The town of Forks, Washington (population 3,120) was a small town still struggling from the collapse of the timber industry until thousands of Twilight fans started making a pilgrimage there. When author Stephanie Meyer decided to set her books in Forks, no one could have anticipated that the four books would sell over 100 million copies, or that the movies would gross over a billion dollars.

In Twilight, the young vampires choose Forks because of its cloudy climate and remote location. Meyers chose the neighboring Quileute Tribal Reservation in La Push as the home of her werewolf characters as the the tribe believes to have descended from wolves. The settings in Twilight are extremely important to the story, which is what drew over 70,000 tourists in 2009 (the Forks Chamber of Commerce expects to have well over 100,000 in 2010), and the residents of Forks are (for the most part) happy to oblige the visitors with Twilight-themed rooms at motels, gift shops, tours, and of course, merchandise.