Veniamin Kaverin's The Two Captains is set in Pskov (the book's "Ensk"), Moscow, Leningrad and the Arctic, following Sanya, a mute boy who grows into an Arctic pilot and sets out to prove what happened to a lost polar expedition.
The route follows the book from a flooded yard in Pskov to the orphanages of Moscow, the Leningrad blockade, the archipelago of Severnaya Zemlya and Polyarny's Square of Two Captains. Moscow, Leningrad and Severnaya Zemlya are city- or region-level pins, since the book names no exact addresses there.
Philip Pullman's Jordan College is a fictional Oxford college that borrows from Exeter College, with the Gyptians moored in Jericho and the trilogy's last promise made on a bench in the Oxford Botanic Garden. Film and TV shot Jordan at Christ Church and New College.
The route follows Lyra from her home college to the canal and the garden, with the film and series stand-ins. Jordan itself is invented, so some pins mark real stand-ins.
Hans Christian Andersen's Denmark runs from a cobbler's house in Odense to the Royal Danish Theatre, the colourful quay of Nyhavn and the bronze Little Mermaid on Copenhagen's Langelinie.
The route follows the shoemaker's son who left Odense at 14 to become an actor; a theatre colleague told him he was a poet instead. Two Odense houses, three Copenhagen landmarks and a ride at Tivoli show where his life and his stories touch the map. The birthplace house is traditionally identified, not proven.
Captain Alatriste is set in Madrid, from the Plaza Mayor and the House of the Seven Chimneys to the Prado, where Velázquez's The Surrender of Breda hangs, and from the siege of Breda to Seville. Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novels follow a Spanish sword for hire and his young squire Íñigo Balboa.
The route walks the Madrid of the first two books, follows the army to Breda in the third, and ends in Seville with The King's Gold. Breda and Seville are approximate pins; the Madrid stops can be visited.
Flaubert's Madame Bovary is set in the Normandy countryside around Rouen: Yonville-l'Abbaye is traditionally held to be based on the village of Ry, and the novel's city scenes play out in Rouen, around its cathedral, its opera and its old churches.
The route follows Emma Bovary from the couple's first home at Tostes, through the market town of Yonville, to an evening at the opera and the famous cab ride through Rouen. Several places are approximate, since the novel names few of them as they are today.
Tomihiko Morimi's The Tatami Galaxy and The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl are set among Kyoto University students, on Kiyamachi Street, the Kamo Delta, Pontochō and the grounds of Shimogamo Shrine.
The Tatami Galaxy replays one student's college years in parallel timelines that always end on a bridge over the river. The Night Is Short follows a black-haired heroine through a night of drinking in Pontochō and a used book fair. The stops are real Kyoto places; the boarding house exists only in the story.
Inspector Morse is set and filmed in Oxford, from the Randolph Hotel and the Ashmolean Museum to the Bodleian Library and Exeter College, where the detective's final episode was shot.
Colin Dexter's Morse novels became a 1987 to 2000 ITV series, and the prequel Endeavour returned to the same city. This route follows six places tied to the detective, from his student past to his last case.
Zombie Land Saga is set across Saga Prefecture, from a mansion modelled on a real Karatsu building and Saga Castle to the hot springs of Ureshino and the Alpino hall in Karatsu.
In the anime, seven legendary girls from different eras are revived as zombies to form an idol group and revive Saga. This route follows their gigs and haunts, with the real venues behind them. Some places are fictional or only approximate, as noted.
Kin-dza-dza! (1986) begins on New Arbat in Moscow and throws two Soviet men into a sandy desert that is really the Karakum near Balkanabat, Turkmenistan. Georgiy Daneliya's cult comedy then plays out on the planet Pluke, which was built from desert, a metro station and studio sets.
The route follows the plot through five real places: the Moscow avenue where the teleporter appears, the Karakum sands, Polyanka metro station, the Army Theatre and Mosfilm. The Pluke locations are approximate or studio stand-ins.
Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona is set in Barcelona and Oviedo and shot there and in Avilés, from the rooftop of Casa Milà to the Hotel de la Reconquista and the Avilés lighthouse.
The route follows the summer of Vicky and Cristina in story order: Gaudí's chimneys, a spur-of-the-moment weekend in Asturias, Park Güell and the arched gate of Sant Pau. Each stop is a place where a scene from the film was set or shot.
Merchant Ivory's 1985 film of Forster's novel is set in Florence and Surrey and was shot in the Piazza della Signoria, around Fiesole, at Emmetts Garden in Kent and at 18 Stafford Terrace in London.
The route follows Lucy Honeychurch from a Florentine pensione without a view, through a stabbing and a kiss in a poppy field, to an engagement in England that cannot last. The film was shot in ten weeks: four in Italy and six in England.
Braveheart's Scotland is partly the real thing and partly Ireland: Wallace's village of Lanark was built in Glen Nevis, but York is Trim Castle, Stirling Bridge was staged on the Curragh and Longshanks' court is Bective Abbey.
The route follows seven filming locations in the order of the story, from the Highland glen to the Irish fields, lakes and ruins that stood in for the battles and castles. Most of the shoot moved to Ireland at short notice, so the film's map is split between two countries.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert starts at Sydney's Imperial Hotel in Erskineville, crosses the outback through Broken Hill's Palace Hotel and Coober Pedy, and ends at a casino in Alice Springs and the cliffs of Kings Canyon.
