Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl
One of the coolest things about this week’s prompt is how nicely it complements tomorrow’s prompt for the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. Today I’m going to be talking about places mentioned in books that I would like to visit, and then tomorrow I’ll get to talk about fictional places I definitely would not want to visit.
I have a lot to say on this topic today. Oh, this is going to be fun!
1. Honeydukes, the sweets shop in Hogsmeade.
Honestly, what Harry Potter fan wouldn’t want to eat a chocolate frog or a sherbet lemon from that shop or one like it? Who knows what other magical treats have been introduced to the wizarding world in the last couple of decades.
Some of you might even be brave enough to try Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. I tried the muggle version of it one time, and now I know what grass tastes like.
2. Wonderland.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland blew my mind when I was a kid. I loved all of the riddles she was given and how delightfully odd all of the creatures in that world were. This is a place I’d visit in a heartbeat, especially if I could bring a few snacks from Honeydukes with me.
3. Xavier’s Academy.
One of the things I like the most about the X-Men universe is how Xavier’s Academy is generally described in it. I get the impression it was a fairly casual and welcoming school where everyone was welcomed. I’d sure love to tour this facility.
4. The Hundred Acre Woods.
I will never be too old to stop wishing that Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends were somehow real. Wouldn’t it be fun to go have an adventure with them for a day? Or, better yet, to take them on a tour of modern society?
5. Cair Paravel.
If you want to see Narnia without being turned into a stone or otherwise vexed by certain antagonists, I’d argue that the best time to do so was when Cair Paravel was ruled by the Pevensie children. It would be incredible to have a conversation with the talking animals who lived back then and see what their world was like during those peaceful years.
6. Avonlea.
I’m a lifelong fan of the Anne of Green Gables series. While I know it isn’t actually possible to meet the descendants of a fictional character, a small part of me would love to somehow be able to visit Avonlea. I’d hope to run into Anne Shirley’s descendants and hear what the younger generations have been up to since the last story was written about Anne and Gilbert’s lives in the early days of World War II.
7. Rivendell.
By far my favourite part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy were the numerous scenes that showed how the elves lived, especially since they spent so much of their lives doing things like eating delicious food and learning for the sheer joy of it. As much as I’d miss the Internet, I think being surrounded by the beauty and peace of an Elvish city would more than make up for it.
8. The Ingalls Homestead.
Anyone reading this who has met me in real life is probably chuckling now. I both loved the Little House on the Prairie books and am arguably the least rugged person in Canada, if not all of North America. The thought of me living on a totally non-magical homestead that also obviously wouldn’t have any modern conveniences like air conditioning or wifi is, well, hilarious. I think I would last about half an hour there before trying to call an Uber to take me back to the comforts of city life and away from all of the mosquitoes and mud the Ingalls dealt with so often.
Still, though, I would enjoy that very short visit quite a bit. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s childhood definitely was an interesting one!
9. Avalon.
For those of you who aren’t too familiar with the various legends of King Arthur, Avalon is the magical island where King Arthur was taken to recuperate after he was wounded in battle.
There was a book called “The Mists of Avalon” that came out a couple of decades ago that retold this legend from the perspective of his half-sister that described this island as an oasis for women. Ever since then, I’ve wished I could visit it for real.
10. Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
Have you all noticed the slightly sugary pattern in my answers yet? I’m trying to stick to a low-sugar diet in real life for health reasons, so maybe that’s part of the reason why I spend so much time dreaming about worlds where dietary restrictions aren’t a thing and where there are no negative consequences from eating sweets every day.
How many of these places would you also like to visit?
Cair Paravel for me, please!
Now I want to re-re-read all the Narnia books. 🙂
Heh, same here. And winter is a great time to do that I think. 🙂
Hogsmeade was my favourite part of the HP universe! I felt a tinge of sadness over the fact that I could never taste “real” butterbeer. And Alice in Wonderald (the movie) traumatized me as a kid. That world was both exciting and scary and I didn’t know what to think of it.
Here’s my list: https://dinaratengri.com/2019/02/places-mentioned-in-books-that-id-like-to-visit-realism-may-vary/
Yeah, I was a little sad about that, too.
What parts of Alice in Wonderland frightened you as a kid?
Cair Paravel! That is awesome that we both have that and Charlie’s Chocolate Factory! I wish I would’ve thought of The Hundred Acre Wood as well! Such a good one.
Yes, very cool.
