What if you could leave the page behind and walk straight into the world of your favorite Gothic novel?
The Gothic has always been about place — lonely castles, mist-shrouded moors, crumbling estates perched on the edge of the world. These settings aren’t just backdrops; they’re living presences that shape every secret, obsession, and unraveling.
Here at Eerie Escapes, we’ve paired twelve classic and modern Gothic novels with real-world travel experiences — places that capture the same atmosphere of romance, ruin, and dread. In some cases, these destinations are the very settings from the stories; in others, they’re inspired by the worlds those tales conjure.
Light your lantern — and come along. Our first stop takes us high into the Italian Alps, where one of the earliest Gothic heroines found herself lost among secrets and shadows.
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1. The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe → The Dolomites, Italy
A remote castle high in the Italian Alps. A young woman surrounded by secrets and superstition. Radcliffe’s Udolpho defined the Gothic landscape — a vision of sublime terror framed by endless mountain air.
Travel pairing: Wander the Dolomites’ misty villages in South Tyrol, where ruined castles cling to cliffs and pine forests dissolve into fog. Stay in a centuries-old inn, drive the winding passes of Val Gardena, and tour medieval fortresses like Castel Tirolo or Runkelstein. End your day over mulled wine as the bells echo from distant peaks.
2. Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno-Garcia → Hidalgo, Mexico
A decaying mansion, a glittering social façade, and secrets thriving like spores beneath the surface. Moreno-Garcia reimagines the Gothic with lush, poisonous beauty.
Travel pairing: Explore Hidalgo’s mountain towns such as Real del Monte and Mineral del Chico, where silver mines and English cemeteries speak to Mexico’s layered colonial past. Stay in a 19th-century hacienda turned boutique hotel, visit misty forests in El Chico National Park, and savor local pulque under flickering lanterns.
3. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley → Lake Geneva, Switzerland
Lightning, mountains, and the birth of creation itself. Shelley’s masterpiece is a Gothic born of nature’s extremes and human ambition.
Travel pairing: Trace the “Year Without a Summer” of 1816, when a distant volcanic eruption dimmed the skies of Europe, turning day to twilight and summer to storm. That strange, sunless season trapped Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron inside a villa overlooking Lake Geneva — where, by candlelight, Frankenstein was born. Visit the Villa Diodati, explore the Musée Bodmer, and watch thunderheads roll over Mont Blanc from the lakeshore promenade in Vevey. End your evening on a terrace above the water, as lightning cracks like inspiration itself.
4. The Boatman’s Daughter – Andy Davidson → The Bayous of Arkansas
A Southern Gothic fairytale of witches, violence, and myth tangled in river mist. Davidson’s world hums with dark folklore and swamp magic.
Travel pairing: Follow the Great River Road through the Arkansas Delta. Kayak quiet backwaters draped in Spanish moss, tour small river towns like Helena or Lake Village, and listen to live blues on a humid night. As the sun sets over the Mississippi River levee, the world feels suspended between folklore and dream.
5. Catherine House – Elisabeth Thomas → Rural Pennsylvania
A decaying elite college, strange experiments, and a cult-like devotion to knowledge. Thomas’s modern Gothic transforms academia into confinement.
Travel pairing: Explore the small-college towns of central Pennsylvania — Lewisburg, Lock Haven, or Selinsgrove — where ivy-covered buildings and quiet campuses evoke eerie prestige. Stay at the Packer House Inn, once a Bucknell University dormitory, now a historic guesthouse steps from campus. Tour local museums, and take late-night walks along misty rivers that seem to hum with secrets.
6. The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter → The Carpathian Mountains, Eastern Europe
Carter’s lush, feminist retellings of dark fairy tales transform familiar myths into something decadent and dangerous.
Travel pairing: Journey through Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, stopping in Brașov or Sighișoara for their cobbled streets and turreted rooftops. Visit Bran Castle by lantern tour, hike forest trails scented with pine and snow, and enjoy spiced wine as distant wolves echo through the hills.
7. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier → Cornwall, England
Few fictional houses haunt the imagination like Manderley — grand, secretive, and forever haunted by memory.
Travel pairing: Base yourself in Fowey or Bodinnick, du Maurier’s beloved Cornish retreats. Hike the South West Coast Path above gray-green seas, visit Menabilly — the real-life inspiration for Manderley — and explore Tintagel’s dramatic ruins at sunset. Stop at a seaside inn for fish pie and ale while the Atlantic wind rattles the windows.
8. The Thirteenth Tale – Diane Setterfield → North Yorkshire, England
A biographer, a reclusive author, and a mansion layered with secrets. Setterfield’s novel is a love letter to Gothic storytelling itself.
Travel pairing: Tour the stately homes of Yorkshire — Castle Howard’s marble halls, Nunnington Hall’s portrait galleries, or Burton Agnes’s antique libraries. Visit rare bookshops in York, sip tea in panelled rooms, and watch fog settle over manicured gardens that seem to whisper unfinished tales.
9. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë → West Yorkshire Moors, England
A story of obsession, fury, and the wildness of love. Brontë’s world is as feral as its moors — bleak, beautiful, and timeless.
Travel pairing: Wander the moorlands around Haworth in West Yorkshire, long known as Brontë Country. Hike the windswept trails to Top Withens, a farmhouse ruin often linked to Wuthering Heights’ setting, and visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where Emily wrote her masterpiece. Stay in a stone inn overlooking the valley, and listen to the wind rattle across the heather — it’s as close to Cathy and Heathcliff’s world as you can get.
10. The Death of Jane Lawrence – Caitlin Starling → Cambridgeshire, England
A pragmatic woman, a brilliant surgeon, and a marriage founded on logic — until the walls begin to whisper. Starling’s novel fuses science and superstition in pure Gothic tradition.
Travel pairing: Stay in a Georgian manor hotel near Ely or Cambridge, such as Anstey Hall, a stately 17th-century residence where you’re sure to feel the weight of history. Visit Cambridge University’s historic anatomy theaters and Museum of Pathology, then drive the misty fenlands at twilight — where the landscape feels as still as held breath.
11. The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole → Apulia, Italy
The original Gothic — cursed lineage, locked chambers, and collapsing stone. Walpole’s feverish imagination began the tradition of beauty touched by terror.
Travel pairing: Visit the Castello Aragonese di Otranto, the seaside fortress that inspired Horace Walpole’s imagination, and the ornate Castel del Monte, both perched above limestone cliffs and turquoise water. Walk medieval lanes scented with olive oil and sea salt, step inside the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Annunziata to see its haunting mosaic floor and Chapel of the Martyrs, and dine al fresco beneath fortification walls glowing gold in the evening light.
12. We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson → Bennington, Vermont
Isolation, ritual, and the slow rot of respectability. Jackson’s strange, claustrophobic tale captures the Gothic spirit without a single ghost.
Travel pairing: Wander Bennington’s historic district with its white-steepled churches and weathered homes. Visit Jackson’s own residence on Prospect Street, explore antique shops and cafés tucked into old mill buildings, and hike the surrounding forests when the leaves burn crimson in fall. There’s beauty here — and a whisper of something slightly off.
Final Stop
From the Alps to the bayous, from candlelit libraries to storm-beaten coasts, Gothic fiction reminds us that atmosphere is everything. These places aren’t just settings; they’re invitations — to cross from comfort into mystery, from reason into wonder.
Pack your bag. Light your candle. See where the story takes you.
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love Eerie Escapes — the book that inspired it all. Learn more here.