Travel Services and Guided Tours for Nerds Who Want to Learn When They Travel
About Us
Nerds Tour was created to be a boutique travel company for nerds who want to learn while they travel. We are a full-service travel company, as well as a tour leader. We have created a set of scheduled tours around the literary and theatrical arts. Check out Our Tours for more information. Schedule a Chat to discuss your travel needs and Nerds Tour can help create your dream vacation.
Nerds Tour offers literary nerd expert-lead tours that take you to where the authors and their geography intersect - the settings of the books, the places where writers lived, the adaptation film sites. Together our small group of lit nerds will spend our days tracing the steps of our favorite characters and engaging ourselves in the world in which the stories occur. At the end of each day, we will return to a shared historic space where we can immerse ourselves in conversations or contemplation. Check out the Our Tours Page
We also offer expert consulting on any nerd travel that you want to take. Certified travel consultants will help you design and implement the nerd tour of your dreams, including small group tours, housing, transportation, as much or as little as you need. Check out the Travel Services Page.
As an active nerd, I spend at least half of my travel time chasing after artists - where they lived, worked, loved, and died. I nod and smile at the fellow nerds I see trapped inside other tours. I’ve been part of and seen so many large tour groups spilling out of big buses from sterile hotel rooms to traipse after tour guides on megaphones. I decided that wasn’t for me. I wanted to stay in places as old as the fiction I read. I wanted to travel and live with no more than a dozen people who are as interested in literature and film adaptation as I am. When I wasn’t able to find that experience anywhere, I used my background in literature and theatre and created it myself.
An important component of the travel I want to create is that we are all in this together. Nerds often have a hard time being a part of large tour groups that are designed around general interest. There’s never enough time or enough information to feed our brains. Nerds Tour specializes so that we can spend time focusing on single topics (individual writers or cities) or small topics (romanticism in England) so that we can all learn together and teach each other.
Our Mission: Nerds Tour is a boutique literary tourism company that creates and delivers tours to places that engage small communities of nerd travellers who want to learn when they travel. We embrace the title of “Nerd” and are unapologetic about our active pursuit of knowledge in travel.
Joan Weber
Founder & Head Nerd
Thank you for considering to support our work. Your donation today will help us get the company off the ground and to plan more tours in the future. All donations will receive a little swag of thanks; look out for an email after donating and some snail mail after that.
Guided Tours
Immersive -
We host our groups in inns and B&Bs that are in the time frame of the writer that we’re exploring.
We visit the places they lived, worked, loved, and died to connect the writer and the place.
We spend time together as a group to make these connections in conversation.
Inspiring -
Nerds Tour was founded on the principle that being in the space occupied by artists is, in and of itself, inspiring. To imagine them interacting with the same things we do inspires us to imagine them as humans.
Our small group model allows for inspiring conversations between people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives.
We hope that the tours inspire our guests to seek out more adventures for themselves and to follow a path of life-long learning.
Interactive -
Our tours are designed for no more than 12 people each week. This small group approach allows us to become a kind of ensemble, theatre-speak for a group that works together to meet its goals.
We share a space and many of our meals together. These tours are designed for people who are open to this idea. It’s perfect for introverts who function best in small groups and for extroverts who are excited to meet new people.
We invite guest experts to visit and join us for food and conversation.
Tours Now In Development:
Literary Dublin - In September, 2025, we will launch our Literary Dublin tour to walk in the footsteps of great novelists, poets, and playwrights. We’ll grabble with the relationship between England and Ireland, and explore the architecture and history of the Easter Rising that started Ireland’s path to freedom. This tour will include at least one creative writing workshop at the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin. We will also explore the natural beauty surrounding Dublin, including Glendalough and Bray. Registration will begin on September 29, 2024.
The North of Ireland - In July 2025, we will launch of tour in the North of Ireland that will culminate in full participation in the John Hewitt Summer School in Armagh. The history of the North from Belfast to Derry spans millennia and seems to have involved conflict at every stage. We’ll explore the peace wall and the history of the Troubles in Belfast, visit a Norman castle in Carrickfergus, explore the natural wonder of the Giants Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede bridge. We’ll travel to Derry and drive through Donegal before heading back through the Glens on our way to the ancient city of Armagh, home to St. Patrick. The John Hewitt International Summer School of Literature, Politics, and the Arts provides opportunities to explore issues of difference, identity and tolerance through literature and creative writing, platforms for debate and discussion on the key political and cultural issues of the day. Participants will have full access to all of the programming and evening events. Students will pursue their own writing at the Summer School with writing workshops through the week. Registration will begin on September 29, 2024.
Art and Architecture Tours beginning in Florence - Visit the jewel of the Renaissance and experience an in-depth tour of its history through its art and architecture. We will schedule this tour for the off-season so that we can experience the beauty of the city without the throngs of people during high season. It is possible that we’ll have a day-long tour of the surrounding Tuscan countryside with a tour (and tasting) at a vineyard. That is all being worked out now. Schedule a chat to learn about this tour before it goes public!
Group Travel
Nerds Tour is here to help your group of 10 or more travelers put together a trip that you can all agree on. We specialize in family trips, special interest groups, church groups, schools groups, etc. Enjoy the company of your friends as you travel the world. We can help you get groups rates and special discounts for flights, hotels, cruises, excursions, tours, etc. And, we know the best ways to travel as a group. Let us help take away the stress of planning your next group trip.
