If you're shopping for furniture this spring, remember to take your passport.

You'll come home with dozens of travel stamps, because the latest home furnishings have a definite international flair. Designers took their inspiration from Provencale farmhouses, English antiques shops, Basque villages to California's coastal communities and New York's upstate country estates. The result is a blending of styles, materials and textures.

Jackie Hirschhaut, vice president of the American Home Furnishings Alliance believes there is "something for everyone's taste and budget … and consumers will love the way these new collections and individual pieces add a new dimension to their interiors."

"People want something to remember an experience," said Jerry Epperson, a furniture industry analyst with Richmond, Va.-based investment banker Mann, Armistead and Epperson. "In this case, the souvenir just may be your entire living room."

Two new furniture collections by Magnussen Home Furnishings Inc. draw inspiration from the 1890s French Renaissance-style Biltmore Estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina that has become a popular tourist destination, giving homeowners a chance to channel their inner George and Edith Vanderbilt.

While most people associate the Biltmore name with the 250-room mansion that is the main attraction at the Vanderbilt estate, Magnussen Home's two new lines "explore the less formal aspects" of the Vanderbilt lifestyle, Magnussen president and chief executive Jeff Cook said.

"You learn quite fast that the taste level, that level of opulence - we don't live like that today," he said.

In Sevenoaks, a 25-piece collection inspired by George Vanderbilt's Buckspring Hunting Lodge, a burnished sable rub (think milk chocolate brown) on flaky oak and walnut burls creates a warm, relaxed, inviting feel.

Orchard House, a 21-piece collection, has a little more casual look. Inspired by the cottages on the estate's working farm, a chamois polish the color of soft, yellow butter overlays worn edges and light distressing.

While celebrity-branded furniture lines were all the rage earlier this decade, the trend is now toward pieces that evoke everyday destinations.

"There are fewer celebrity collections for sure," said Mary Frye, president of the Home Furnishings International Association, a Dallas-based trade group. "It's not that the celebrity thing has gone away, there's still the strong pull of style-getters. It's just not the focus."

Collections from Hammary Furniture, a division of La-Z-Boy Inc., evoke a sense of the French countryside in a collection featuring birch solids and veneers in a satin black finish with eye-catching accents of woven cane, while Crescent Fine Furnitures bases their collection on 19th century English antiques found on estates of Lincolnshire County in England. "Regent's Park" includes book-matched cathedral cherry with walnut and mappa burl inlay in a hand-rubbed antique finish.

Spanish influence is felt in the Casa Cristina line of home furnishings from Pulaski Furniture. "Cantabria" includes 60 pieces of bedroom, dining room and occasional pieces with metal and stone accents, infused with motifs from the Basque Region of Spain.

"To create this authentic collection, we immersed ourselves in the Basque region, touring towns and scouring reclamation yards to discover more about the history and lives of the people and their culture," explains Jim Kelly, executive vice president at Pulaski.

Trendy vibes and urban sensibilities are captured in "Yaletown" by Bassett Furniture. Inspired by its namesake harbor community in Vancouver, the collection mixes contemporary profiles with Asian influences to convey balance and harmony. Crafted in burl and cherry veneers in a warm, coffee finish, it also has accents of geometric hardware in a copper finish.

Other collections coming to retailers:

- "Katonah" by Martha Stewart Signature by Bernhardt, based on Stewart's newest residence, a restored 1925 farmhouse and stable in upstate New York.

- Outdoorsman/artist Dick Idol and Klaussner Furniture's "Canyon Road" Southwestern-inspired collection

- Classic styles, including delicated fluting and tapered posts, in Kincaid furnishings and Cheshire Collection for Laura Ashley Home.

- Pennsylvania House "Clairemont Heights" collection, crafted from knotty cherry veneers and select hardwoods.

- Century Furniture's "New Traditional Collection," aimed at baby boomers.

- Island Plantation, a new bedroom collection from Furniture Brands International's Drexel Heritage, evoking all the dreamy romanticism of a tropical getaway.

- Carmel Highlands, Bernhardt Furniture Co.'s nod to the central California coast near Monterey.