BookTok travelers turn fandom into paid world tours

BookTok-inspired literary – Adults are paying thousands of dollars to walk the real-world places behind their favorite stories. EF Ultimate Break’s BookTok-inspired Percy Jackson tours blend guided history trips with influencer-led community building—an experience travelers say helps the

When the first day of the trip started in Egypt, the 31-person group only had one thing in common: Percy Jackson. By the final night in Rome, the shared itinerary had turned into a kind of offline reunion—tears, signed translated book copies, and promises to keep in touch.

The tour is part of a fast-growing wave of “literary tourism. ” and EF Ultimate Break is leaning directly into the social engine driving it: BookTok. Its new line of BookTok-inspired international tours sends fans to locations tied to the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles. built around both the history behind the myth and the friendships fans form along the way.

The Percy Jackson trip traveled to Cairo. Athens and Rome. where participants completed quests. compared notes on ancient ruins. and found a social rhythm that mirrored what Percy experienced after he finally found his place. The base cost for the journey was about $3,500, covering accommodations, country-to-country travel while on the tour and some meals. Travelers who used EF to book arrival and departure flights could pay an additional $1. 400. while extra excursions like boat cruises and pasta-making classes ran $65 to $175 each. Additional costs included meals on your own, souvenirs and tipping tour guides.

A big part of the pull wasn’t just the destinations—it was who organized the experience and how quickly it sold. Zoë Mahler. a longtime series fan who runs the social media platform and NYC-based book club @nycbookhoe. oversaw the Percy Jackson trip. Her video about the tour went viral, and the trip filled up within three days. EF has already added another tour for this fall.

EF’s strategy grew out of watching fandom energy build on TikTok. Alyssa Sands. director of market development at EF. said the idea came from seeing “incredible communities forming around genres and novels. ” and from the “neat opportunity” to connect readers with places that may have inspired different novels.

Literary tourism has a long menu of formats. from guided routes and author events to trips organized around specific books and series. Readers can ride the Hogwarts Express from Harry Potter in Scotland or travel to Prince Edward Island for an “Anne of Green Gables” tour. In Massachusetts. the Nantucket Hotel offers a year-round “Elin Hilderbrand” package. and in Florida. the Hemingway Home and Museum has almost 60 six-toed cats descended from one of Ernest’s own cats. Snow White.

The money around the trend is expanding, too. The travel market connected to literary tourism is expected to be valued at over $3.3 billion in 2034, up from almost $2.3 billion in 2024, according to Future Market Insights.

On this trip, Mahler didn’t just market the experience—she helped design it. She described Percy-specific elements as a crucial part of pre-departure planning. Even though the Temple of Poseidon wasn’t on the original itinerary. Mahler and the tour guide Mayia worked behind the scenes to get the group there.

“Book people are passionate nerds,” Mahler said, adding that the guides had read the books and built that knowledge into the tours.

For some travelers. the experience wasn’t simply fun—it was a chance to rewrite the feeling of reading from something solitary into something shared. Katie Guttenberg, 25, said the series shaped her life long before the trip. She studied Latin and classical civilizations in school and wrote her college entrance essay about Percy Jackson.

“I’ve been scared to travel on my own, and this was a great introduction to that,” Guttenberg said. “Reading is such a solitary experience. And you get to truly live it out, you get to talk to other people about what you love and what makes you who you are.”

That sense of transformation—books becoming a bridge—ran through many conversations during the trip. Sydney Correia, 28, described getting to “relive that childhood wonder” that books can create. “As an adult, you don’t think you’d find that again,” she said.

The people on the trip reflected how broad the fan base can be. Mahler and the reporter were the only two who worked full-time in books. Others had careers aboard freight boats, as museum educators, teachers, TV advertisers, vet techs, bankers, construction superintendents and nurses. There were two married couples. two high school best friends. a pair of twin brothers. and three members of Mahler’s book club. The rest were perfect strangers.

In interviews on the last night. many attendees said knowing everyone was a Percy Jackson fan on day one was disarming. It made it easier to form friendships because the group always had books to fall back on in conversation. If they didn’t want to focus on the series directly, they could still talk about what they were reading.

That community pull showed up in different ways. Ansley Bowman, 22, grew up loving Greek mythology but had nobody to connect with about it. She said she’s always wanted to travel. but she couldn’t get trips off the ground with her friend group. Once she saw she could combine her two interests, a trip abroad finally felt doable.

Bowman faced pre-trip jitters like many others—she wasn’t sure she’d make it onto the flight. Ten days later, she was snapping pictures of matching Percy Jackson tattoos she’d designed for fellow attendees and making plans to stay in touch.

“It’s really important to try and find communities who like the same things as you,” Bowman said. “It really gives you a passion for life and learning.”

Even for travelers who came with friends, the trip expanded what “bonding” meant. Gianni Edmister, 26, brought his twin brother and two friends, including one he met while serving in the Army. He said he found more to connect over than Percy Jackson alone, including Renaissance Fairs and Star Wars.

“The biggest highlight for this trip was finding the nerd of nerds,” Edmister said. “Being comfortable and just truly rejoicing in that and embracing it is a big thing for me. Finding that identity of like, OK, this is my group, this is my pack.”

Jeanpierre Edmister, Gianni’s brother, said the twins bonded over mythology even as kids. He remembered playing with homemade tridents in the backyard and pretending to be gods in the ocean when they visited a lake. Now, living in several states apart, he said they could reunite over that common interest.

Jeanpierre said the quests were his favorite part of the trip. They included finding proof of the gods at the Acropolis and scavenger hunts in Rome. On the final night, their last task was to act out scenes from Greek mythology.

“We didn’t become demigods or gods, but I think we became humans and that was kind of even cooler,” Jeanpierre said.

For Mahler, the trips are built to do more than show landmarks. Her own return to Greece and Italy—after she studied abroad there in college—felt different with a group of people all chasing the same inner map of history and myth.

Returning with “real ancient history nerds” made it feel “so different immediately,” she said.

One small moment captured what the group wanted from the trip. Mahler recalled a conversation about finding the exact parking lot where the characters fell into Tartarus in “The Mark of Athena.” She asked how often you get “31 people in a group” saying they want to go to the same spot in Rome.

That combination—history on the ground, story details in the air, and a ready-made community waiting at the edge of every conversation—appears to be what’s turning reading into travel, and travel into belonging.

BookTok literary tourism Percy Jackson EF Ultimate Break Cairo Athens Rome Camp Half-Blood Chronicles Zoë Mahler Alyssa Sands