American Literary Landmarks
From Key West to Concord: the homes of America's great writers, and the road trips that link them.
Plan a Literary TripAmerica’s Literary Map
American literature is spread across the whole country, from a Spanish-colonial house in Key West to a Mississippi River town, a New England orchard and a California farm valley. Many of these homes are preserved as museums, and together they make some of the most rewarding road trips a reader can take.
| Writer | Place to visit | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Ernest Hemingway | Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum | Key West, Florida |
| Mark Twain | Mark Twain House & Museum Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum | Hartford, Connecticut; Hannibal, Missouri |
| Louisa May Alcott | Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House | Concord, Massachusetts |
| Emily Dickinson | Emily Dickinson Museum | Amherst, Massachusetts |
| Edgar Allan Poe | Poe Museum | Richmond, Virginia |
| William Faulkner | Rowan Oak | Oxford, Mississippi |
| John Steinbeck | National Steinbeck Center | Salinas, California |
| L.M. Montgomery | Green Gables Heritage Place | Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, Canada |
Hemingway’s Key West
The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West is one of the most visited literary houses in the country. When we checked, it was open every day for walk-in visits. Its most famous residents are the cats: the museum says Hemingway was given a white six-toed cat by a ship’s captain, and some of the cats living on the grounds today are descendants of that cat, Snow White.
Key West suits a literary long weekend, and it is also a cruise port, so many travelers see it on a day ashore. The Key West Literary Seminar, held each January, is the island’s big event for readers; see our festivals page. For tours and activities on a port day, Shore Activities lists options in Key West and other ports.
Mark Twain: Hartford and Hannibal
The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford is the ornate home where Twain and his family lived for many years, and where he wrote some of his best-known books. The house is shown by guided tour only, and when we checked it was open seven days a week, with living-history tours alongside the standard tour.
For the boyhood side of Twain, the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum in Hannibal, Missouri, preserves the river town he turned into St. Petersburg in Tom Sawyer. Pairing the two in one trip is a long journey, so many readers do Hartford with New England and Hannibal with a Mississippi River vacation.
New England’s Writers
Concord and Amherst sit within a comfortable drive of each other. Orchard House is open year-round for guided tours and is, in its own words, where Louisa May Alcott wrote and set Little Women in 1868. Concord also has Walden Pond and the graves of Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne and the Alcotts on Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. In Amherst, the Emily Dickinson Museum includes the Homestead, where the poet was born, lived and did most of her writing, and the Evergreens next door.
- Fall brings foliage and busy weekends; book Concord and Amherst tours ahead.
- Prince Edward Island pairs well with a New England and Canada trip. Green Gables Heritage Place is seasonal, open May to October.
- The South has its own loop: Poe in Richmond, Faulkner’s Rowan Oak in Oxford, Mississippi, and the many small museums of the Southern literary tradition.
Need a hotel near a museum or a flight into Hartford, Boston or Key West? Start with Rooms Cheap and Airfares for Less.
Plan an American Literary Road Trip
From Key West to Concord, a specialist can link the houses you want to see into one comfortable route with hotels, flights and car rental.
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