From Russia with Love sends James Bond to Istanbul, onto the Orient Express and out to Venice, and it was filmed in the Grand Bazaar, the Basilica Cistern, Hagia Sophia and Sirkeci Terminal. The villains' island base was Pinewood Studios, and the speedboat chase was shot in Scotland.
The route follows the film from SPECTRE's lair through Istanbul's landmarks to the train, the chase in Scotland and the gondola finale. One caveat: the closing shot under the Bridge of Sighs is clearly rear projection.
GoldenEye is set in Arkhangelsk, Monte Carlo, London, St Petersburg and Cuba, but it was shot at the Contra Dam in Switzerland, the Casino de Monte-Carlo, Somerset House in London and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. It was the film in which Brosnan replaced Timothy Dalton as Bond, and it borrowed real landmarks to stand in for the Soviet Union and Cuba.
The route follows the plot: the 1986 bungee jump, the casino and the stolen helicopter, MI6 headquarters, a "St Petersburg" that is partly London, the tank chase, the armoured train and the satellite dish finale. The Arecibo telescope collapsed in 2020, so that last stop is a memory.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is set in Budapest, Moscow, Dubai, Mumbai and Seattle, but its stand-ins are Prague's main station and Prague Castle, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and downtown Vancouver.
This route follows the story from the Budapest station murder to the Kremlin bombing, the Dubai tower and sandstorm, the Mumbai chase and the Seattle finale, and shows where each scene was really shot.
Out of Africa was filmed around Nairobi and the Ngong Hills in Kenya, with the Danish scenes shot at Castle Rising in Norfolk, England. Sydney Pollack's 1985 film, based on Karen Blixen's memoir, uses the Muthaiga Country Club, the coffee farm that is now the Karen Blixen Museum and the Chyulu Hills standing in for the Ngong Hills.
This route follows Blixen's years in Kenya and the places the film made famous: the railway museum whose locomotive pulls the opening train, the club where Farah is turned away, the farm at the foot of the Ngong Hills, the Norfolk castle that plays Denmark, Voi Airport where Denys Finch Hatton's plane went down, and the obelisk grave on the hillside above Nairobi.
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.
First Blood turns Hope, British Columbia into Hope, Washington: Wallace Street is the main street, the 3rd Avenue railway crossing is the motorcycle leap, and the Othello Tunnels stand in for Chapman Gorge. The 1982 film was shot almost entirely in and around the town, with its mountains and canyon doing the work of the story's backcountry.
The route follows John Rambo from the Pitt River cabin where he learns his old army buddy has died, through his arrest and escape in Hope, the manhunt above Coquihalla Canyon, and the National Guard headquarters at Golden Ears Park, ending at the gas station and gunshop of the final showdown. Some stops are exact streets and trails; several were film sets, and the Kawkawa Bridge has been demolished.
Spanish Affair (Ocho apellidos vascos) was filmed in Seville and on the Basque coast, from the Triana bridge to a wedding chapel above the flysch. Rafa, a Seville bartender, follows Amaia north to the fictional town of Argoitia and pretends to be Antxón, the fiancé her father expects.
The stops follow the film from the hen party in Seville to the wedding at San Telmo. Some are exact: Amaia's house is the farmhouse Aspain-Txiki in Leitza, and the chapel is the hermitage above Itzurun beach. Others are stand-ins: the Seville tablao is a cultural centre in Mondragón, the Seville street scenes were shot near the Puente de Triana, and Getaria's harbour plays Argoitia's port.
Verano Azul was filmed in Nerja on Spain's Costa del Sol: Burriana beach, the Balcón de Europa, Cala Chica (La Caleta de Maro) and the Cueva de Nerja.
The route follows the gang's summer from the first day of shooting on Burriana, past the Parque Verano Azul and its replica of La Dorada, to the fake cemetery at Almuñécar where Chanquete is buried. The town is never named on screen, but the locations run from Nerja and Maro to Vélez-Málaga and Motril.