Rivendell and Avalon! Those would be super amazing to have seen. Such a once in a lifetime experience.
They sure would be.
Avonlea’s on my list too! Anne has made me want to visit Prince Edward Island for so long 🙂
My TTT
Oh, I hear you there! PEI sounds amazing.
Rivendell is a place I’d have added myself too! Great responses.
Thank you. Yes, Rivendell would be a wonderful spot to visit.
If I visited Honeydukes I would DEFINITELY overdose on sugar within an hour. But it would be worth it
Heh, exactly. That place would be impossible to resist.
I’m sure I’d get in all kinds of trouble at the Chocolate Factory. Not to mention Willie Wonka always freaked me out. I still can’t believe I forgot to mention The Hundred Acre Wood – I’d move there permanently if I could be friends with the gang.
Heh, absolutely.
The Hundred Acre Woods would be a wonderful place to live.
An excellent list. I’d love to go to all of these!
Thank you very much.
I love this list! There’s so many great places on it.
Thank you, and thanks for stopping by.
Yes! This list is awesome, fantastic choices!!
Thank you very much. 🙂
The Chocolate Factory and Wonderland would be neat, but potentially dangerous. Love to visit Rivendale. Great choices and thanks for visiting my TTT! 🙂
Thank you, and you’re welcome.
OMG The Hundred Acre Woods! I love Winnie the Pooh, Id love to on an adventure with Pooh and his friends
I know, right? That would be so amazing.
Rivendell is bryond words. I’d love to go there.
Yes, precisely.
I’m not much of a sweet tooth but I’d love to go to Honeydukes and Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory too!! 😍 (I haven’t read the other books….) 🙈
Heh, no worries. I’m glad you recognized two of them. Have you thought about which sweets you’d want to taste first at Honeydukes or Willy Wonka’s factory?
What a cool idea 🙂 I love your list. What you said about the Ingalls homestead made me laugh. I love my little luxuries (like a flushing toilet!) but, in my dreams, I’m a whizz at roughing it *LOL*
If I’d made a list, Cair Paravel, Avalon and Rivendell would be on it, and the Shire too, I’d love to live in a hobbit house though I’m a bit tall for it 😉 Another one would be the Magic Faraway Tree, loved that series of books when I was a kid.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s list 🙂
Heh, thank you very much.
The Magic Faraway Tree is another great choice. That would be so cool.
I hope you like tomorrow’s list, too. 🙂
I absolutely loved Xavier’s Academy (also the Queen Mansion from Arrow)!! I didn’t realize where I was until I got serious déjà vu hahaha. The building is fantastic, but it’s the expansive gardens that captured my heart! Highly recommend!!
That’s awesome. I really need to go there sometime. Those gardens sound so beautiful.
Avalon! I can’t believe nothing King Arthur occurred to me on my list. I also saw Camelot come up and thought that was really cool.
Yeah, Camelot would be another fantastic choice.
OMG Honeydukes! I would never, ever leave XD
I know, right?! It would be such a dangerous place as far as eating all of the sugar goes. LOL.
The Hundred Acre Woods is a good one!
Thank you. 🙂
Yes, I’d love to go to Honeydukes and Willy Wonka’s Factory too!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/top-ten-tuesday-200/
They’d both be very tempting places for sure.
Even though I’m in the minority who couldn’t stand Alice in Wonderland, I WOULD love to visit Wonderland. Crazy, I know! So many good places in your list!
Now that is interesting. I’ve never wanted to visit a place from a book I wasn’t fond of before.
I’ve recently got into Merlin but haven’t heard of Avalon. It sounds like a relaxing place.
If you like those stories in general, I would recommend reading The Mists of Avalon. It tells the traditional stories about King Arthur in a totally new light.
Honeydukes is such a good choice! Loving your list!
Thank you very much.
I’d definitely want to visit Honeydukes and Wonka’s Chocolate factory 🙂
They’d both be a ton of fun to visit for sure.
I’m right there with you about Cair Paravel! I’ve always wanted to go there.
I didn’t think about Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, though. I guess as long as you’re behaving it would be a fun place to visit! LOL And while I didn’t think about visiting the Ingalls’ homestead, I have always wanted to make maple sugar candies in the snow the way Laura described it. (So it appears that I have a sweet tooth, too…)
Heh, glad to hear it.
Maple sugar candies would be so much fun to make and eat.
