The ultimate set-jetting guide to 12 real filming locations

A place carries different weight once a story has happened there, even a fictional one. That is the engine behind set-jetting, the practice of building a trip around the villages, coastlines, castles and desert highways where a favorite series or film was shot. Streaming has pushed the habit into the mainstream. A viewer finishes a season, searches the location, finds out it is a real walled town in Croatia or a real logging town on the Olympic Peninsula, and starts pricing flights.

Tourism boards figured this out early. Dubrovnik now sits at the center of a dense network of "Game of Thrones" walking tours built around its role as King's Landing. VisitScotland publishes its own guide to the castles and villages used in "Outlander." New Zealand has marketed itself as Middle-earth since "The Lord of the Rings" reached theaters in 2001, and the country's tourism campaigns still use the name.

The practical reality is messier than a theme park, which is why set-jetting rewards research. Many of these places are working towns where people live and commute. Some are private homes, like the Albuquerque house used as the White family residence, where fans are asked to take a photo from the street and leave it there. Others are protected landscapes, fortified military sites or UNESCO listings with limited access, guided-tour-only entry or seasonal closures. One well-known filming site, the Azure Window on Gozo, collapsed into the sea in March 2017 and cannot be visited at all. The other common trap is the gap between where a story is set and where it was actually shot — often two different countries.

What follows is a guide to 12 destinations tied to specific, named productions, each reachable for travelers and each with a documented link between place and screen. This is not a ranking of shows or films. It is an account of what was filmed where, what visitors can see on the ground, and what to know before booking.

Illustration: Quartz

Dubrovnik's walled Old Town served as the primary filming location for King's Landing, and the medieval fortifications that framed those scenes are still standing and open to walk. Most of the recognizable spots sit within a 20-minute walk of one another.

Fort Lovrijenac, built on a rock outcrop just outside the western wall, stood in for the Red Keep. Its ramparts are reached by a steep exterior staircase, and admission is normally covered by the same ticket as the city walls. The Jesuit Staircase, the broad baroque flight rising toward St. Ignatius Church above Gundulić Square $SQ, is where Cersei Lannister's walk of atonement was filmed. It is a public passage used by residents, open at all hours and free to climb.

Trsteno Arboretum, roughly 30 minutes northwest along the coast road, supplied the gardens of King's Landing. It is a working botanical garden with a 15th-century aqueduct and plane trees several centuries old, reachable by public bus from Dubrovnik and open on standard admission, with no tour booking required.

The full wall circuit runs around the Old Town and takes about two hours at an unhurried pace, with views over terracotta roofs and the Adriatic that recur throughout the series. Entry is ticketed, and the route runs one way during the busiest months.

Timing shapes the experience here. Dubrovnik is a UNESCO World Heritage site with a small historic core, and the city has acted to cap daily cruise ship arrivals to ease congestion inside the walls. Late spring and early autumn bring thinner crowds and milder heat while every filming site stays walkable.

The Old Town was the capital of the Republic of Ragusa, a maritime power that traded in competition with Venice for centuries. The architecture that made it a convincing King's Landing was built for defense and commerce, long before any camera arrived.

Illustration: Quartz

Scotland's "Outlander" locations are mostly real historic sites open to the public, not closed sets, which makes this one of the easier set-jetting itineraries to assemble. The Starz adaptation of Diana Gabaldon's novels shoots across the country, and several of its most recognizable buildings can be visited on a standard admission ticket.

Doune Castle in Stirlingshire plays Castle Leoch, the seat of Clan MacKenzie. The real building dates to the late 14th century and stands centuries older than the story built around it. Historic Environment Scotland runs it as a visitor attraction, and the same courtyard appears in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Culross, a preserved burgh in Fife, stands in for the fictional village of Cranesmuir. Its cobbled lanes and ochre-washed buildings are cared for by the National Trust for Scotland and open year-round, though some interiors require a guided tour rather than independent wandering. The burgh is still residential, so a walk through it passes people's front doors.

Blackness Castle sits on a promontory in the Firth of Forth and serves as the exterior of Fort William, the British garrison in the story. Its wedge-shaped plan earned it the nickname the ship that never sailed. Historic Environment Scotland manages the site, and the interior is open to visitors. It has carried other productions too, including Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 film of "Hamlet."

