One of the coolest parts of getting engrossed in a book or movie: realizing the fiction before you is rooted in reality. These are some examples of real places brought to life through fiction.
The Mark Twain Cave in Hannibal, Missouri, is the real cave where integral plot points of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer take place. The complex offers multiple tours of several caves. While the events of the novel are fiction, the real cave complex seems as intimidating to tourists as they must have been to Tom Sawyer.
If you grew up reading Laura Ingall Wilder’s The Little House on the Prairie, the good news is the homestead where the books take place is available to visit. The Kansas ranch is actually a recreation, but the Ingalls estate in De Smet, South Dakota, is Wilder’s actual home.
Fans of a certain stuffed bear will recognize Hundred Acre Woods anywhere, but the real forest from Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne, is Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England. The forest offers visitors a chance to see the forest where Pooh and his friends would have played — if they were real animals instead of stuffed toys. Visitors can take “Pooh walks” to see the most influential locations in the forest.
Taking a turn to novels and films with more adult themes will land us at the Stanley Hotel, where Stephen King’s The Shining is based. The hotel, located in Estes Park, Colorado, acted as the inspiration behind King’s original novel. The hotel does not offer any explicit The Shining tours, but it does offer a spooky Night Spirit tour, where the guide takes visitors through some dark corners of the hotel.
Moving to the silly, the summer camp where Wet, Hot, American Summer is located in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Camp Towanda is not open to visitors for the film and the entire website only seems to mention the film in a passing blog post. Still, the camp is located in the Pocono Mountains in northeast Pennsylvania.
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