I never did read the Mists of Avalon (it’s taken up permanent residence on my TBR… someday? Maybe.) but I know enough about the legend that being able to actually visit Avalon really would be amazing.
Yes, it sure would be.
Wonderland would be a great place to visit!
I’m so glad you think so.
Excellent choices! I wanted to go somewhere in Middle Earth too, but I picked the Shire for my post. Rivendell is beautiful, but I think the elves would make me nervous. The hobbits are just down to party! 😀
Narnia almost made my list too.
Thanks for visiting my blog today!
You’re quite welcome.
I think the Shire would be a very interesting place to visit as well.
Oooooh Wonderland is a good one! I didn’t think of that!
Thank you.
So many fantastic options! I think I would most like a trip to the Hundred Acre Wood right about now.
Thank you. Yes, that would be a nice way to spend an afternoon.
10000X yes to the Ingalls Homestead! I loved those books growing up 🙂
That’s awesome. So did I!
I would honestly like to visit most of these places … the one that I had never thought about is The Hundred Acre Woods, but I would LOVE to go there!
It would be an incredible place to see in person for sure.
What a great list! I wouldn’t mind visiting Cair Paravel either. And Wonderland almost made my list, too. And I love that you included the Ingalls homestead. I love those books. 😀
Thank you! Yes, the Little House books really are classics.
OOh nice! Some new to me ones but yay for Honeydukes! I felt like naming all the big hotspots from Harry Potter counts for everywhere we visited in the books…you know, the places that weren’t filled with mortal peril at least! Lol!
Wonderland made my list as well, as you know! Great picks!
Thanks for visiting my TTT post!
Yes, absolutely.
And you’re welcome.
100 Acre Wood and Xavier’s Academy are really good additions to the list, would definitely like to visit those. Lots of great choices!
Thank you, and thanks for stopping by.
Such a fun list! So many great places–I’d love to visit Cair Paravel, Rivendell, and the Hundred Acre Wood too. I love that Willy Wonka is on your list!
Heh, thanks.
Visiting Honeydukes and the Chocolate Factory would be so amazing <3 (can you tell I love food??)
Yes, absolutely. Ha!
So much yes with the Ingalls homestead. I feel all the same thoughts, but Laura made it seem so wonderful that as a child, I never thought of it as hardship. To be Charles or Caroline though, I’m definitely not tough enough.
Have you read The Wilder Life? It’s on my tbr.
Charles and Caroline definitely dealt with a lot of hardship.
Yes, I’ve read The Wilder Life. I wasn’t a huge fan of it, but I do hope you like it better than I did.
Hogsmeade and the Ingalls homestead, SUCH good answers!! I didn’t think of either of those but they should for sure be on my list too!!
Heh, thank you.
Cair Paravel in the time of the Pevensies’ would be amazing. Maybe Aslan stops by? All the talking creatures at court. 🙂 Also Xavier’s academy- awesome pick. Would love to go there.
Rivendell and the Hundred Aker Wood would probably go back and forth as my favorite though- I could probably live happily in either one!
Oh, it would be amazing to meet Aslan. I didn’t even think of that possibility.
I would love to visit Honeydukes!
It would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for sure. 🙂
OH my gosh, I totally forgot about the sweet shop. I can’t believe I forgot about Honeyduke’s! I love candy more than anything lol.
Heh, it is pretty delicious.
Honeydukes is a great pick!!
Thank you.
I’d love to visit The Hundred Acre Wood too and play a round of Pooh Sticks. 🙂
Oh, that would be so much fun.
I feel like Rivendell would be incredible to visit, but I don’t know if I’d want to live there?
Fair enough. 🙂 I think it would be cool to see it in person either way.
I loved reading about the Ingalls when I was young!! Great choices 🙂
Thank you. Yes, they were a very interesting family.
Xavier’s Academy is such a great one!
Thank you.
Ah yes, Rivendell!!
I think it would be an amazing place to visit.
Oh yes, I almost forgot about Avonlea and the Ingalls homestead! I would still give those a visit, as well as Honeydukes and maybe the Chocolate Factory.
Cool. Glad to hear it.
Quite honestly, I feel like you could make this entire list about Harry Potter! I kept thinking of places from that series I’d want to visit, but I wanted to branch out with other books.
Yes, you absolutely could.
I almost included Rivendell, but went with Moria instead. I’d like to visit all of Middle Earth!