The outdoor sequences draw on open Highland country, including the glens around Glencoe and the shores of Loch Ness. Much of that scenery is unmarked moorland and roadside, with no plaque or visitor center to confirm a shot happened there.

Guided day trips from Edinburgh and Inverness bundle several sites into one route, which can be more practical than driving single-track rural roads alone. VisitScotland publishes its own guide to filming locations tied to the series, listing which properties are open, which are seasonal and which are landscape best seen from a layby.

Illustration: Quartz

Hobbiton, near Matamata on the North Island, is the one "Lord of the Rings" set that was rebuilt to last. After the first trilogy wrapped, the hobbit holes were reconstructed in permanent materials so the site could stay open to visitors. It now operates as a ticketed attraction on a working sheep farm, with more than 40 hobbit holes and a functioning pub, the Green Dragon Inn.

Tours run daily and should be booked ahead, especially between December and February, when New Zealand's summer overlaps with peak international arrivals. Guides lead groups through the Shire set and finish at the Green Dragon, where a drink is included in the ticket. Matamata sits roughly two hours by road from Auckland, which makes the farm a realistic day trip for travelers who are not basing themselves nearby.

The South Island trades constructed sets for open country. Peter Jackson shot much of the Misty Mountains and wilderness material around Queenstown, the Mackenzie Basin and the valleys near Glenorchy. Beech forest and braided rivers from those areas appear in sequences across both trilogies. The land is public, with no film infrastructure left behind, so visitors reach specific shooting sites on guided four-wheel-drive excursions or jet boat trips leaving from Queenstown.

Tongariro National Park, on the North Island's volcanic plateau, stood in for Mordor and Mount Doom. The park holds dual UNESCO World Heritage status, recognized for its volcanic landscape and for its cultural significance to Ngāti Tūwharetoa. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing, a demanding single-day hike across that terrain, draws walkers with no interest in the films at all.

Tourism New Zealand has promoted "Middle-earth" as a standing travel category since the first film reached theaters in 2001. Signage, tour operators and itineraries on both islands still reference the franchise more than two decades later.

Illustration: Quartz

Fort Ricasoli, on the edge of Malta's Grand Harbour, stood in for the Roman arena and battle sequences in Ridley Scott's "Gladiator." Its bastions are visible from public viewpoints in Valletta and the Three Cities, though the fort itself is not generally open for walk-in visits.

That split runs across the island: several decades of screen history packed into a landmass smaller than greater London, with some sites open to walk through and others only to look at.

Mdina is the most accessible of them. The former capital, a walled hilltop city largely closed to car traffic, played King's Landing in the first season of "Game of Thrones" before production moved to Croatia for later seasons. Its limestone lanes, the Mdina Gate and St. Paul's Cathedral are open to the public, and the walled core can be covered on foot in a couple of hours.

One Maltese filming site no longer exists. The Azure Window, a natural limestone arch on the island of Gozo used for Daenerys Targaryen's Dothraki wedding, collapsed into the sea during a storm in March 2017. Dwejra Bay, where it stood, is still reachable by road, and the submerged rubble now draws divers and snorkelers.

Anchor Bay, on the northwest coast, kept its set. The village built for Robert Altman's 1980 musical "Popeye" was never dismantled and now operates as Popeye Village, a small seaside attraction with the original wooden buildings still standing.

The Malta Tourism Authority promotes this film history openly, and the national film commission has courted international productions with financial incentives for years, which helps explain why period and fantasy shoots keep returning to the same harbors and forts.

Scale is the practical advantage for visitors. Mdina, the Grand Harbour and Anchor Bay sit within an hour's drive of one another, and Gozo is a short ferry crossing from the main island, so a set-jetting route here needs no internal flights or long transfers.

Illustration: Quartz

Albuquerque is the rare set-jetting destination where the fictional setting and the filming location are the same city. "Breaking Bad" and its prequel "Better Call Saul" were both written for Albuquerque and shot there, so nearly every exterior a viewer recognizes is a real address rather than a stand-in.

The best-known stop is the house used as the White family home, a private residence on a quiet street in the city's northeast. People live there. Visitors are asked to view it from the street without lingering, blocking the driveway or stepping onto the property. The owners put up fencing after years of unwanted attention, including fans throwing pizzas onto the roof in imitation of a scene from the show.