Three performers ride a bus named Priscilla to a four-week booking, and the film was shot at many of the places on the road. This route follows their trip in story order. The exact spot of the breakdown is approximate, and the Coober Pedy and Kings Canyon pins mark the town and the park.
The X-Files is set in Oregon, Alaska, Washington State and Pennsylvania, but it was filmed around Vancouver: in Queen Elizabeth Park, at Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam, at Delta Air Park and in Chinatown. The show remained in Vancouver for its first five seasons, and its 2008 film returned to British Columbia.
The route follows seven episodes and a film, from the pilot in 1993 to I Want to Believe in 2008, and pairs each scene with the British Columbia place that played it. Some scenes were shot in a specific building or clearing the sources do not name, so those pins are approximate.
Easy Rider sends two bikers east from Los Angeles toward Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and the film really was shot along the way: at Los Angeles airport, on Route 66 in Flagstaff, in Monument Valley, in New Mexico and in Louisiana, ending at a cemetery in New Orleans and a country road near Krotz Springs.
The route follows Wyatt and Billy from the drug sale in Los Angeles to the final scene in Louisiana, with a stop at each place the film is known to have used. The commune was a stand-in staged in Malibu, and some sites are approximate.
Fargo (1996) is set in Fargo, Brainerd and Moose Lake but was mostly filmed around Minneapolis, from a Richfield dealership and downtown garages to a Square Lake cabin.
The route follows the botched kidnapping from the bar deal to the final arrest, pairing each story place with the site where the Coen brothers shot it; several are demolished or relocated. It ends in Fargo itself, where the wood chipper prop is on show.
When Harry Met Sally... begins with a drive out of the University of Chicago and settles into Manhattan, from the Washington Square Arch and Central Park to Katz's Delicatessen, where Sally makes her famous point.
The route follows the pair from graduation in 1977 to a New Year's Eve declaration at the Puck Building, with seven stops: Cobb Gate, the Washington Square Arch, the Loeb Boathouse, the Temple of Dendur, Katz's, Cafe Luxembourg and the Puck Building. Stops follow the film's scene order, not a single journey.
The Devil Wears Prada is set in New York and Paris, and was shot in both: the office tower that plays Runway's parent company, the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse, the American Museum of Natural History and the Fontaines de la Concorde, where Andy drops her phone.
The route follows her from the job interview to the Paris trip and back to the newsroom where she ends up. The crew spent only two days in the real Paris, filming exteriors only.
Sex and the City is set in Manhattan, and the 2008 film follows Carrie Bradshaw from her Perry Street stoop to the New York Public Library, Bemelmans Bar, Bryant Park and the Brooklyn Bridge.
Carrie's fictional address is on the Upper East Side, but the real brownstone is in Greenwich Village. This route follows the film's wedding, break-up and reunions through places that were actually used, from a Chelsea restaurant and a Central Park pavilion to a Brooklyn courthouse that plays City Hall.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off is John Hughes's love letter to Chicago, filmed at the Sears Tower, the Art Institute and Wrigley Field, with a downtown parade and a glass-walled house in Highland Park.
The route follows Ferris, Sloane and Cameron through one stolen school day: from the Northbrook high school used for the exteriors, through the Loop and the North Side, to the garage where the Ferrari meets its end. The parade site is approximate, and the final house is private.
Rocky is set and largely filmed in Philadelphia: Rocky Balboa's Kensington home, the Italian Market on 9th Street, Pat's King of Steaks, the Art Museum steps and the Spectrum arena in South Philadelphia all appear in the 1976 film.
The route follows the story from the opening fight on 25 November 1975 to the New Year's Day title bout. The Spectrum is gone, and the fight itself was shot in Los Angeles.
Hitchcock's North by Northwest starts at the Plaza Hotel and the United Nations in New York, rolls through Grand Central and Chicago's LaSalle Street Station, and ends on Mount Rushmore. Its crop-duster scene, set in Indiana, was filmed near Wasco, California.
An advertising man is mistaken for a spy who does not exist and has to run across the country. The route follows him stop by stop, from the Oak Room to the Chicago hotel where Hitchcock stayed, and says which scenes were real locations and which were sets or stand-ins.
Interstellar's dust-choked farms were filmed in Alberta, at Longview, Okotoks and Fort Macleod, and its ice and water planets in Iceland, at Svínafellsjökull and the Eldhraun lava field. The secret NASA base is the lobby of Los Angeles's Westin Bonaventure Hotel.
The route follows Cooper's story in order, from the school and the baseball field through the dust storm and the hidden base to the two alien worlds. Some locations are approximate where the guides do not give an exact spot.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in 1936 Peru and Egypt, but it was shot on Kauaʻi, in Tunisia and in the U-boat pens of La Rochelle. Kairouan stood in for Cairo, the canyon outside Tozeur became the truck chase, and Hawaii played the Peruvian jungle.
This route follows the film's story order through six filming places, from Hulēʻia and the Nā Pali Coast on Kauaʻi and the Stockton campus used for Jones's school to Kairouan, the Sidi Bouhlel canyon and La Rochelle. Several spots are only approximate and some are closed to the public.
