I went to the Shire

By Dante Spado

It wasn’t EXACTLY the Shire, but I did live in a real-life hobbit hole a few days ago. It had a circular door, arched hallways and grass on top of the house. And yes, it made all my nerdy dreams come true. 

I’ve been a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and The Hobbit since eighth grade. That year, in my language arts class, my teacher had our class read J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit. At that point in time, I was familiar with LOTR, but I had never read or seen them. I also had no idea The Hobbit existed, but after reading the first sentence, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” I was hooked.

We weren’t actually required to finish reading the book, but because I loved it so much, I blew through it and started reading The Fellowship of the Ring, the first LOTR book. I went on to read all three books, and it took me the span of a few months because they truly are massive. 

As fate would have it, and potentially by my teacher’s design, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit movie came out just a few months after I finished reading it. I don’t think I had ever been so excited for a movie. I took several of my friends and saw it for my 14th birthday. Much to my surprise, the movie ended when Smaug the dragon opened his eyes. I was flabbergasted. Why end it there?! There was still so much story to tell! 

It was on my way out of the theatre that I learned the book was to be split into three movies. I missed the memo on that one. For the next two years, I saw the second and third Hobbit movies on my birthday, and they’ve always had a special place in my heart. 

So, when my mom told me she found a hobbit house we could rent, I was elated. This particular hole in the ground was located in China Grove, about 30 minutes away from my house in Charlotte. My first thought was that the hobbits must have fallen on some hard times if they moved from the Shire to China Grove of all places. 

So, on Friday after my mom got out of work, my family and I went on a rather unexpected journey to live in a hobbit hole for a night. 

It was EXACTLY how you’d think it would be. The home was built into the side of a hill and the roof was covered in grass. It had a circular door, the trademark feature of all hobbit homes. Inside, the doors were swapped out for arched circular doorways. It was quaint, small, and most important, very hobbity. 

These homes are actually quite difficult to build, so there aren’t many that exist in the world. I always thought I would have to travel to New Zealand and maybe fight off a dragon to see one. Never did I think I could just drive 30 minutes down the road. 

We only had the hobbit home for 20 hours, and we spent a lot of the time out by the fire pit and eating, as hobbits would do. I also spent a fair amount of time admiring the home and grinning from ear to ear. 

Of course, we also watched The Hobbit. And by “we” I mean mostly just me because after five minutes my mom fell asleep (although to her credit she saw it with me in theatres when it came out) and after ten minutes my dad informed me he had no idea what was going on, and went to bed. 

I continued to watch for about an hour, up until the point where Bilbo and the dwarves enter Rivendell. The experience made me nostalgic for the eighth grade when I first fell in love with the books and reignited my passion for wanting to live in the fantasy world of Middle-earth. 

One day I truly do hope to go to New Zealand and see the real hobbit holes and other locations they filmed the movies at, but for now, I’m more than happy to go back and visit the hobbits’ China Grove headquarters. If nothing else, it’s nice to know I just have to travel half an hour away to grab second breakfast.