Have you every gone on a literary pilgrimage? Or do you have one you would like to undertake?

Before this year I’d gone on two: I visited Prince Edward Island, in the hopes of capturing a fragment of the magic of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne books. And I visited Mankato, MN, to see the real life inspiration for the Deep Valley of Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books.

During my recent vacation in Italy, I undertook a third: to visit the various places referenced in one of my favorite Betsy books: Betsy and the Great World. I’ve documented the results photographically, and if you are interested you can check out the set on Flickr.

There are many other places I would like to visit, to see for myself the landscapes that inspired my favorite stories. I would love to visit Wales, and find the peaks described in Susan Coopers The Grey King. I’d love to see a real-life “Pemberley”. I even have dreams of hiking through the English countryside pretending I am a hobbit on a tramp in the Shire. I’d love to visit Egypt, where Amelia Peabody and Theodosia Throckmorton have taken me in the pages of their respective series. Having read some of Mma Ramotswe’s adventures, I wish I could see her beloved Botswana.

What about you? What literary pilgrimage would you undertake if you could go anywhere in the world?