6. BarbadosÂ
In contrast with the peripatetic Poirot, who Christie dispatched through the Middle East and Europe, Miss Marple only travelled outside Britain once. A Caribbean Mystery was set on the fictional island of St Honore, inspired by Christie’s 1956 trip to Barbados.
The author stayed at the Coral Reef Club, which she later fictionalised as Miss Marple’s Golden Palms Resort. Today, the family-run property still retains the atmosphere of a classic English country house transplanted to the tropics.
Visitors can surf in Freights Bay or the Soup Bowl, as the surf-loving Christie might have done, relax on the island’s beach a la Miss Marple or enjoy rum punches at local spots like the Gazebo Experience or the Sipping Room.
Alamy7. Petra, Jordan
Long before Petra became famous as a filming location for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Christie used it as a setting for murder. Her novel Appointment with Death was a murder mystery in travelogue form, following a family travelling from Jerusalem to Petra. Jordan’s Rose City is painted in ominous tones, with the Instagram-favourite narrow gorge of Siq becoming a “valley of death”.
Visitors can walk from ancient Al-Khazneh (the Treasury) to the modern Petra Museum to get a sense of the site’s geographical and historical breadth, and trek up to the monastery or the High Place of Sacrifice, as her characters did, for birds-eye views over the ancient city. Don’t miss the lantern-lit event known as Petra by Night that evokes the atmospheric mood Christie captured in her novel.
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