L'Auberge espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) about a group of 20 somethings from all over Europe living together in an apartment in Barcelona. Cultural misunderstandings and hilarity ensues... and it's sequel Les Poupees Russes (The Russian Dolls). Reply to this

A couple of small budget American indie films...both fairly recent.

Americano -- A group of young American friends backpack around Spain (actual footage of the actors "in character" running with the bulls in Pamplona), fall in love, ponder life after college, etc.

The Art of Travel -- Young man calls off his wedding and spends his honeymoon money backpacking through South America. For a shoestring budget movie, they really captured some fantastic footage, especially of Macha Picchu.

... I found both on Netflix. I doubt they're very widely distributed.

A personal favorite of mine is Bill Murray's remake of The Razor's Edge, a story of a young man haunted by WWI who travels Paris during the 20's and India searching for the meaning of life. And speaking of Bill Murray, Lost in Translation has always made me want to visit Tokyo.
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Those films are exactly the sort of thing I like Ashley. Hopefully there will be something like them showing in the Film Centre in Dublin when I go there in a couple of weeks. 😊 Now, I cant wait to see a couple of films.

And I just read Carys descriptions of films. They look good too. I really need to see more film. So many good ones. Reply to this

Lost in Translation has always made me want to visit Tokyo

A lot of people didn't 'get' or like Lost in Translation but for us it summed up travelling in certain parts of Asia. Bill Murray was great, that vacant jet lagged look on his face while surrounded by people talking in a language he didn't understand. The bit when he is in the shower too when he is too tall for the fixed shower head cracked us up because we have found this so many times! As soon as we watched this film it made us want to go back to Asia straight away.

Of course Indiana Jones inspired us to put Petra on the list, Motorcycle Diaries for South America, Hero and House of Flying Daggers inspired us to visit China and recently, although it didn't get good reviews, The Bucket List. It made us discuss doing all the travel we want before it's too late for us to enjoy it, well if we had our way we'd travel forever!

Now we are away and have been for a long time we now find British films fascinating, wanting to see the 'culture' and how it's changed...although we do confess we are beginning to find it difficult to understand British accents...help! Recent ones have been This is England (a look at 'skinheads' in the 1970's), London to Brighton (a really disturbing film) and the Football Factory (with Elijah Wood, about football hooligans). But I don't think these would really inspire people to visit Britain! Reply to this

I have to say that my favorite movies about traveling are:

• Into the Wild
• The Motorcycle Diaries
• A Map for Saturday

The last one is a documentary made by a fellow world traveler. He backpacked around the world for a year with a video camera documenting other travelers and his experiences. Its an amazing look into the mind of a world traveler.

There are many other movies in which the scenery makes me long to travel to those destinations. Reply to this

I just watched 'A map for Saturday' a few weeks ago. It is quite amazing how much the guy who made the film noticed about backpackers despite being a first time traveller. Reply to this