To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

(RLS, “El Dorado” (1878), in Virginibus Puerisque, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Swanston edn,
vol ii [London: Chatto and Windus, 1911], p. 371)

In the Footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson

Stevenson was extraordinarily well-travelled, a lover of sailing on the seas, and of finding new adventures the world over. This section of the RLS Website is devoted to those who also wish to travel and experience what Stevenson experienced. Here you will find pages about where Stevenson visited in Scotland, the rest of the UK, France and elsewhere in Europe, as well as his travels to the USA, Samoa and the South Seas.

You will also find an “in the footsteps of RLS” bibliography – a list of works about Stevenson topography and revisiting places associated with Stevenson. For example, you can find books about following the route RLS took in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879). You can also find books about following the fictional route his character David Balfour followed in Kidnapped (1886).

In addition, you can go to the Lighthouse section, where you can travel in the footsteps of the Stevenson family’s engineering past.

Websites include The Stevenson Way, dedicated to the Kidnapped route; and Sur le Chemin de R. L. Stevenson, promoting the Travels with a Donkey trail.