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.
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.
On 18 June 1937 three Soviet airmen took off from Moscow in a single-engine plane and landed in Washington State more than 63 hours later, having flown over the North Pole. It was the first non-stop flight from the Soviet Union to the United States.
The route follows the crew from the airfield near Shchyolkovo to the landing at Pearson Field, then to the general's table, the White House and the monument that still stands by the runway. The path over the Arctic is shown only as a symbolic pin.
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.
Bella Swan moves to the rainiest corner of Washington and falls for a vampire. Stephenie Meyer picked the town of Forks by searching for rainy places, and the story then carries Bella and Edward from the Olympic Peninsula to the clock tower of Volterra in Tuscany.
The route follows the first two novels from Forks through La Push and Port Angeles to Volterra, and ends in Montepulciano, the town that played Volterra in the film. The pins mark towns, not buildings.
