To those familiar with the ice bucket challenge, planking, the mannequin challenge, sea shanties, and the tide pod challenge, new fads can seem more trepidatious than ever before. As our literary world expands with technology, an exponentially greater number of trends emerge and infiltrate the mainstream. One of these internet crazes is book crawls. How did book crawls start gaining popularity and where can we find one? Read along to learn everything you need to know about these literary pilgrimages.
What Is a Book Crawl? A Complete Guide
If you haven鈥檛 seen advertising for one in your town, it can be hard to understand what a book crawl is in the first place. According to Global Book Crawl, the idea originated from an effort to unite independent bookstores in a worldwide celebration of reading. Essentially, it鈥檚 a bar crawl adapted for literature lovers. Think The World’s End but with fewer zombies, less alcoholism, and substantially more books. Bookstore crawls provide an opportunity for independent bookstores to join their community in celebrating diversity and a love of literature.
Over a predetermined timeline, ranging from a single day to the entire month, patrons are encouraged to visit independent bookstores, explore what makes them unique, make a purchase (or two), and head to the next one. These events can look different depending on the city where they take place. Smaller communities typically showcase a limited number of stores, whereas metropolitan areas often have comprehensive maps listing dozens of shops. No matter where they take place, these community events bring people together to oppose big box stores and online retailers, aiming to keep independent stores open.
History of Bookshop Hopping
Throughout the last decade, bookstores becoming more of a tourist destination have increased in frequency and popularity. Author of Bookstore Tourism: The Book Addict鈥檚 Guide to Planning & Promoting Bookstore Road Trips for Bibliophiles & Other Bookshop Junkies, Larry Portzline, discusses this phenomenon in depth. Larry pioneered bookstore road trips as early as 2003, demonstrating how deeply rooted the concept of creating memorable literary destinations is.
The creation of Independent Bookstore Day in 2014 by the American Booksellers Association became a catalyst for bookstore crawls and community events. Large cities like San Francisco, CA, had their first bookstore and chocolate crawl in 2012, and Austin, TX, had its first organized event in 2017. This led to the creation of the Global Book Crawl, with 17 countries currently involved. Publishers Weekly reports a record high turnout for Independent Bookstore Day 2025, with lit crawls taking place worldwide. As social media continues to bring people together, bookshop hops are becoming increasingly more mainstream.
Types of Book Crawls: From Store Hopping To Reading Races
Many bookstores celebrate on the days surrounding Independent Bookstore Day in April, but there are also plenty of events throughout the year as the tradition gains popularity. These community-run crawls often provide passports to be stamped or cards to be punched, along with a variety of prizes to be won, enticing book lovers to join the festivities. You can get notified through email as the event draws near, follow along on your favorite social media platform for updates, and share with others using your city鈥檚 hashtags.
Underneath store-run events are individual or small group activities where people bring a book to three locations, stay at each location for 20 minutes, and see how many pages they can read by the end of the excursion. These smaller, individually planned events make great date nights, birthday celebrations, and book club outings, among other occasions. Decidedly unique, nobody will forget the memories made at these book crawls.
Virtual crawls gained popularity during the pandemic, as alternative options were needed due to social distancing. Purchases made at a bookstore鈥檚 website during a predetermined time frame gave readers prizes, much like the in-person events of years prior. Stores like Mysterious Galaxy periodically continue to host Q&A sessions with authors via livestream.
Find a Book Crawl Near You
Finding a book crawl might seem like a difficult task, but with its growing popularity, it has become relatively simple. Utilizing sites like Bookshop Crawl UK, which hosts book groups, book swaps, and bookstore crawls nationwide, or Indie Bound, which shows all the independent bookstores located within the United States, is the simplest way to find a location near you. Alternatively, you can open your favorite social media app and search for book crawls to find events that pique your interest.
There鈥檚 a world of possibilities with so many types of bookshop hops available to literary aficionados and book dragons across the globe. If you鈥檙e new to these literary adventures or wish to try a crawl out for the first time, there is a lot to enjoy about going on a bookshop hop. Camaraderie, books, and warm environments await you in your local independent bookstores.
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Find some books for your next book crawl with our Bookstr Team Recommendations bookshelf on Bookshop.org.
