Look Back is set around the hometown of manga artist Tatsuki Fujimoto, Nikaho in Akita Prefecture, and the live-action film of 2026 was shot mainly there, from the cherry-tree lane at Kunpuen to Nikaho Station. The story follows Fujino and Kyomoto, two girls who draw manga together. It became an anime film in June 2024.
The route follows the story from Fujino's childhood walks in Nikaho and the bookshop in Hirasawa, to the rebuilt bedroom sets at the station and the Smile centre, and on to the art university in Yamagata where the story turns.
Overwatch (called Overwatch 2 until February 2026) sets its American maps in real places: Midtown ends at Grand Central in New York, New Queen Street is Toronto, Havana is in Cuba, Paraíso is Rio de Janeiro and Hollywood is a Los Angeles movie lot.
This route follows seven maps west to east from Hollywood to Rio, including Dorado, a Mexican town whose look came from a photo of Italy. Other routes cover Overwatch maps in Europe and in Africa and Asia. Pins mark a real model place, not a copied district; Dorado and Runasapi have no pin because they are invented towns with no named real place.
Overwatch (called Overwatch 2 until February 2026) sets its European maps in real places: King's Row is a London neighborhood, Circuit Royal is Monte Carlo, Colosseo is Rome, Rialto is Venice and Esperança is inspired by Porto.
This route follows eleven maps west to east, from Grímsvötn in Iceland to Volskaya Industries near St. Petersburg, with the mode, the date each arrived and the real place behind it. Other routes cover Overwatch maps in the Americas and in Africa and Asia. Pins mark a real model place or landmark, not a copied district.
Shunji Iwai's Love Letter (1995) is set in snowy Otaru and Kobe, but Otaru stands in for both. This route follows the filming locations: the Former Nippon Yusen Otaru Branch as the library, Otaru City Hall as the hospital, Irinai crossing and Temiya Park.
It starts at the Former Suhara Residence, which doubles as the Fujii house in Kobe, and follows Hiroko's letters to Itsuki. Some sites are open to visitors; others are a city office or a public street.
Tokyo Story (1953) follows an elderly couple from Onomichi to Tokyo and the hot spring town of Atami, with filming at Jōdo-ji temple, Ueno Park, Tokyo Station and Osaka Castle.
The route follows the film in order: the Onomichi temple of its famous dawn scene, the Adachi suburbs, the Atami seawall, Ueno Park, Tokyo Station and Osaka Castle. Several original film spots, such as the Atami seawall, are gone.
The Hagoromo legend, retold in the Noh play Hagoromo, is set at Miho no Matsubara, a pine-lined beach in Shimizu Ward, Shizuoka, with Miho Shrine nearby and Mount Fuji in the distance.
A fisherman finds a celestial maiden's feather robe hanging on a pine and will not give it back until she dances. The route follows the tale from the beach and the legendary pine to the maiden's ascent toward Mount Fuji, the shrine that keeps her plumage, and the monument to a French dancer who loved the story.
Nobu Shirase led Japan's first Antarctic expedition in 1910–12, sailing the small ship Kainan Maru from Wellington and Sydney to the ice shelf, Bay of Whales and King Edward VII Land.
The route follows the doubtful welcome in Wellington, a winter camp at Parsley Bay in Sydney, a dash across the ice near Amundsen's Fram, and the museum in Shirase's hometown of Nikaho. Antarctic pins are approximate.
The legend of Shuten-dōji, the ogre-king of Mount Ōe, is tied to shrines and temples in and around Kyoto: Iwashimizu Hachimangū, Sumiyoshi Taisha, the Ōeyama range, Byōdō-in and Nariai-ji.
In the story, abductions plague the capital and the warrior Raikō leads a band against the ogre-king. The route follows the hunt from prayers at the shrines to the lair, the beheading and the places that claim the head or the sake. Versions differ, and the exact mountain is disputed.
The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 began in Kagoshima, besieged Kumamoto Castle, was fought out at Tabaruzaka and ended on Shiroyama, where Saigō Takamori died. This route follows the samurai army from its first march to its last stand.
Six stops run from Kagoshima Castle through Kumamoto, Hitoyoshi and Mount Enodake and back to Kagoshima. Three are exact landmarks you can visit; the battlefield and retreat stops are approximate.
The Siege of Odawara of 1590 was fought at Odawara Castle in Kanagawa, with Toyotomi Hideyoshi's one-night castle at Ishigakiyama and Hōjō outposts at Hachigata, Hachiōji and Oshi.
Hideyoshi's army surrounded the Hōjō capital while other forces took its castles across the region one by one. This route follows the campaign through five castle sites, from the siege to the last holdouts, and most can still be visited as parks or ruins.
Points and Lines is set between Tokyo Station and the beach at Kashii in Fukuoka, while Castle of Sand follows a detective from the Kamata rail yard in Tokyo to Akita and Shimane. Seichō Matsumoto's two best-known crime novels turn Japan's railways into the clues.
