Catalog
Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin's Soviet Holmes and Watson were made when filming abroad was impossible, so a Riga lane became Baker Street, a Petersburg station became Victoria and a waterfall in Abkhazia became the Reichenbach Falls. The route follows the Lenfilm television films of 1979 to 1986 from the Riga street with the screen 221b to Peterhof, Saint Petersburg, the Gega Waterfall and Tallinn.
In 1868, at the onset of the Second Industrial Revolution, twin Assassins Jacob and Evie Frye come to a London controlled by the Templars under Crawford Starrick, and set out to take the city back: building their street gang, the Rooks, across an open world of seven Victorian boroughs. Jacob works through Starrick's lieutenants while Evie hunts a Piece of Eden, the Shroud, from St Paul's to the Tower to a vault under Buckingham Palace. This route follows both threads across the capital, then jumps forward: to Whitechapel in 1888, where Evie hunts Jack the Ripper in the expansion, and to Tower Bridge in 1916, where Jacob's granddaughter Lydia clears a German spy nest at Churchill's request. Every stop is a real building or district you can walk to.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland grew out of Oxford: Lewis Carroll wrote it as a Christ Church mathematician for Alice Liddell, the daughter of the college's Dean, and the story began on a boat trip from Folly Bridge to Godstow. The route runs from Christ Church Cathedral, where Carroll met the Liddells in 1856, through Christ Church, the river, the Botanic Garden and the Natural History Museum's dodo to the St Aldate's shop that became the Old Sheep Shop. Most places can still be visited. Links between scenes and places are readings, not Carroll's own statements.
East of Eden is set in California's Salinas Valley, mostly between the start of the twentieth century and the end of World War I, and its places are Salinas, King City and the farmland between them. The 1955 James Dean film moved the story to Monterey on screen but was shot largely in Mendocino, with scenes in Spreckels and the valley. This route follows John Steinbeck's novel through the valley, Kate's town of Salinas and the film's locations, so you can see where the story and the screen version happen.
Thomas Hardy's Wessex is the real Dorset and Wiltshire under invented names: Puddletown becomes Weatherbury, Bere Regis becomes Kingsbere, and Stonehenge keeps its own name in Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The route starts at Hardy's birthplace cottage and his house Max Gate, then follows his novels to the real villages and ancient sites behind them: Puddletown, Maiden Castle, Bere Regis and finally Stonehenge. Hardy himself called Wessex a "partly real, partly dream-country", so some pins mark the area rather than one building.
Top Gun (1986) is set at Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego and was filmed there, in Oceanside, at Kansas City Barbeque and at NAS Fallon in Nevada. This route follows Maverick and Goose from the Miramar flight line to Charlie's house in Oceanside, the piano bar where they sing "Great Balls of Fire", the Nevada skies of the dogfights and North Island, where the sequel Top Gun: Maverick puts its school. Miramar, Fallon and North Island are active military bases.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) was filmed at Cobstone Windmill near Turville in Buckinghamshire, at Cap Taillat in the South of France, in Rothenburg ob der Tauber and at Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. The route follows the film from the Potts family's windmill home to the beach picnic, then on Caractacus's story to Vulgaria, with the castle of Baron Bomburst as the finale. Several pins are approximate because the guides name an area, not a spot.
The Silence of the Lambs is set in Virginia, Baltimore and Memphis but was filmed largely in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with the FBI Academy at Quantico, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall as real stops. This route follows Clarice Starling from her FBI training to Lecter's cell and the hunt for Buffalo Bill. Two sites are private or gone, so the map marks them with a caveat.
Jack the Ripper's Whitechapel murders of 1888 happened along a few Whitechapel and Spitalfields streets: Durward Street (then Buck's Row), Hanbury Street, Berner Street, Mitre Square and Miller's Court in Spitalfields. Five killings are generally attributed to the unidentified murderer. This route follows the canonical victims in date order, with the Goulston Street graffito and the Ten Bells pub. Some sites are gone or renamed, and Miller's Court has no pin.
The Iwakura Mission was a Japanese embassy that sailed from Yokohama in 1871 and travelled through San Francisco, Liverpool, Sheffield and Windsor Castle on a two-year tour of the West. From 1871 to 1873, about 50 government officials of the newly established Meiji government studied the political, military, economic and educational institutions of the United States and Europe. This route follows the British leg in detail: a textile mill near Bradford, a country house in Sheffield, Chatsworth, and an audience with Queen Victoria. The Yokohama, San Francisco and Liverpool pins mark the port or station area, not an exact landing spot.
Golden Kamuy is set in Hokkaido after the Russo-Japanese War, and its gold hunt runs through Otaru, Yūbari, Kushiro Marsh, Abashiri Prison and Sapporo. Veteran Saichi Sugimoto and the Ainu girl Asirpa chase convicts tattooed with a map to hidden gold. This route follows the manga's trail across real Hokkaido places, from the port of Otaru to the prison at Abashiri. The manga names towns and landmarks, not exact spots, so most pins are approximate.
Edgar Wright's Cornetto films were shot on location: Shaun of the Dead in Crouch End, North Finchley and a New Cross pub, Hot Fuzz in Wells and Mill Hill, and The World's End in Letchworth Garden City. This route follows the three films in release order, from a zombie-struck North London to a Somerset village that hides murderers and a Hertfordshire pub crawl where the locals turn out to be androids. The stops mix filming locations with the scenes shot there.
Bridget Jones's Diary is set and filmed around Borough Market in south London, with Shad Thames, the Royal Courts of Justice and Cornhill on the way. The film moves Bridget from Holland Park to a flat above the Globe pub, where the story begins. This route follows the film's story through eight London and country locations: the book launch at the ICA, the first date at Shad Thames, the mini-break at Stoke Park, the anniversary party at Syon House and the snowy finale. The film was shot over six weeks in and around London in 2000.
