s books on a whim after seeing a beachy cover. Now, she’s a regular at Harvey’s events, attending with her sisters or daughter.
“It’s a treat to ourselves when we go,” she said. “It’s what we look forward to.”
From Nantucket to New Zealand, Book Travel Is Booming
Christmas in Peachtree Bluff is part of a growing trend of readers visiting the places where their favorite books are set, as destinations and travel companies cater to readers. An hour inland from Beaufort, Nicholas Sparks readers visit New Bern, the author’s hometown and setting for his blockbuster novel The Notebook. Visitors can take self-guided tours built around his books, A Walk to Remember and The Return. The New Bern Trolley offers a special Sparks-themed tour that stops at attractions highlighted in his books.
The Nantucket, a New England hotel, hosts an annual “The Perfect Weekend” celebration for Elin Hilderbrand readers. Fans of the author, nicknamed “Hilderbabes,” partake in wine tastings and yoga classes, and have the chance to meet Hilderbrand, known for her beach reads. More than 100 women attend the event, named for one of Hilderbrand’s novels, annually.
“The greatest thing about this weekend is, hour one maybe it’s about me, but it goes way beyond me. It’s about the island and the group of women,” Hilderbrand told the New York Times.
Fans of Twilight, the YA vampire blockbuster, make pilgrimages to the book’s setting of Forks, Washington, throughout the year and attend an annual festival in droves. The 2024 event included an author signing, a costume contest, and a gala.
The fad has even gone global. Hundreds of individuals and companies offer Outlander tours, where travelers explore the Scottish landscapes Diana Gabaldon brought to life in her time-travel romance series. Luxury travel company Black Tomato recently launched Take Me on a Story, a line of high-end trips for families designed around such classics as Treasure Island and Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland. The same company offers Agatha-Christie-themed trips to Africa, North America, Australia, and New Zealand.
Jalisa Whitley launched BOOKED Trips, an international travel company that designs group tours around stories, in 2022 after recognizing a need for “a community where women who are passionate about literature and travel could gather, explore, and share stories in meaningful ways.”
Since then, she’s brought groups on a hot air balloon ride over Teotihuacán, in Mexico City, on a trip inspired by Katie Gutierrez’s book More Than You’ll Ever Know and participated in a traditional naming ceremony with the King of the Iture community in Ghana, an experience connected to Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Another trip included dinner and discussion with Mohale Mashigo, a novelist and Marvel Comics writer, in South Africa.
Community of Book Lovers
Whitley attributes the popularity of her trips to people seeking connection. “Women are searching for connection, and many are finding it through travel,” she said. “But most travel companies don’t meet the needs of solo female travelers, especially women of color, who want community, cultural immersion, and experiences that nurture the soul. BOOKED Trips changes that.”
It’s a sentiment mirrored in conversations online, as book lovers seek community on Instagram, TikTok, and other discussion sites. These trips are often as much about being with people who share a love of reading as they are about visiting locations from favorite books.
Reading is no longer an isolated activity, novelist and book social media expert Leigh Stein said.
“As much as we hear that ‘no one reads books anymore,’ social media has actually made reading cool again. Creators on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube share community around shared interest in genre fiction and literary fiction,” she explained.
The chance to experience that community in real life keeps people coming back to literary-themed trips.
“People that read books have a connection, and you can you make connections with other people who read,” Michel said, describing her many trips to Beaufort.