This route follows both stories: the four-minute gap on Tokyo Station's platforms, the Kashii shore, and the stations named Kameda that lead the detective to Kamedake. Pins at Kashii and Kamata are approximate.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the foot soldier's son from Nakamura in Nagoya who rose to power, left his mark on Sunomata, Nagahama, Mount Tennozan, Osaka Castle, Jurakudai in Kyoto and Fushimi Castle.
This route follows his rise in order: the birthplace, the legendary one-night fort, his first lordship on Lake Biwa, the 1582 battle that avenged Nobunaga, and the great castles and palaces of his later years. Several of the original buildings are gone, so some stops are approximate.
Isabella Bird's 1873 ride through Colorado, told in A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, runs from Greeley and Fort Collins to Estes Park, Longs Peak and Manitou Springs. She lived out of doors and on horseback, and climbed a 14,700-foot peak with the guide Rocky Mountain Jim.
Six stops follow her letters from the Plains into the mountains and on to Colorado Springs. Most pins mark towns, because her letters rarely name exact buildings.
Billy the Kid's story runs through southeastern New Mexico: the street of Lincoln, where he fought in the Lincoln County War and escaped the gallows, the stone hut at Stinking Springs, the plaza at Mesilla, and Fort Sumner, where he was shot in 1881.
The route follows Billy from the ambush of Sheriff Brady in April 1878 to his death and burial in July 1881. Lincoln and Fort Sumner can still be visited; some exact spots, such as the saloon and the trial room, are not pinned.
Wyatt Earp's story runs from the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, to the Oriental Saloon, the lot beside Fly's and Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona, and on to the railroad tracks of Tucson.
It follows the lawman from his 1878 job as a Dodge City assistant marshal through the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on 26 October 1881 to the killings that followed in 1882. Exact buildings are uncertain for several stops, and those pins are marked approximate.
Leonardo da Vinci's life runs from Vinci, where he was born in 1452, through Milan, Florence and Rome to Amboise in France, where he died in 1519 and was buried at the château.
The route follows six places tied to his life: the Museo Leonardiano in Vinci, Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Florence's Palazzo Vecchio, the Belvedere Courtyard in Rome, Clos Lucé and the Château d'Amboise. Where his remains lie today is only presumed.
Root Letter is set in Matsue, Shimane, and its backdrops copy real places: the Shimane Art Museum, the Kyomise shopping street, Lake Shinji, Yaegaki Shrine and Matsue Castle.
A man travels to Matsue to find Fumino Aya, a pen pal who vanished 15 years earlier, and questions her old classmates one by one. The route follows five real places that the game turns into scenes, from the lakeside city to a shrine tied to the Yamata-no-Orochi legend. The game's order of visits is not documented, so the stops are a sequence, not a timetable.
Astrid Lindgren's Pippi, Emil and the children of Bullerbyn trace back to Näs and Sevedstorp near Vimmerby, to the Gibberyd farm that played Katthult, and to Mariannelund, where Emil heads for the doctor.
The route runs from the author's birthplace through the village that served as the model for Bullerbyn to the film farm and the theme park. Katthult and Bullerbyn are story places; the pins mark their real stand-ins.
Run Lola Run is set and filmed in Berlin: a U-Bahn station, the bank at Bebelplatz, the Oberbaum Bridge and a casino in Schöneberg's town hall.
Lola has 20 minutes to find 100,000 marks and save Manni, and the film replays them three times. This route follows the story through the real places where those scenes were shot, from the platform where the money is lost to the casino table where number 20 comes up twice. The film's own geography is loose, so the stops are filming sites rather than a running route.
The village of Giancaldo in Cinema Paradiso was filmed mostly in Palazzo Adriano, Sicily: the square, the church that became the cinema and the houses of Totò and Alfredo are all real. The farewell scene was shot at Lascari-Gratteri station.
The route follows Salvatore from his boyhood home to the piazza, the church-cinema and the station where he leaves, then back to Alfredo's house thirty years later. The cinema facade was temporary, and the church interior stands in for the cinema.
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.
Crocodile Dundee follows a Northern Territory bushman from the billabongs of Kakadu to the Plaza Hotel and the subways of Manhattan. Its Walkabout Creek is really the pub at McKinlay, Queensland; its outback is Anbangbang Billabong and Gunlom Falls; its New York runs from Newark airport to Columbus Circle.
The route follows reporter Sue Charlton and Mick Dundee from the outback to New York, one filming location per scene. A few places stand in for others, and the captions say where.
Cast Away strands a FedEx troubleshooter on a Pacific island that is really Monuriki in Fiji, with a failed raft escape shot on Namotu. Its Memphis scenes draw on FedEx's real home base, and its opening and closing crossroads lie near Canadian, Texas.
The route follows Chuck Noland from a Moscow street off Red Square and the FedEx hub in Memphis to the two islands in Fiji, then back to the Texas Panhandle for the last scene. The island is never named in the film, so two stops are filming stand-ins.
10 Things I Hate About You is set at Padua High School in the Seattle area, but it was shot in Tacoma and Seattle in summer 1998: Stadium High School and its Stadium Bowl, Kerry Park, the Fremont Troll and Gas Works Park.
This route follows the film's order, from the skyline in the opening credits to the paintball date. Most of the stops are public places you can still walk into.
