Going to Europe This Summer? So Are All the Swifties

11.06.2024 - 15:25 / cntraveler.com

A version of this article originally appeared in Glamour.

Chelsea Nicholson had daydreamed about going to France, but before this week she had never left the US. When she describes how her bucket-list trip—a multiday jaunt through Paris with stops in Lyon, Giverny, Versaille, and Normandy—came to fruition, it feels appropriate for her to do so using Taylor Swift lyrics.

“What if I told you none of it was accidental, and that Lyon chose me?” she tells me over email.

Nicholson, who lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has already seen the Eras Tour (in Chicago last June), but as a lifelong Swiftie (she even has a lyric tattooed on her biceps) she was dying to see it again, describing the show as a “life-changing” experience that’s carried her through the last several months.

“When the second leg of her tour was announced, I knew I needed to get that feeling back, so I signed up for all three US locations, as well as Paris and Lyon,” she says. “At the time, signing up for the France shows was more for fun than anything, just to see if I would actually get picked.” After enduring the grueling Ticketmaster debacle that faced fans seeking tickets for the US legs, Nicholson thought her chances were small. But to her surprise, she was able to get tickets for the show in Lyon, a city in France’s Rhône region—smaller than Paris—known as the country’s gastronomic capital. It was the sign she needed to finally take the plunge and book what she calls her Wildest Dreams vacation to celebrate her 40th birthday.

Fine people of Europe—gird your loins and get your “Blank Space” ready. After spending most of 2023 galloping through the US, the American Swifties are now conquering Europe. Like an invading army landing on the continent’s shores, the fandom is rolling from town to town in country after country in a blaze of glitter, friendship bracelets, and red lipstick. Their goal? Following Swift around the globe and catching the Eras Tour, which boasts a newly updated Tortured Poets Department–infused set list for the international Taylor’s Version.

Like Nicholson, some Swifties heading abroad have never left the US before. Some aimed for a certain country to visit when plotting their Eras-cation, and other picked their destination based on whatever show they got tickets for. Parents are bringing their kids on lavish Swiftie-centered European extravaganzas; daughters are bringing their mothers on a bonding trip of a lifetime. One Vanity Fair staffer even tells me she incorporated the show into her honeymoon in Scotland. A Glamour contributor saw the show for the second time in Paris.

The reasons why Swifties are choosing to see the show abroad vary. Many swear that even with the round-trip flights to Europe and the hotel