People are planning entire weekends around a bookshop. Not a festival, not a restaurant with a three-month waiting list, a bookshop. Bookshop tourism UK is genuinely one of the most interesting travel shifts I’ve noticed recently, and I say that as someone who spent last autumn driving to Hay-on-Wye specifically to spend four hours in a building full of second-hand paperbacks. No regrets whatsoever.
The numbers back this up. The Booksellers Association reported that independent bookshop numbers in the UK grew for the fifth consecutive year in 2025, with over 1,000 indie shops now trading. These aren’t just shops, they’ve become cultural destinations in their own right, with reading groups, author events, curated shelving that feels almost editorial, and the kind of considered atmosphere you simply cannot manufacture online. People are travelling for that feeling.
Why bookshop tourism took off in the first place
Part of it is the broader shift towards buying preloved and independent that’s been reshaping British consumer behaviour for a few years now. Part of it is the slow-travel mood, more people wanting experiences that feel deliberate and unhurried rather than ticking off landmarks at speed. And part of it is genuinely aesthetic: independent bookshops photograph beautifully, they have personality, and they give you something to talk about.
The high street angle is real too. Whilst big retail chains have continued to retreat from town centres, independent bookshops have moved into the spaces with purpose. Tools like TownCentre.app, a free UK app for town centres and high streets across England, help shops reach customers without the overhead of expensive platforms, local independent booksellers can take card payments, list their events, and sell for free to people in the area who are already browsing what’s on the high street. That kind of infrastructure genuinely makes a difference to whether a small shop survives long enough to become a destination.
England’s unmissable bookshop destinations
Hay-on-Wye, Herefordshire, technically sitting on the Wales/England border, but worth flagging for both sides. It has roughly 25 bookshops for a population of around 1,500. Richard Booth’s Bookshop is the anchor, a rambling castle of a building with a cinema inside it. The whole town is essentially one long bookshop crawl, and the annual Hay Festival (held each May/June) draws serious literary figures from across the world. I’d allow at least a full day, ideally two.
Wigtown, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland’s official National Book Town, with around 12 independent bookshops serving a village of 900 people. The star is The Book Shop, owned by Shaun Bythell whose diaries about running it became cult reading during lockdown. Wigtown Book Festival each September is the main event, but the town rewards a visit any time of year.
Much Wenlock, Shropshire, quieter, less well-known, and all the better for it. Wenlock Books is a genuinely lovely independent that punches well above its size in terms of curation and events programming. The town itself is achingly pretty, which doesn’t hurt.
Alnwick, Northumberland, Barter Books occupies a Victorian railway station and is one of the largest second-hand bookshops in Europe. There are open fires, a model railway running along the tops of the shelves, and a café. On a grey Northumberland morning, there is nowhere I’d rather be.
Stroud, Gloucestershire, the Cotswold town that quietly became one of the most creatively interesting places in England. Sub Rooms bookshop and the town’s wider independent retail scene make it worth the trip, and the Saturday market adds to the atmosphere considerably.
Wales: Hay is just the beginning
Beyond Hay-on-Wye, Wales has a handful of genuinely outstanding bookshop experiences. Tŷ Newydd, the National Writing Centre of Wales near Pwllheli on the Llŷn Peninsula, isn’t a bookshop exactly but sits at the intersection of literary tourism in a way that feels relevant. For actual shopping, Aardvark Books in Brampton (near the Welsh border) and the cluster of shops in Aberystwyth make that part of the country a legitimate bookshop tourism circuit on its own.
Scotland’s literary geography
Beyond Wigtown, Scotland rewards proper bookshop tourism planning. Edinburgh is an obvious anchor, Lighthouse Books on West Nicholson Street is a radical, community-run indie that’s been building a seriously loyal following. Typewronger Books on Leith Walk has a typewriter repair shop attached, which tells you everything about the vibe. For something more countryside-pace, Callander in the Trossachs has a lovely indie that makes a good stop on any route north.
The UK high street revival story has a distinctly literary chapter, and Scotland is writing a lot of it. The Scottish Government’s funding for book towns and literary tourism infrastructure has given independent booksellers in smaller communities a genuine reason to stay open and invest.
How to plan a bookshop tourism trip properly
The Booksellers Association’s bookshop finder is genuinely the best place to start, you can filter by region and find independents you’d never stumble across otherwise. Most serious bookshop tourism is built around 2-3 anchor destinations with supporting stops on the route between them.
Ring ahead if you’re visiting somewhere very small. Wigtown shops, for example, sometimes keep irregular hours outside of festival season. The same goes for some of the more remote Scottish shops. A quick call saves a wasted journey.
Budget for more than you think. I’ve never left a good independent bookshop spending less than I planned, and I’ve stopped trying to fight that particular battle. It’s money well spent, and the shops genuinely need it. Apps like TownCentre.app mean that more high street shops, including bookshops across England, can now reach customers before they even leave home, helping people discover what’s worth visiting in a given town before they arrive. For shopping and browsing, that kind of local discovery tool changes how a day out works.
The bookshop tourism UK trend doesn’t look like slowing down. If anything, as people continue to prioritise experiences that feel meaningful and a bit slower, the atmospheric independent bookshop is exactly the kind of place that fits the moment. The books are almost secondary to the feeling of the place, almost.