MONEY CAN’T BUY YOU LOVE, BUT LOVE CAN BUY YOU MONEY

Since the books and the movie, Forks and Twilightmania have become big business.

Over the last year or so, Forks (population 3,120) has morphed into a mecca for Twilighters, or Twihards as they are sometimes called. Visitors to this rainy town, whose main industries are logging and two correctional facilities, have more than tripled for the first eight months of this year, compared with the same period last year, according to the local Chamber of Commerce. Lodging occupancy is up, and local merchants sell little-vampire pacifiers and Bella and Edward action figures.

And a lot of the tourists are grown women:

“Women — traveling in packs, in pairs or on their own — make up a big part of those on the “Twilight” trail. Susan Englin, a retiree from Colbert, Wash., who has read the books seven times and has downloaded the movie to her iPod, was visiting stepchildren in the area recently and couldn’t resist an outing to Forks. “I get caught up in the characters,” she said.

These women are staying in extra-expensive Twilight-themed hotel rooms, reliving Bella and Edward’s first date in the nearby town of Port Angeles, and generally spreading the green on pretty thick for the sparkle of true love always that the series spins. via Cultured Traveler – Fans of ‘Twilight’ Book Series Put Forks, Wash., in the Spotlight – NYTimes.com. (article link)

Twilight and

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