Top Ten Tuesday #10: Top Ten Places Books Have Made Me Want to Visit

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.

 

Yay!! I love this week's topic! One (of the many) things I like about books is they can take you anywhere and everywhere without ever leaving your comfy bed/couch/blanket or wherever you read. Of course, it is definitely so much cooler to actually go and visit some of those places - providing they're real, of course - but sometimes, if you're like me, you've spent all your extra money on lovely new books and forgot to save for travels. Oops. I'm sort of terrible like that.

 

Top Ten Places Books Have Made Me Want to Visit

 

The Fictional

 

1. Hogwarts - Really now, what kind of booknerd-fangirl-Potterhead would I be if Hogwarts was not on my list. Who wouldn't want to go to Hogwarts and sit in the Great Hall - especially at Christmas with the giant Christmas trees - or drink all the butterbeer at Rosemerta's or just wander down Diagon Alley? No one, that's who. 

 

 

 

2. Camp-Half Blood - I probably wouldn't make a very good demi-god considering I have no athletic skills whatsoever. But yeah, Camp Half-Blood sounds like loads of fun. Especially if Leo's there. I love Leo. I mean Percy would definitely be my book boyfriend but Percabeth is just too perfect. Camp Jupiter sounds cool too but if I had to choose, I'd definitely be Greek.

 

3. Middle Earth - Rivendell! Fangorn Forest! (Legolas!) Lothlorien! The Shire! So so many places! And the movies make them look so beautiful. Not that the books didn't too. There are whole chapters on just Middle Earth landscape in The Silmarillion. Middle Earth is just so pretty. Can I borrow Will's knife to cut a window into Middle Earth? Woah, crossovers, sorry. But really, if I had the Subtle Knife, I'd totally hack into other book worlds. I'd close my windows up though, don't worry. Since Middle Earth and the Subtle Knife aren't real, I'll settle for a trip to New Zealand instead.

 

4. Tortall - Tamora Pierce's Tortall books hold such a special place in my heart that to not include Tortall would be horrible. Her books together with Harry Potter were my childhood. It's not even really the world of Tortall that I'd want to visit. I want to meet all the characters. Alanna and Daine most of all but Jon and George and Thayet and Numair too! By the way, I'm really excited that Tammy is working on a Numair series. He and Daine were my original OTP.

 

"I thought they'd killed you. I lost my temper." - Daine to Numair in Emperor's Mage
 

[fanart from Kathofel]

 

5. Neverland - So many books and movies have made Neverland so appealing. Especially Jodi Lynn Anderson's Tiger Lily. JLA wrote such wonderful descriptions that I just wanted to live in her words. I've said it before but I love anything Peter Pan related. And if Colin O'Donoghue happens to be Captain Hook, I won't complain in the least.

 

 

 

6. Wonderland - Oh Wonderland - so much frabjous nonsensical nonsense. I love it. I could do without crazed queens with a fondness for beheadings but tea parties and unbirthdays 364 days of the year sound perfect to me.

 

 

The Non-Fictional

 

7. The Empire State Building - Can you believe that I literally live less than 10 minutes away from New York City and I've never been to the Empire State Building? I mean I can see it from my bedroom window. When I'm lost, I basically just have to look for it in the skyline and head towards it to get home. I take back what I said in #2 - maybe I can be a demi-god after all considering Olympus is on the 600th floor and the Empire State Building is like my personal homing device.

8. England - So many books have been based in or relate to England somehow. However, it was the Once and Future King and basically anything King Arthur related that originally made me want to visit England. I actually woke up at 4am when I studied abroad in London specifically to take a King Arthur tour to see Stonehenge and Glastonbury and all the Arthurian legend sites. I'd love to go back one day and see the other literary places I missed. Although, I can already cross 221 Baker Street off that list.

But, if you go, and you happen to be looking for the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, don't ask the locals. They didn't know and I ended up lost. Though Kensington Gardens is probably the most beautiful place to be lost in.

 

9. Greece - I can relate this back to the Percy Jackson books too but it was The Firebrand and stories about Greek mythology and Troy that first perked my interest in Greece (more so than Rome. See? I'd totally be a Greek demi-god.) I always been a bit obsessed with mythology of any kind really. Sadly, the US doesn't have cool mythology like other parts of the world do. Plus Greece and the Mediterranean in general is just so beautiful. I mean, look at it:

 

10. Ireland - Sweep: Night's Child definitely isn't even remotely the best choice of book to describe Ireland but I really want to go there and I think it's the only book I've read that's set there. It's not even a very good book to be honest. Just something I read in high school. But by default, it's my Ireland book. It's super stereotypical but I've always wanted to search for fairies in Ireland. I figure if there's one place in the world where I'd be able to see one, it'd be there. Glastonbury Tor in England is said to be the entrance to the fairy world but somehow, I've always associated Ireland with fairies. To go along with my obsession with myths, I've also always had an obsession with fairies and fairy tales. I'm weird. I know.

 

 

While writing this post I've realized two things. One, I need a Signe Pike's Faery Tale-esque tour of the entire United Kingdom in my life. And two, I seriously need to read more books with real places. Fictional places, yeah sure, I'll think of a million of them on the spot that I want to visit. But books with real places that I want to visit? Not so much. I should work on that but it's definitely because of my favoritism for fantasy books over contemporary.