Forrest Gump: Savannah to Monument Valley

The film opens, and later closes, with a feather falling onto a bus bench in Savannah, Georgia, where Forrest tells his life story to anyone who will sit and listen. The bench was not one of the square's own: it was a fibreglass prop set down on the north side of Chippewa Square for the shoot. One of those props is now on display in the Savannah History Museum. The leafy square itself is unchanged.

Visitor guidance: The square is open to the public; the film's bench is at the Savannah History Museum.

Forrest grows up in the fictional Greenbow, Alabama, his mother running a boarding house out of their home. None of it was shot in Alabama. The Gump house was a set built along the Combahee River near Yemassee, South Carolina, on land that also stood in for Jenny's farmhouse and some of the Vietnam scenes. The buildings were made only for the film and knocked down once shooting ended.

Location precision: The house was a set on the Bluff Plantation by the Combahee River near Yemassee, torn down after filming; the pin marks that stretch of river.

Forrest's running gets him a football scholarship to the University of Alabama, but the campus scenes were filmed far away, in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California. He graduates in front of its Bovard Administration Building before being recruited into the army. The Bovard building still fronts the university's Exposition Park campus.

Location precision: The campus stands in for the University of Alabama; the pin marks USC, where the college scenes were filmed.

Visitor guidance: The campus is open to visitors; the Bovard Administration Building is in Exposition Park, Los Angeles.

Vietnam is South Carolina. The jungle patrols, monsoon and ambush were filmed on Hunting Island State Park and neighbouring Fripp Island, off the coast near Beaufort. Forrest's platoon is ambushed in the Mekong Delta; he carries wounded men to safety, saves Lieutenant Dan, but Bubba is killed, and he is awarded the Medal of Honor by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Today the park is a barrier island of beach and maritime forest, best known for its 19th-century lighthouse.

Location precision: The Vietnam scenes were spread across Hunting Island State Park and Fripp Island; the pin marks Hunting Island.

Visitor guidance: Hunting Island State Park is open daily for a fee; the beach and lighthouse are the main draws.

After his tour, Forrest is swept up in the anti-war crowd in Washington, D.C. He spots Jenny at a peace rally at the Lincoln Memorial and calls out, then wades into the Reflecting Pool to reach her. About 1,500 extras were filmed over two days and multiplied by computer into a crowd of hundreds of thousands. The memorial, with the Washington Monument behind it, still looks down the long pool from the western end of the National Mall.

Visitor guidance: The Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool are on the National Mall and are open to the public.

Forrest meets President Richard Nixon, who fixes him up with a room in the Watergate Hotel. From his window he reports mysterious men with torches in the office building opposite, the burglary that became the Watergate scandal; Nixon resigned two years later. The hotel and the offices still stand in Washington.

Visitor guidance: The Watergate complex sits on Virginia Avenue NW; the hotel is open and the office building is private.

With his ping-pong earnings Forrest buys a shrimping boat in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, as he promised Bubba, and Lieutenant Dan joins him. Their boat survives Hurricane Carmen, and the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company makes them rich. The bayou was not filmed in Alabama: the dock and home scenes were shot on Ladies Island, just southeast of Beaufort, South Carolina, with nearby Port Royal standing in for the storm.

Location precision: The bayou is Bayou La Batre on screen; filming was on Ladies Island near Beaufort, and the pin marks that island.

Heartbroken, Forrest starts running and does not stop, spending three years crossing the country. On the coast he reaches the Marshall Point Lighthouse in Port Clyde, Maine, to reach the Atlantic Ocean, the first of two oceans he touches. The light station was established in 1832 to guide boats into the harbour, and the light still stands at Port Clyde.

Visitor guidance: Marshall Point Lighthouse is at the end of Marshall Point Road in Port Clyde; the grounds are open in season.

Three years, two months, fourteen days and sixteen hours after setting out, Forrest stops running. He stops on the road through Monument Valley and tells the crowd of followers he is tired and wants to go home. It is one of the most photographed landscapes in film, used by John Ford for his Westerns since the 1930s. The valley is sacred to the Navajo Nation, on whose reservation it lies, and is usually seen on a guided tour.

Location precision: The run ends on a highway through Monument Valley, which straddles the Utah–Arizona border; the pin marks the valley, not the exact roadside spot.

Visitor guidance: Monument Valley lies on the Navajo Nation; most of the valley is seen on a guided tour from the visitor centre.