Location! Location!

Have Any Movie Locations Ever Inspired You To Go And Visit?

Having grown up watching Star Wars I always wanted to go and see Rainbow Canyon or its nickname ‘Star Wars Canyon’ which is located in Death Valley National Park about 160 miles north of Los Angeles. The ravine got its nickname of Star Wars Canyon, owing to the resemblance of the fictional planet of Tatooine, Luke Sky walker’s home world in the original Star Wars film.

Although most of fictional Tatooine was shot in Tunisia, crucial scenes in ‘A New Hope’ were filmed in Death Valley between the Sierra Nevada mountains and Mojave Desert.
Twenty Mule Team Canyon was used for ‘Return Of The Jedi’, the scenes with C-3PO and R2-D2 travelling to Jabba the Hut’s palace. Other areas in the park that seem familiar from the movies are Dante’s View and Mesquite Sand Dunes.

Some photos of our trip to Death Valley and in particular Rainbow Canyon AKA Star Wars Canyon. :movie_camera:

Another film that inspired us to visit two of its filming locations was Casino Royale.

The first location is the beautiful Villa La Gaeta on Lake Como in Italy. In the Spring of 2006 the film Casino Royale was filmed in front of this villa. In the last scene of the movie when Bond shoots and meets Mr White and utters the famous words, “Bond… James Bond”.

This is a video I filmed of the stunning Villa La Gaeta on Lake Como from a fantastic private tour by Taxi Boat Varenna. What a brilliant day!

The second location is The Ocean Club, A Four Seasons Resort in The Bahamas which has now become our favourite place to stay whenever we visit! :bahamas:

The Ocean Club featured prominently in Casino Royale, several scenes were filmed in and around the Club. First Bond arrives with a water plane and drives in his Ford Mondeo to the club. After he causes some car damage at the parking area, Bond goes in to the lobby, where he finds out that it is Alex Dimitrios who received the sms sent by Mollaka. Later Bond plays a short poker game against Dimitrios in The Library, (which is located just off the lobby), and wins his Aston Martin DB5!

These are some photos takes from our various trips to The Ocean Club.

My next film location is Bodega Bay and nearby Bodega which was used in the Alfred Hitchcock-directed film The Birds in 1963.

This is us outside The Potter School building which was made famous as a filming location in Alfred Hitchcock’s horror movie The Birds. In the movie the location was Bodega Bay, but the actual location is in the smaller town of Bodega a few miles inland from the coast. Building construction was completed in 1873 when it became a primary school for children in Bodega and the surrounding area. Potter Schoolhouse is now privately owned and it is protected as a historic landmark and easily viewed from the street.

Some more photos from Bodega and Bodega Bay, the last photo is the view from the car park at the Bodega Head trail.

My final film location is Fort Point in San Francisco from another Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo. This location is from the iconic scene where Scottie saves Madeleine from San Francisco Bay.

These photos were taken by me one one of our visits to San Francisco.

So the question is have any movie locations ever inspired you to go and visit and if not then perhaps you have seen a film and would now like to go and visit the location?

What film?

Which location?

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Whilst housesitting we went to the Harewood Estate in Yorkshire where they filmed Follyfoot Farm in 1971 - 1973. It was my mum’s childhood favourite program and then became mine.
It had changed a lot from the humble little cottage in the TV series, but there is a public footpath that runs right next to the house and lake, where Dora from the show would ride her ponies!


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I can’t find the pictures but we visited the pirates town featured in Pirates of the Caribbean in St Vincent. It was a film set that they left up. We also anchored behind the desert island that he was left on to die. That was in Tobago Keys.
Been to most of the Scottish locations featured in Outlander. Not because of the drama but because they are beautiful places and I lived near them.

Forgot. I’ve also swam into the underwater cave that was an iconic scene in Thunder-ball (James Bond). It is on the shore of Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Tourists have spoilt it as they feed the sharks off the boats so we were snorkelling through lots of Nurse Sharks, scary but not too dangerous.

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Not a movie, but I made the effort to visit the restaurant called Le Rec, which was the subject of the book, “From Here, You Can’t See Paris”

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On our travels we have out about a lot of films (some that I’ve seen and some that I haven’t) that were filmed where we are visiting. There’s also been quite a few places that we’ve visited that a year or two after visiting then become a major location in a film. I know exactly about the “James Bond Villa” you showed we happened to visit a different one that was in Casino Royale…but didn’t know it was in the film until after our visit. It’s so much fun discovering so many beautiful places and learning their histories!

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@MissChef This restaurant looks fab! … I have just added it to our “to do” list! :slightly_smiling_face:

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@ElsieDownie I used to live in St Vincent! We were there when they were filming the Black Pearl movie and the ship was anchored opposite our house. It’s a spectacular place.

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Couldn’t agree more. We were told it had a high crime rate but took the chance. So glad we did because it was one of the most memorable islands we visited.

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It has its challenges but I look back on my time there as the best.

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Definitely, the Game of Thrones!

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Oh, I’m jealous, I want to go to Follyfoot Farm!

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@UKSITTER1 you should definitely try and visit. We found out about it from this fan page:

It has changed somewhat over the years and I was slightly hoping to see horses there! But it was still a beautiful location. I hope you get to go there one day.

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Mad Max, Fury Road was shot against the backdrop of the dramatic Namib desert dunes after Broken Hill, Australia (where the prior 3 movies were filmed) received an unusual amount of rainfall, making it lush and less harsh looking.

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We are from Broken Hill. Several of my friends were extras in the movies. We’ve also been to Namibia several times and seen first hand how similar both places are.

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We’ve been to many film and tv locations (NYC, San Francisco, London, etc.) but don’t have pictures of the exact spots. Here’s one we do have:

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Cambodia. We spent my 50th birthday exploring the ruins where they shot much of the background scenery.

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