The restaurant that played Los Pollos Hermanos is a working Twisters location, open to the public and operating as an ordinary fast-food outlet. The Crossroads Motel, whose sign appears across both series, still stands on Central Avenue — the stretch of the historic Route 66 corridor running through the city, and the source of much of the motel-and-neon texture both shows lean on.

Local operators run branded bus and van tours that link these sites into a single loop, which cuts down the driving in a city laid out across a wide grid. Props from the production, including the recreational vehicle used as the mobile lab, have appeared on public display in Albuquerque at various points rather than remaining permanently on view, so current arrangements are worth checking before a trip.

The wider landscape is as recognizable as any single building. The high desert flats, the Rio Grande bosque and the Sandia Mountains east of the city give the same wide horizons the cinematography drew on. Visit Albuquerque maintains filming-location resources of its own, and the association has held since the original series ended in 2013 and "Better Call Saul" wrapped in 2022.

Illustration: Quartz

The "Twilight" saga splits its real geography between Tuscany and the U.S. Pacific Northwest, and in both regions the place in the book is not the place on the film set. Volterra, the Etruscan hill town where the Volturi coven lives in "New Moon," was doubled on screen by Montepulciano, about two hours east by car.

Volterra still holds up as a destination. The town sits on a ridge in the province of Pisa, inside walls that layer Etruscan, Roman and medieval stonework, with an excavated Roman theater below the northern rampart and the Palazzo dei Priori facing the main square. Anyone hunting the exact piazza where Edward steps into the sunlight needs Montepulciano's Piazza Grande instead.

San Gimignano, a UNESCO-listed walled town roughly 20 miles northeast of Volterra, makes a logical third stop on a Tuscan loop. Its surviving medieval tower houses give it a skyline unlike anything else in the region, and it pairs easily with Volterra on a day trip out of Florence or Siena. None of these towns organize themselves around the films, so what visitors get is working Tuscan hill towns with their own museums, churches and alabaster workshops.

Forks, Washington state, is the inverse: the genuine setting, selected by author Stephenie Meyer for its rainfall, but barely a filming location at all. Principal photography happened mostly in Oregon and British Columbia. The town on the Olympic Peninsula leaned into the association anyway. A red pickup sits outside the visitor center, local shops stock memorabilia, and a fan festival runs each September, timed to Bella Swan's birthday.

La Push, 15 miles west on the coast, belongs to the Quileute Nation and is the real community behind the wolf pack storyline. First Beach and the sea stacks offshore draw visitors year-round, but this is a residential tribal town, not an attraction built for fans. Public beaches and roads are open; the rest is private. The drive from Forks takes about 20 minutes, and the two can be done together in a single afternoon alongside the Hoh Rain Forest, an hour southeast inside Olympic National Park.

Illustration: Quartz

Iceland's volcanic terrain carried scenes in both "Game of Thrones" and Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar." Most of the sites used stay open as ordinary national parks and hiking destinations. Grjótagjá, a lava cave near Lake Mývatn in the north, holds the geothermal spring used for the Jon Snow and Ygritte scene.

A short walk from the parking area leads to the entrance, and visitors can climb down to see the water. Bathing is discouraged. Temperatures in the pool rose after the Krafla eruptions of the 1970s and 1980s, and the water has at times been too hot to enter safely. The wider Mývatn area holds pseudocraters, the steaming ground at Hverir and the lava formations of Dimmuborgir, all of which appeared across the show's northern sequences.

Þingvellir National Park, about 40 minutes east of Reykjavik, doubled for the land beyond the Wall and for the gorge approach to the Eyrie. The park sits in a rift valley where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart. Iceland's Alþingi parliament was founded there in 930, and the UNESCO World Heritage listing rests on that history rather than on anything filmed on the site.

"Interstellar" used Svínafellsjökull, an outlet glacier of Vatnajökull in the southeast, for its ice planet sequences. Access runs through guided glacier hikes and ice climbing trips leaving from Skaftafell, and walking onto the ice alone is unsafe. Glacial retreat and unstable ground above the glacier have changed the area since filming, so the formations on screen do not match what stands there now.

