Where Jane Reigns: England Celebrates Jane Austen in 2025

The author of widely adored novels (including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma) — Austen is one of England's most famous writers. She played an outsize role in the evolution of England's social norms by featuring strong, independent heroines whose views often mirrored her own. Though set in Regency-era England, her books' brilliant blend of realism, romance, and memorable characters still resonate with readers today. Pride and Prejudice alone has inspired more than 10 film and TV adaptations, not to mention countless reinterpretations, from Bridget Jones's Diary to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Bath is the mecca for Austen devotees, with various "Austen Points" scattered across town and multiple initiatives dedicated to the city's most famous former resident. (Austen lived in Bath for five tumultuous-yet-foundational years around 1800 and set two of her novels there.) A big hit with Austen fans in Bath is the Jane Austen Center, which contains no historical artifacts but offers visitors the chance to try on period costumes, play parlor games the author enjoyed, and even go all-out by taking "Mr. Darcy's Afternoon Tea." The center also organizes Bath's annual Jane Austen Festival, which unfolds genteelly every fall with costumed promenades and parties.

Beyond Bath, a trio of sites in southern England's Hampshire — the Jane Austen House in Chawton, the village of Steventon, and Winchester Cathedral — are the other main ports of call for Austen die-hards. Located about 1.5 hours southwest of London (on the way to Southampton), and each a 30-minute drive from one another, this triangle of pilgrimage sites can easily be visited in a day.

The best is probably the Jane Austen House, the building where she lived her final years (and where she wrote most of her novels). The house sports a good collection of artifacts — personal letters, first editions of her books, and her (very small) writing table.

Steventon, Austen's birthplace, doesn't offer visitors much beyond her childhood church. But nearby is Winchester, where Austen lived her very last weeks (and died). You can see the the exterior of her house there, at No. 8 College Street. Winchester Cathedral, meanwhile, is worth a visit regardless of its Austen ties: It's the longest medieval cathedral in the world, boasts perfectly preserved Gothic architecture, and is never crowded. The cathedral is home to her grave, and also honors the author with numerous plaques, a life-size statue, and an impressive memorial stained-glass window.

Far from Austen's native Hampshire is Chatsworth House, a regal estate in the Midlands, near Nottingham, that was supposedly Austen's inspiration for Mr. Darcy's Pemberley mansion in Pride and Prejudice (and was the location used for the 2005 film adaptation starring Keira Knightley).