How To Leave Without Leaving
A guide to the summer readaway.
Summer is a tricky time. It comes quickly and brings with it a longing for airports, train stations, quaint cafes, and overflowing beach bags. Yet for many of us, this year’s plans are much closer to home. With both travel and daily expenses on the rise, more than half of Americans say they are planning a staycation this summer. But staying home doesn’t have to mean staying in one place.
While we may not be able to wander Hemingway’s Parisian streets this summer, books offer us another way to travel. We thought it would be fun to share a few ideas for enjoying not a staycation, but a readaway—a reading holiday that offers the feeling of time spent elsewhere, if only for an afternoon.
The first step to a successful readaway is choosing a book. To find the right one, we find these approaches helpful:
The classic approach: traveling through reading by picking up a travel journal or memoir. Sometimes the next best thing to taking a trip yourself is seeing it through someone else’s eyes.
Another is to read a book set in the place you wish you could be. A good book has a way of transporting us to the landscapes we’re dreaming of.
Travel sharpens our attention. When everything around us is new, we tend to notice details we might ordinarily overlook. The best books do this too. They bring us into their world, allow us to see with new eyes—without having to leave home.
Finally, we love the idea of picking up books as souvenirs. Visiting a local bookshop and buying a book set in the city you’re visiting—or written by a local author—is a wonderful way to revisit that city when the nostalgia inevitably kicks in.
Once you’ve chosen a book, make it an event.
Find a boutique hotel nearby and stay for the night. Wear the hotel robe, order room service, settle into the luxe bed, and lose yourself in your current read.
If a hotel isn’t an option, that’s okay. Find the café with a corner window, order the drink you normally talk yourself out of, and stay long enough for the drink to cool.
Or perhaps your readaway takes you to the pool, a quiet beach, or a lush park beneath the shade of an old tree. Spread out a picnic blanket and enjoy your favorite seasonal fruit while the afternoon slips by. If home is where you’ll be spending your readaway, find a place in your house away from the temptation of binge watching. Open the windows, wear your coziest clothes, and settle into your favorite chair.
Whatever you decide to do, however you decide to enjoy your readaway, we recommend leaning into your book’s setting. Blur the line between where you are and where you’re reading. An Italian novel, for example, lends itself to lemon gelato, an afternoon espresso, and Italian jazz music in the background. New England beckons old libraries, maple trees, and apple cider. A book set in the English countryside is best read with a plaid blanket, tea, and cloudy weather. But if the weather doesn’t cooperate, a charming garden will do just fine.
There are an infinite number of ways to travel through reading. We often think travel begins with a passport, but sometimes it starts by giving a book our full attention. As Mary Oliver wrote in Upstream, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
We’ve curated a bookshelf of thoughtful recommendations for you to browse. Whether you decide to order one from our shelf or choose to visit your local bookshop instead, we hope it inspires your summer readaway.
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