In a world where we spend our days scrolling through screens, turning the pages of a paper book has become a small luxury once more. It’s no surprise, then, that among the strongest travel trends right now there is the book-vacation: heading to a city where reading is part of daily life, among historic bookstores to lose yourself for hours, literary cafés once frequented by poets and writers, and corners where no one will look at you oddly if you spend an entire afternoon with your nose buried in the pages.
The right occasion for such a getaway comes with the new Ryanair promotion: flights starting from as little as 16.99 euros per leg, to be booked by October 28, 2026 to travel from November 1 to December 17, 2026. The timing is perfect, when the days grow shorter and we would all need a good book (and a steaming mug in hand).
From Genoa to London
London is an open-air library and in December it takes on a distinctly Dickensian charm. After arriving on a flight from Genoa starting at 14.99 euros, you can begin your journey right at the Charles Dickens Museum, the only London home of the writer that has survived to this day, where he wrote Oliver Twist.
Then make your way to King’s Cross, where the British Library houses treasures such as the Magna Carta and Shakespeare’s First Folio. A short stroll away, along the Regent’s Canal, awaits Word on the Water, a floating bookstore set on a century-old Dutch barge, with a wood-burning stove lit. Also treat yourself to a visit to Daunt Books, an Edwardian gallery with books organized by country, and finish the day with a cocktail among the shelves at one of the city’s library bars.
From Milan Malpensa to Kraków
UNESCO City of Literature and home to two Nobel Prize winners, Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz, Kraków can be reached from Milan Malpensa starting from 16.99 euros. The ideal starting point for your itinerary could be Planty, the green ring that surrounds the historic center, where more than a hundred benches bear the names of writers and poets linked to the city.
From here, follow Szymborska’s footsteps to the Collegium Maius, where legend says that Doctor Faust roamed, and stroll along Bracka Street, with poems painted on the walls. Between books, stop at historic cafés like Jama Michalika or Piwnica Pod Baranami, and look for a used copy at Massolit, the American bookstore with a café just outside the center. If you depart in late November, the bonus is the Christmas market in the Market Square, with lights, mulled wine and the inevitable smoked oscypek.
From Milan Bergamo to Rabat
Not all journeys among books have to rhyme with rain, blankets and a gray sky. In Rabat you read in the sun: even in November the days are mild, with temperatures often approaching 20 degrees. The capital of Morocco, reachable from Milan Bergamo from 19.99 euros, is the UNESCO World Book Capital 2026, a recognition that is easy to feel in the Medina and along Rue des Consuls, among traditional bookstores, workshops of Arabic calligraphy and antique stalls.
Search for Mohammed Aziz’s desk, one of the city’s most veteran booksellers: he has read thousands of the used volumes he sells, so don’t hesitate to ask him for a recommendation. After the National Library, a vault of a thousand years of Arab and Moroccan heritage, treat yourself to a stop at Café des Oudayas, with mint tea and cornes de gazelle and a view of the Bou Regreg river.
