Idaho is a land locked state in the North West of the United States most famous for its mountainous landscape and rural farmland; it is appropriately nicknamed the ‘Potato State’ and the ‘Big Empty’. Its charm lies in its rugged untarnished beauty and the remoteness of its mountainous terrain.

Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Housekeeping is set in the fictional town of Fingerbone, Idaho, based upon Robinson’s home town of Sandpoint, and depicts rural life in the state as well as examining the notion of ‘home’ as a nostalgic or spiritual concept. The novel was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1980 and has been adapted into a movie of the same name.

The protagonist of Tom Spanbauer’s novel The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon lives in the fictional town of Excellent, Idaho. In this novel Spanbauer sardonically reflects upon the lives of Native Americans in a rapidly modernising America. The novel is heavily reflective of Spanbauer’s own upbringing and is told in a series of flashbacks.

Highly emotive, coming-of-age independent film My Own Private Idaho is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV. It is directed by Gus Van Sant and stars River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as best friends who embark on a journey through Idaho to find the formers’ mother.

Idaho is home to rock sensations like The Raiders, led by organist Paul Revere, whose hits ‘Kicks’, ‘Hungary’ and ‘Him Or Me - What's It Gonna Be?’ have been extremely influential upon the rock scene for the last seventy years; in Boise, Idaho and internationally.