Visiting Mystic Falls From The Vampire Diaries and Staying Where They Filmed! + Travel Psychology

Can you stay where they filmed The Vampire Diaries flashback scenes? Yes, you can! I am possibly the biggest Vampire Diaries fan in existence and I crossed off one of the top things of all time from my bucket list - visiting Mystic Falls from The Vampire Diaries! (a.k.a. Covington, Georgia). I have now visited a few times and crossed off many Vampire Diaries-related things off of my bucket list. The first part of this blog post will be all about my visit and a little tour around town! At the end of this post, I will discuss the personality needs that may be involved in the love of travel, what is part of the process of forming our personality needs, and, finally, what attachment style is most likely to be a fan of travel?

My first trip to Covington, Georgia was actually my first solo trip anywhere so it was even more special, never mind the fact that I was about to be walking around in the famous Mystic Falls and visiting the actual filming locations of The Vampire Diaries!

There was no better choice when it came to where I was going to stay than one of the filming locations - when I found out that you can ACTUALLY STAY WHERE THEY FILMED THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, I HAD to book my stay there. (Hear the fangirl). I stayed at The Twelve Oaks Bed and Breakfast. This is where they filmed the flashback scenes of TVD! I got permission from the owners to make a video tour of The Twelve Oaks which you can find at the end of this blog post!

The Twelve Oaks Bed and Breakfast, where they filmed the flashback scenes of The Vampire Diaries! Flashback scene right here below.

One of the 1864 Flashback Scenes

Another flashback scene in front of The Twelve Oaks!

The Twelve Oaks is an 11,000-sq-ft antebellum mansion, built in 1836, turned bed and breakfast. Staying at The Twelve Oaks Bed and Breakfast was AMAZING. The front will look very familiar to Vampire Diaries fans. This is where the 1864 flashback scene was filmed in which Stefan steps out of his home and Katherine first arrives. Subsequent 1864 flashback scenes in the front of the mansion follow of Katherine, Stefan, and Damon.

Walking in the front door, the room to the left will also look familiar to TVD fans because The Twelve Oaks is also the flashback Lockwood Mansion and this is where the flashback scene of the first Founders' Party was filmed.

When you walk in the door of The Twelve Oaks Bed and Breakfast, this is the room to the left as The Twelve Oaks serves as the flashback Lockwood Mansion in addition to Stefan and Damon's flashback home in TVD!

There are now a few Vampire Diaries-themed rooms at The Twelve Oaks to choose from - Katherine's (Yes, Katherine Pierce) Mirror Image Grand Suite, The Salvatore Brothers Study, and The Brother's Bourbon Quarters (anyone who is not familiar, Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder created the Brother's Bond Distilling Co. I am super excited to try it!) I chose the Katherine's Mirror Image Grand Suite and I fell in love with it!!

My room! The Katherine's Mirror Image Grand Suite

This was the key to my suite!

I was obsessed with the clawfoot tub in my suite and the shower - a rare 1800's rib cage shower!

Beautiful clawfoot tub in my suite

1800s ribcage shower in my suite!

I noticed something was in the products at The Twelve Oaks and I did a double take.....vervain!

Vervain shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotion

The Twelve Oaks has the most amazing homemade breakfasts.

My Southern-style sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast

Pro tip for the people who are NOT early risers staying at The Twelve Oaks: If you miss breakfast, there is a coffee area on the third floor complete with creamer. I would walk up there and make my coffee on some of the days that I stayed there and then I would go drink it on the balcony that overlooked the front where TVD flashbacks were filmed.

See coffee on the railing. Coffee on the balcony overlooking where they filmed The Vampire Diaries flashback scenes!

The backyard of The Twelve Oaks Bed and Breakfast is equally beautiful. And there's a pool!

Pool in the back of The Twelve Oaks! The owner's dog jumped in the shot

Gorgeous backyard of The Twelve Oaks

I had some gorgeous days there. The side of The Twelve Oaks

This was in the display case on the first floor

One of my Vampire Diaries bucket list items was to dine at the Mystic Grill - yes, you can! They literally used the outside of this restaurant for filming any time you see them sitting outside the Mystic Grill. On the show, the inside of the Mystic Grill is all studio, but the inside of the real-life Mystic Grill is made to look somewhat like the one on the show. They also have a chair dedicated to Alaric Saltzman at the bar! The Alley to the side of the Mystic Grill will also look familiar to TVD fans. But by far, my favorite part of my visit to The Mystic Grill was the fact that you can go on the roof and have the best view of the infamous clocktower which was definitely on my Vampire Diaries bucket list! (See below)

Standing in front of the clocktower from The Vampire Diaries!:)

Sitting in Alaric's chair!

The plaque on Alaric's chair

My meal at The Mystic Grill. The is the clocktower burger and it is amazing. It lasted me three meals lol

You can find the clocktower and The Mystic Grill in Covington Square. What other way to get the authentic Mystic Falls experience than taking a nighttime stroll around Covington Square where so many scenes were filmed? So that's what I did one night.

While I was in Mystic Falls, I took one of the local tours for TVD fans. I'm glad I did it, but I think I'm more of a person who loves to go at my own pace, so I think I'll take a self-guided tour in the future. Fellow TVD fans, look out for a post and vlog on that in the future!:) Below is my video tour of The Twelve Oaks Bed and Breakfast:

I wanted to now cover what exactly drives the desire to travel and psychologically what is going on and how does this relate to attachment theory? First, the basics of human needs. The six basic human needs are: 1) Love and connection 2)Growth 3)Significance 4)Contribution 5)Certainty and 6) Uncertainty. This is originally based on the work of Abraham Maslow who said that a lack of certain needs getting met in childhood is one way that a perceived lack can occur and cause a person to fixate on that need getting met, leading to a greater personality need for certain human needs. Our personality needs also form as a result of positive associations. So those are the two bases from which they form. An example of a perceived lack would be if we grew up in a household where we experienced a controlling environment, we might find freedom extra-appealing and this is one thing that travel can greatly fulfill. Solo travel can fulfill a need for autonomy. Travel can fulfill the basic human need of uncertainty which would be NOVELTY. A great need for novelty can arise if an individual has a subconscious comfort zone of novelty. This individual may not, but can, also have a subconscious comfort zone of chaos. Now, people who are familiar with attachment style patterns would notice that so many of these needs and subconscious patterns fall under the FEARFUL AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE. It is very often that fearful avoidants LOVE travel! (Though other attachment styles can obviously love travel as well) You can think of tertiary needs as basically all the many, many ways we get our personality needs met. An example of a tertiary need would be the need to call a friend to fill our ‘Love and Connection’ need. So travel is a tertiary need for some people.

I want to thank you for joining me on my fangirl adventure in Mystic Falls and my discussion on the psychology of travel. I will be doing more on this topic in the future!