Tourism and Travel in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Abstract

Mobility is a prominent theme in Dracula and this chapter focuses on one aspect of this mobility: tourism. Dracula was written at a time when tourism was a well-established practice in Britain (and a key characteristic of modernity) and consequently, tourism features extensively in the novel. This chapter examines a number of forms of tourism in Dracula: it examines Jonathan Harker’s journey to Transylvania as a form of business tourism; it considers various forms of health/medical tourism (journeys to provide medical assistance to Lucy Westenra); political tourism (the journey to Transylvania to destroy Dracula); and dark tourism (the Harkers’ final journal to Transylvania). The chapter also questions whether it is appropriate to conceptualise Count Dracula’s journey to Britain as a form of tourism.