Tuesday 07 July 2026 5:54 am
| Updated:
Monday 06 July 2026 6:11 pm
Amid a boom in literary travel, a book-themed hotel has opened in Kensington. Anna Moloney checks in…The comeback of the century – it’s books! From Booktok to romantasy, Gen Z are gaga about reading, so much so it’s even shaping the offline world. Case in point: literary travel – that is trips either inspired by particular books or authors, or indeed holidays literally centred around a good place to read – is booming, with ‘bookbound’ travel even named as one of Skyscanner’s key 2026 travel trends. Which made The Kensington Hideaway, a new “literary-inspired” hotel in bougie West London, an enticing proposition. Unfortunately, upon checking in, it soon became clear The Kensington Hideaway is a perfectly nice hotel with a bad marketing gimmick. Located on Kensington High Street, the Hideaway claims to have been inspired by the area’s own literary heritage. This includes the likes of Agatha Christie, who lived in Kensington in the 1930s, along with P.L. Travers, William Makepeace Thackeray and T.S. Eliot, the latter who spent his final years in the area. “These celebrated authors, each closely tied to Kensington, have inspired the hotel’s distinctive character – weaving literary heritage into every detail of the Hideaway experience,” so the hotel claims. Ha.In practice, this means in the lift you will be beamed upon by a cycle of AI-generated images of said authors. Even more bizarrely, Agatha Christie and William Thackeray’s share a body and hairline, only the expression gently shifting.