The Handmaid's Tale was filmed in Toronto, Hamilton and Cambridge, Ontario: the Waterford house, the hanging wall at Mill Race Park and the Royal York's Jezebel's stand in for Gilead and Boston. The route follows the first season in order: the Waterford house, the Red Center, June's flashback at Ripley's Aquarium, the wall, the Main Street Bridge, the Grand Café, the Lower Bay subway, the handmaids lined up at LIUNA Station and the banquet at the Royal York.
Practical Magic was filmed in Coupeville on Whidbey Island, Washington — a Victorian-era port on Penn Cove painted white for the film's island town — while the Owens house was built on a bluff on San Juan Island. The storefronts of Front Street doubled as the film's Maria's Island, and most have since returned to their original colours. The route opens with Maria's 17th-century curse near Kanaka Bay, follows Sally's shop and the Catch and Fry along Front Street, detours to the Tujunga pool party where Gillian meets Jimmy Angelov and to the Anacortes refinery where the rescue goes wrong, then returns for Gary Hallet's lodgings, the wharf and the bluff where the Owens house stood.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was filmed around Austin in the summer of 1973, and its main sites can still be visited: Bagdad Cemetery in Leander, the Last Chance Gas Station in Bastrop, and the Quick Hill farmhouse, now Hooper's restaurant in Kingsland. This route follows the film from the grave-robbing opening to Sally's escape on a Round Rock road, then ends inside the house where Leatherface's family sat down to dinner. Tobe Hooper shot the $140,000 film on 16mm over 13 days, using a real farmhouse, a working gas station and a country cemetery instead of sets. Temperatures reached 110°F during the shoot.
Outer Banks is set on the fictional Kildare Island in North Carolina, but the first season was filmed around Charleston, South Carolina: Shem Creek, Lowndes Grove, Hunting Island and Secessionville stand in for the Cut, Figure Eight and the Pogues' harbor. This route follows Season 1 from John B's Chateau and the Boneyard brawl to Tannyhill, the Redfield Lighthouse, Kiara's restaurant and the church bell tower where the story turns. Most stops are public waterfront, park or restaurant; the two houses are not open as regular attractions.
The Goonies is set in Astoria, Oregon, where the Walsh family's foreclosure sends Mikey and Data into the attic and out to Cannon Beach. The film used the old Clatsop County Jail, the Flavel House, the real house at 368 38th Street, Ecola State Park, Haystack Rock and Goat Rock Beach in California. This route follows the Goonies from the jailbreak through the Goon Docks, the museum, the bike ride to Ecola, the Fratelli hideout and the underground ship to the final beach.
Two Dickens novels, one city of thieves' dens, prisons and cramped lodgings. Oliver Twist is dragged into Fagin's gang in the lanes of Holborn, while Pip of Great Expectations arrives from the Kent marshes expecting a soft white city and finds filth. The route follows Oliver and Nancy from Saffron Hill to London Bridge, Jacob's Island and Newgate, then Pip from Cooling churchyard through Rochester to Little Britain and Barnard's Inn. Several places are traditional models rather than named settings, and each pin says so.
Charlotte and Emily Brontë grew up in a parsonage on the edge of the Pennine moors, and the landscape of both novels still runs through the places they knew: a harsh school, a house with a famous library, a ruined farm on the heights. The route starts at the Haworth parsonage, goes to the school behind Lowood, then up to the farms said to lie behind Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, and ends in Derbyshire at the hall behind Thornfield. Most identifications are traditional, not proven, and each pin says so.
In 1973 Paul Theroux set out from London Victoria on a four-month railway loop through Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, then came back on the Trans-Siberian Railway. His travelogue, published in 1975, became a classic of the genre. This route follows episodes the book's reviewers single out, from the Direct-Orient Express to Istanbul, Calcutta, Burma, Vietnam and Tokyo. The book's own text could not be checked, so some pins mark a city's station rather than a scene, and some places are not safe to visit now.
Bridgerton is set in London, but most of its streets are in Bath, its parks are in Wiltshire and its family home is in Greenwich. This route follows the filming locations from the Royal Crescent and Lady Danbury's house in Bath, through London and Kent, to the country houses that played Clyvedon and Aubrey Hall in the first two seasons.
L.A. Noire rebuilds Los Angeles in 1947 with fanatical care: the studio mapped the real streets, modelled building interiors on the originals, and filled the map with the city's landmarks. Detective Cole Phelps drives that recreation through traffic, homicide, vice and arson cases, and much of the city he moves through is still standing. This tour follows the real places behind the game's map, from Union Station and Bunker Hill to Wilshire's art deco and the Hollywood movie palaces, then down to the river where the story ends. Every pin marks a real site the game put on its streets.
Forza Horizon 4, released on 2 October 2018, turns Great Britain into one giant racetrack: an open world with condensed representations of Edinburgh, the Scottish Highlands, the Lake District and the Cotswolds, where seasons change every week and Derwentwater freezes hard enough to drive across. Microsoft counted 24 million players by November 2020, and Polygon found the game world a theme-park version of England where everything has "the faint whiff of an idealised 1950s about it, a place of ordered pub gardens and rosebushes". This route drives the real Britain behind the game, north to south: Edinburgh's Old Town, Bamburgh Castle on its coastal crag, three Lake District stops at Derwentwater, Ambleside and Tarn Hows, and the honey-coloured village of Broadway in the Cotswolds. Every stop can be visited today.