Conan the Barbarian was filmed across Spain: the Cimmerian village at Valsaín, the Wheel of Pain near Solosancho, the witch's rocks at the Ciudad Encantada, and the deserts, dunes and salt marshes of Almería.
The Hyborian Age is invented; every stop here is a real place. The route follows the film from the raid on Conan's village to the Mountain of Power, and ends at Shepperton Studios in England, where an older King Conan speaks the closing lines.
Quantum of Solace films its revenge chase in real places: the lakeside road at Malcesine, the rooftops and Palio crowd of Siena, the floating opera stage at Bregenz, the docks of Colón, a tower at Talamone and the Atacama Desert. Bond follows Mr White from Lake Garda to Siena, then Greene through Haiti, Austria and Bolivia, with Panama standing in for both Haiti and Bolivia and Chile for the Bolivian desert.
The route follows the film's order, from the opening car chase on Lake Garda to the snowy epilogue in Kazan. Some stops are exact filming sites, some are stand-ins: Panama's Colón and Panama City play Haiti and Bolivia, the Residencia at Paranal plays Greene's desert hotel, and Kazan is really Aldershot. The Water Gardens in London and the barracks are private or military, so they are map stops rather than visits.
Europe's Thirty Years' War runs from a window in Prague Castle to the town halls of Münster and Osnabrück. This route follows it through the battlefields of White Mountain, Magdeburg, Breitenfeld, Lützen and Nördlingen — from the defenestration of 1618 to the peace of 1648.
The stops are in the order the war happened: the castle window in Prague, the hill where Frederick V's army broke, the square where 27 rebel leaders were executed, then the sacked city of Magdeburg, Gustavus Adolphus's victories at Breitenfeld and Lützen, the Swedish collapse at Nördlingen, and the two Westphalian town halls where the treaties were finally signed. Nine places, thirty years, one continuous story.
Fallout 4 turns Boston into the post-nuclear Commonwealth, and most of its landmarks are real: Fenway Park becomes Diamond City, the Old North Church hides the Railroad, and the USS Constitution still floats in Charlestown harbor. The fourth main Fallout game, it is set ten years after Fallout 3.
This route follows the Sole Survivor from Vault 111 outside Concord to the Institute beneath MIT, then to the Castle on Castle Island, the Navy Yard and Bunker Hill. Some story sites are invented, so their pins mark the real places that inspired or contain them.
Magnificent Century was filmed at Hadımköy's TEM studios, with a replica of Topkapı Palace; its story runs from Topkapı and the Old Palace to Süleymaniye, Hürrem's bathhouse and tomb.
Hürrem rises from harem slave to Suleiman's legal wife, a jump the series turns into a court war. The route follows her from Topkapı and the Old Palace, where the harem lived until 1541, past the mosque Suleiman built for his son, Sinan's Süleymaniye, the bathhouse she endowed near Hagia Sophia, and the tiled tomb where she lies. The palace on screen was a set; the real buildings are still in the city.
Bandit Petersburg (Бандитский Петербург), the 2000–07 crime saga, is set and filmed in St Petersburg: the courtyard at Bolshaya Monetnaya 11, the Benois House on Kamennoostrovsky Prospect and the Kresty prison are among its most recognisable addresses.
This route follows the city of Film 2, The Lawyer (2000), from Chelishev's old courtyard and the police headquarters on the Petrograd side to Antibiotic's Fontanka restaurant, Zvantsev's flat in the Benois House, the gates of Kresty and the Angleterre restaurant where the film ends. All seven stops are real places; one is an active police building and one a working hotel.
The Equalizer 3 is set in the fictional village of Altamonte, which is really Atrani on the Amalfi Coast, with more shooting in Maiori, Minori and Naples.