Ooh, Moria would be a great choice. There are so many interesting spots in Middle Earth!
Yes to all of these! 🙂
Awesome. Glad to hear it.
Love this list. And Honeydukes, that’s the dream!!
Thank you, and absolutely.
Rivendell would be so much fun to visit!
It sure would be.
Love LOVE your pick of Xavier’s Academy!
Thank you.
Love Love your pick of Xavier’s Academy — it would be one school I would love to attend too!
I hear you there! Imagine all of the amazing things you’d learn there.
Your list is amazing! I didn’t even think about Xavier’s Academy but that would definitely be a place I would love to visit or even attend!
Aww, thank you. What a nice compliment.
How could I forget the Hundred Acre Woods? That would be so fun!
You have a lot of great places on your list I’d want to visit as well. 🙂
Thank you. How kind of you.
Hogsmeade would be amazing 😃 All those chocolates and candies 😋 And yes to Wonderland. I almost included that in my list too 😄
Cool! Yeah, it can be tricky to figure out what to include or not to include in these lists.
It’s not exactly Avonlea but Prince Edward Island is such a beautiful place to visit!
I’m so glad to hear that. Someday I really need to go there. 🙂
Great list! I’d like to visit them, too. Especially Xavier’s Academy and Rivendell but I’m sure they all would be lots of fun.
Thank you! It’s so nice to hear that.
I would love eating candy from Honeydukes and Willy Wonka, but I would be afraid that things would go wrong once I visited there!
Yeah, that would definitely be a possibility.
Going to Hogsmeade in general would be amazing, but Honeydukes would be pretty much at the top of my list of places to visit from books, too! Haha it would be soooo fun (and I would totally buy too much)! Thank you for stopping by Howling Libraries! ♥
You’re welcome. Yes, Honeydukes would be an easy store to splurge at.
I visited the Ingalls’ homestead when I was in middle school, with my mom. It was very cool to see what it would have been like to live in that time. I love your list, tons of great choices!
Thanks.
It’s awesome that you saw the Ingalls’ homestead. I had no idea such a place still existed or was open to the public.
So many good destination picks on your list! I got to visit the replica shop of Honeyduke’s in Universal Studios and it was so much fun! I would also take a tour of Willy Wonka’s factory too! I also enjoy Anne of Green Gables, I feel like Avonlea would have the most beautiful landscapes.
Thank you. Yes, I think Avonlea would be very picturesque.
The world that Bernard Cornwell creates in The Warlord Chronicles, especially the adventures the young warriors have in Armorica (which is now Brittany).
I’m looking that series up now. Thanks for the recommendation.
Oh yes, I would love to go to Honeyduke’s!!!
It would be an exciting trip for sure.
I didn’t think of adding fantasy places. Narnia would be lovely. And all over Middle Earth . . . in a time of peace, lol, I’m not made to be a heroine.
Heh, I hear you there.
LOL I wouldn’t mind a sugary trip myself. Ha!
I know, right?! Hehe.
Awww!! So many nostalgic places I wish I had thought of. Avonlea, and Hundred Acre Wood especially. Like Narnia, I wouldn’t mind seeing Wonderland, but only on their respective good days; I don’t think I’d survive their lands on those dark days. ;D
Thanks so much for the Finding Wonderland visit, Lydia.
You’re quite welcome, Rissi.
And, yeah, some of these places would only be fun to visit on their good days like you said.
I would looooove to visit Rivendell!! And Xavier’s Academy too!! Great picks!
Thank you.
I love Avonlea! I used to love the Anne of Green Gables serial and the Road to Avonlea TV series.
They were both amazing.
I contemplate Wonderland but then I don’t know. The flowers are mean, you can drown in your tears and then there’s the Queen of Hearts lol. Great list!
I hear you there. Haha.
Sorry to be late to the party!
In The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell, a group of children are adopted by Merlin and grow up on Ynys Wydryn, a fictionalised and fantastic version of Glastonbury Tor which is now in England. I read it when I was 12/13 and reflected that growing up there would be much more fun than my actual life at the time.
Later the narrator grows up and becomes a warrior in Armorica (now Brittany), fighting a doomed battle against the Franks. I feel I can almost see and feel the life they had, such is the power of the master storyteller (whose later books were the basis of the excellent TV series The Last Kingdom).
No worries, Herbert. It’s really good to hear from you again.
That book sounds very cool. I’m checking now to see if my library has it.