Best Travel Movies of All Time

There is something about travel movies that will make any avid traveler ready to jump on a plane. Whether its running from hardships and finding that one true love on the other end of the world – think The Holiday, Under the Tuscan Sun and Eat, Pray, Love – to stories that portray a darker side of a particular destination like Brokedown Palace, Taken and Return to Paradise. Regardless of the plot, these movies that take place in exotic places leave any true wanderluster eager to go out and explore.  So here are my favorite travel movies when I’m in need of some travel inspiration:

180° South

This 2010 documentary follows the journey of Jeff Johnson as he travels from Ventura, California to Patagonia, Chile emulating the 1968 trip made over the land by his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins. Instead of by land, Johnson makes the trip by sea from Mexico and south along the west coast of Chile. Along the way he gets shipwrecked off Easter Island, surfs the longest wave of his life, and prepares himself for a rare ascent of Cerro Corcovado.

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A Good Year

A British investment broker inherits his uncle’s chateau and vineyard in Provence, where he spent much of his childhood. He discovers a new laid-back lifestyle as he tries to renovate the estate to be sold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4GeA50K8xQ

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A Map for Saturday

On a trip around the world, every day feels like Saturday. A Map for Saturday reveals the world of long-term, solo travel through the stories of trekkers on four continents.  It is an excellent portrayal of life on the road for backpackers.

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The Beach

Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumors state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss – excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it. The movie was filmed on the Thai island Koh Phi Phi, which has quickly become a popular tourist destination since filming. The cove where much of the movie is filmed is in reality not as narrow as portrayed in the movie.

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Before Sunrise

The first movie in the trilogy which follows young American man Jesse (played by Ethan Hawke) and young French woman Céline (played by Julie Delpy) who meet on a train and disembark in Vienna where they spend the night walking around the city and getting to know each other.

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Before Sunset

The sequel to Before Sunrise and the predecessor to Before Midnight, Before Sunset picks up the story where Before Sunrise left off.  Set nine years later, the film plays out in real time as Jesse and Céline spend one afternoon in Paris together.

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Before Midnight

The third movie in the trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset), the film takes place nine years after the last encounter of Jesse and Céline.  Now eighteen years after the first met, Before Midnight takes follows the two as they spend a summer vacation together in Greece.

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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel follows a group of British retirees who decide to “outsource” their retirement to less expensive and seemingly exotic India. Though the new environment is less luxurious than imagined, they are forever transformed by their shared experiences, discovering that life and love can begin again when you let go of the past.

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Brokedown Paradise

Alice and Darlene, best friends, decide to take a trip to Thailand to celebrate high-school graduation. While there, they are befriended by charming Australian rogue Nick Parks. Nick convinces them to take a weekend side trip to Hong Kong, but at the airport, they are busted for smuggling drugs. They are convicted in a show trial and sentenced to 33 years.

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The Darjeeling Limited

Three brothers, who have not seen each other since their father’s funeral years ago, travel across India on a luxury train called “The Darjeerling Limited.”

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Eat. Pray. Love.

Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) is a modern woman on a quest to marvel at and travel the world while rediscovering and reconnecting with her true inner self in Eat Pray Love. At a crossroads after a divorce, Gilbert takes a year-long sabbatical from her job and steps uncharacteristically out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life. In her wondrous and exotic travels, she experiences the simple pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of love in Bali.

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Encounters at the End of the World

Werner Herzog (“Grizzly Man,” “Rescue Dawn”) travels to the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station, the hub of the US Antarctic Program and home to eleven hundred people during the austral spring and summer (Oct-Feb). Over the course of his journey, Herzog examines human nature and Mother nature, juxtaposing breathtaking locations with the profound, surreal, and sometimes absurd experiences of the marine biologists, physicists, plumbers, and truck drivers who choose to form a society as far away from society as one can get.