This route follows Robert McCall from the coast road where he collapses, through Atrani and the steps up to Santa Maria del Bando, to Minori and the streets of Naples. All stops are real places you can visit, though the film's village is a composite.
Kalina Krasnaya (1973), Vasily Shukshin's last film as director, was shot around Belozersk in the Vologda region: a prison on Fiery Island, the village of Sadovaya, Timonino and a flooded church at Krokhino.
The route follows Yegor Prokudin from the prison gate to the Sheksna crossing, using the places where the crew worked. Most pins are village-level, and several sets no longer exist.
Radiator Springs is Route 66: Pixar's Cars town borrows its shape from Seligman, Arizona, the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook and the U-Drop Inn in Shamrock.
The route follows the old highway west from Galena, Kansas — where the truck that became Mater still stands outside a restored service station — through a stone café in Stroud, Oklahoma, the Cadillac Ranch in Texas, and the Arizona motels that gave Radiator Springs its look. The town itself is fictional; every stop is a real Route 66 landmark the Pixar team used.
Poldark's Cornwall is real Cornwall: the 2015 adaptation filmed Nampara, Wheal Leisure and Truro at St Agnes Head, Botallack and Charlestown, with Trenwith played by Chavenage House near Tetbury.
This route follows eight locations from the 2015 adaptation, from the cliffs above St Agnes and the engine houses of Botallack to the beaches of the Lizard and the north coast. Most are open to the public, but they are working landscapes and nature reserves as much as film sets, so expect footpaths, tides and weather.
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.
Saturday Night Fever was shot on location in Brooklyn: Tony Manero struts down 86th Street, buys pizza at Lenny's and works at a Bay Ridge hardware store.
The route follows Tony's week from the family house on 79th Street to the 2001 Odyssey disco floor, the rehearsal studio in Bensonhurst, the promenade bench under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and the bridge itself. The disco and Lenny's are gone, but the hardware store, the house, the studio and the bridge are still there.
Santa Carla, the vampire town of The Lost Boys (1987), is Santa Cruz, California: the Beach Boardwalk, the Giant Dipper coaster, the Municipal Wharf and the Pogonip clubhouse were all filmed in June 1986. The film's cave and bridge were shot far to the south, in Los Angeles County.
The route follows Michael and Sam Emerson from the funfair to Max's video store, the railway trestle, the cave under the hotel and Grandpa's house, and marks which stops you can still visit.
The Vampire Diaries' Mystic Falls is Covington, Georgia, where the clock tower, the Mystic Grill, Elena's house and the Lockwood Mansion are real places about 35 miles east of Atlanta.
The route follows the show around Covington's square and Floyd Street, north to the demolished Glenridge Hall that served as the Salvatore boarding house, and east to Oxford College, which played Whitmore. Most stops are public streets or a working restaurant; the grand houses are private and seen from the road or on a tour.
8 Mile was filmed on location in Detroit: the trailer park in Warren, the New Center Stamping Plant, the Penobscot Building and the Shelter.
The route follows Jimmy Smith Jr. from his mother's trailer to the rap battles at the Shelter. It takes in the parking garage inside the old Michigan Theatre, the demolished Chin Tiki club and the empty lot where Cheddar Bob shoots himself. Some sites are gone; the Shelter and the Penobscot still stand.
Nicosia's walled old city is a five-kilometre ring of Venetian fortifications with three surviving gates — Famagusta, Kyrenia and Paphos. Inside are the Selimiye Mosque, the Bedesten, the caravanserai of Büyük Han and Ledra Street, the shopping street that became a symbol of the island's division. The walk crosses the Green Line on foot.
The route begins at Eleftheria Square, enters by Famagusta Gate and loops through the old city: the Selimiye and the Bedesten, Büyük Han, Kyrenia Gate, the Ledra Street crossing, the Ömeriye Mosque and Paphos Gate. The Selimiye, Bedesten, Büyük Han and Kyrenia Gate stand north of the Green Line; the rest are in the south.
