Cover From Tuscany’s sunlit hills to Bali’s rice fields, discover the real-life settings where romance novels come alive. (Photo: Wirestock / Freepik)
From Tuscany’s sunlit hills to Bali’s rice fields, discover the real-life settings where romance novels come alive. (Photo: Wirestock / Freepik)
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Travel through the pages of romance novels with trips to Tuscany, Bali, Scotland, London, South Carolina and Bordighera
Literature has always sent readers in search of places where love might feel more possible. A Tuscan villa that symbolises renewal, Balinese temples that anchor spiritual journeys, Scottish moors haunted by history, London squares coded with Regency etiquette—each setting carries its own logic of desire. Romance novels are not guidebooks, yet their settings often outlive the characters, drawing travellers who want to see how much of the fiction is traceable in stone, street and landscape. Visiting them with care reveals not staged fantasies but real communities whose daily life continues alongside the stories layered onto them. For many, romance novels are less about escape than about seeing the familiar anew, with geography as the quiet accomplice to love.
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1. Tuscany, Italy: ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’
Frances Mayes’s memoir put Cortona on the global map, and the town still rewards visitors with its views across the Val di Chiana. Mayes’s own Villa Bramasole can be glimpsed from the road, while the restored Villa Laura, used for the film, is available to rent for groups. Cortona itself is compact, with steep streets leading to a lively piazza and Etruscan walls. The wider region offers olive groves, Chianti vineyards and neighbouring hill towns such as Montepulciano. Mayes’s story made Tuscany synonymous with reinvention, though the best trips keep the balance between literature-inspired curiosity and genuine Italian rhythms.
2. Bali, Indonesia: ‘Eat, Pray, Love’
Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir shifted Ubud from yoga hub to international touchstone. Travellers can still find traces of the book’s settings, from the late Ketut Liyer’s Liyer Spirit House to cafes and guesthouses that line Jalan Hanoman. In the film, the coastal romance plays out at Padang Padang Beach, south of Denpasar. While Eat, Pray, Love made Bali shorthand for self-discovery, Ubud’s heart remains its temples, craft markets and terraced rice paddies, many of which pre-date the book’s global fame. The lesson is not to retrace Gilbert’s exact steps but to see how Bali’s landscapes and rituals shaped her narrative.
3. Scotland: ‘Outlander’
Diana Gabaldon’s saga entwines historical fiction with time-travel romance, and Scotland is as much a character as Claire or Jamie. Fans flock to Kinloch Rannoch, near where the show filmed its fictional standing stones, and then on to real sites like the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis. Culloden Battlefield near Inverness anchors the Jacobite storyline, while Doune Castle in Perthshire stands in for Castle Leoch on screen. The Highlands’s brooding skies, lochs and glens make clear why Gabaldon chose them for her sweeping tale. Outlander has drawn so many readers and viewers that Scotland now promotes literary tours, though the stones themselves remain unmarked and mercifully free of signage.
4. London, England: ‘Bridgerton’
Julia Quinn’s novels and the Netflix adaptation revived interest in London’s Regency past. The Bridgerton family home is represented by Ranger’s House in Greenwich, a red-brick Georgian mansion now run by English Heritage. Social life unfolds around Grosvenor Square, then the centre of aristocratic Mayfair. Beyond the capital, the production draws heavily on Bath, whose elegant crescents and the Holburne Museum stood in for ballrooms and promenades, while Castle Howard in Yorkshire doubled for aristocratic estates. Bridgerton is a fantasy, but its appeal lies in the way real architecture and gardens provide a credible stage for intrigue and romance.
5. South Carolina, United States: ‘The Notebook’
Nicholas Sparks set his story in North Carolina, but the film adaptation shifted south to Charleston, where locations have since become fan sites. Allie’s summer house exterior was shot at Boone Hall Plantation, one of America’s oldest working estates. The couple’s first date took place at the American Theater on King Street, now a popular event space, and the iconic rowboat scene was filmed at Cypress Gardens, a blackwater swamp lined with cypress trees and Spanish moss. Charleston itself, with its cobblestoned lanes and antebellum mansions, provides a romantic backdrop even apart from the film.
6. Bordighera, Italy: ‘Call Me By Your Name’
André Aciman has said the novel’s events take place in Bordighera, a small Ligurian Riviera town where writers such as Edmondo De Amicis and George MacDonald once stayed. Its palm-lined seafront promenade, English Library and hillside villas capture the languid Riviera atmosphere of the 1980s setting. The film shifted inland to Lombardy, but Aciman’s text places Elio and Oliver firmly by the sea, with Menton and the French border only a short train ride away. Bordighera is quieter than neighbouring Sanremo, which means visitors can still find the slow pace and summer light that underpin the novel’s sense of fleeting desire.
Love stories may lure you to a villa, a moor or a seafront promenade, but the real test is what you notice once you arrive. Romance novels can point the way, yet they cannot tell you how the espresso tastes in Cortona or how damp the Highland air feels before rain. That part is yours. The trick is to let romance novels spark the journey, then close the cover and pay attention to the life unfolding around you. After all, the most enduring plots are the ones you stumble into yourself.
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Chonx Tibajia is a senior editor at Tatler Asia’s T-Labs team, where she writes widely on lifestyle subjects including beauty, style, entertainment and travel. She has a long career in journalism, including roles as a columnist at The Philippine Star, and is the founder of the creative platform Pineappleversed. Beyond Tatler, her bylines appear in regional lifestyle and business publications, showcasing a broad portfolio that spans beauty trends, travel guides and culture pieces.