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French Kiss

A woman (Meg Ryan) flies to France to confront her straying fiancé (Timothy Hutton), but gets into trouble when the charming French crook (Kevin Klein) seated next to her uses her for smuggling.  But, as the mismatched pair spends more time together, they discover that, despite their wishes to the contrary, they have feelings for one another, and their trip to France takes off in an entirely new direction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF9xsk3tmoA

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Hideous Kinky

An incredible journey of self discovery and break from convention, Hideous Kinky tells the story of a young English mother (Kate Winslet) who moves from London to Morocco with her two young daughters.

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The Holiday

Not your typical travel movie, The Holiday centers around two women from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean who need change in their life. The two lovelorn women temporarily exchange homes in London and Los Angeles to escape heartbreak during the holiday season.

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In Bruges

Guilt-stricken after a job gone wrong, hitman Ray and his partner await orders from their ruthless boss in Bruges, Belgium, the last place in the world Ray wants to be.

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Into the Wild

nto the Wild is a 2007 American biographical drama survival film written and directed by Sean Penn. It is an adaptation of the 1996 non-fiction book of the same name by Jon Krakauer  based on the travels of Christopher McCandless. After graduating from Emory University, McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life.

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L’Auberge Espagnol

A strait-laced French student moves into an apartment in Barcelona with a cast of six other characters from all over Europe. Together, they speak the international language of love and friendship.

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Lawrence of Arabia

A flamboyant and controversial British military figure and his conflicted loyalties during his World War I service in the Middle East.

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Letters to Juliet

Letters To Juliet is an enchanting story about love — of encountering new sparks and rekindling old flames. When a young American, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), travels to Verona, Italy — the romantic city where Romeo first met Juliet — she meets a group of volunteers who responds to letters written to Juliet seeking advice about love. Sophie finds and responds to a letter that has been lost for 50 years, which inspires its author Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) to travel to Italy to find her her long-lost soul mate.

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Lost in Translation

A faded movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo.

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Midnight in Paris

While on a trip to Paris with his fiancée’s family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s every day at midnight.

Motorcycle Diaries

The dramatization of a motorcycle road trip Che Guevara went on in his youth that showed him his life’s calling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u0U3dbVMHk

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Once

A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week in Dublin, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story.

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Out of Africa

In 20th-century colonial Kenya, a Danish baroness/plantation owner has a passionate love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHowfGGR3l8

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Return to Paradise

Two friends must choose whether to help a third friend who was arrested in Malaysia for drug possession.

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Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

A fisheries expert is approached by a consultant to help realize a sheik’s vision of bringing the sport of fly-fishing to the Yemen desert and embarks on an upstream journey of faith and fish to prove the impossible possible. The film was shot on location in London England, Scotland, and Morocco.

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Secret Life of Walter Mitty

A day-dreamer escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. When his job along with that of his co-worker are threatened, he takes action in the real world embarking on a global journey that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.

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Seven Years in Tibet

True story of Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountain climber who became friends with the Dalai Lama at the time of China’s takeover of Tibet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_IGypkra3E

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Stealing Beauty

After her mother commits suicide, nineteen year old Lucy Harmon travels to Italy to have her picture painted. However, she has other reasons for wanting to go. She wants to renew her acquaintance with Nicolo Donati, a young boy with whom she fell in love on her last visit four years ago. She also is trying tosolve the riddle left in a diary written by her dead mother, Sara.

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Taken

A retired CIA agent travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who has been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris.

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Under the Tuscan Sun

After Frances’s seemingly happy San Francisco marriage ends abruptly, she goes into a funk. Urged by her friends to move on, she joins a bus tour of Tuscany where, on the spur of the moment, she buys a crumbling villa.

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Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Two girlfriends (Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson) on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter (Javier Bardem), fully unaware that his ex-wife (Penelope Cruz), with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.

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The Way

Martin Sheen plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son, killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. Driven by his profound sadness and desire to understand his son better, Tom decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage, leaving his “California bubble life” behind. Armed with his son’s backpack and guidebook, Tom navigates the 800 km pilgrimage from the French Pyrenees, to Santiago de Compostela in the north west of Spain

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What are your favorite travel movies?