Iceland differs from most set-jetting destinations in one respect: nothing had to be built. Þingvellir, Mývatn and Vatnajökull drew travelers long before a film crew arrived, and each holds up as a destination on its own terms. Reykjavik works as a base for the southern locations, while the Mývatn sites sit closer to Akureyri.

Illustration: Quartz

Ait Benhaddou, a fortified earthen village about 20 miles from Ouarzazate in southern Morocco, played the slaver city of Yunkai in "Game of Thrones." It also supplied desert settings for Ridley Scott's "Gladiator." The ksar is a UNESCO World Heritage site, open to visitors on foot, and far older than any production that has used it.

The ksar is a cluster of clay-and-straw buildings stacked up a hillside above the Ounila Valley. It is built in a pre-Saharan style maintained by periodic re-plastering rather than preserved as a ruin. A handful of families still live inside the walls, so the site remains a working settlement. Most residents moved years ago to the newer village across the riverbed. Visitors cross the shallow river on stepping stones or a footbridge, then climb through narrow passages to the hilltop granary. The view from there takes in the valley floor and the Atlas foothills behind it.

Crews have worked here since at least 1962, when David Lean shot parts of "Lawrence of Arabia" in the region. The ksar has stood in for ancient cities and North African settings in one production after another since. Ouarzazate, the nearest town, has absorbed so much of that work that it carries the nickname Ouallywood. Atlas Studios, on the edge of town, runs public tours past standing sets, including Roman-era structures left from earlier epics. The sets are weathered props rather than restorations, and they sit out in open desert rather than inside sound stages.

Morocco has courted foreign productions for decades with financial incentives and logistical support. That is part of why so many recognizable locations sit within an hour's drive of one another here. Most travelers reach Ait Benhaddou by road from Marrakech, a trip of about four hours over the Tizi n'Tichka pass. Many pair the ksar with a continuation south into the Draa Valley or east toward the Sahara dunes near Merzouga. Day trips from Marrakech cover the site and return the same evening, though an overnight in Ouarzazate allows more time at the studios. Summer midday heat in the valley is severe, which makes early morning the practical time for the climb.

Illustration: Quartz

Prague is the set-jetting destination where the city almost never plays itself. Its Gothic and Baroque streets have stood in for Paris, London, Vienna and a long list of unnamed European capitals, at costs well below shooting in those cities directly. Audiences have watched Prague for decades without recognizing it.

Barrandov Studios, founded in 1933, anchors the local industry and ranks among Europe's oldest film studios still in operation. Its soundstages and backlots sit a short drive from a historic center that came through World War II largely undamaged, which gives productions an unusual range of usable periods in one place. The studio capacity and an established local crew base have kept foreign productions returning since the 1990s.

Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge have both appeared on screen repeatedly. The 1996 "Mission: Impossible" used the city extensively, including a sequence on the Charles Bridge and scenes in the castle district. "Casino Royale" worked out of Barrandov and Czech locations, and the "Chronicles of Narnia" films used Czech studio space and countryside. That Bond film also shot in Karlovy Vary, about two hours west of Prague by road, where the Grandhotel Pupp stood in for the Hotel Splendide in Montenegro.

That is the structural difference between Prague and a destination like Dubrovnik. No single franchise owns the city's screen identity, so there is no equivalent of a King's Landing trail to follow. Travelers $TRV who want a film itinerary here should pick the production first, then research its specific addresses, rather than arriving and expecting a signposted route.

The practical upside is access. Old Town Square $SQ, the Vyšehrad fortress complex and the Vltava embankments are free to walk at any hour, and they carry most of the location work shot in the city. Several Prague tour operators run walking tours built around film history, and they identify which building served as which foreign capital in which film.

Early morning is the realistic window to see the Charles Bridge without crowds, and the closest a visitor gets to the empty version that appears on screen.

Illustration: Quartz

Split's Diocletian's Palace holds the city's most direct "Game of Thrones" connection: the vaulted Substructures beneath the complex were used as the chambers where Daenerys Targaryen kept her chained dragons in Meereen. The basements are open to the public year-round and sit directly beneath the palace's central courtyard.

The palace was built in the early fourth century as a retirement compound for the Roman emperor Diocletian, and it has been occupied ever since. Apartments, cafés, shops and bars operate inside the original Roman walls. The result is a working neighborhood rather than a ruin behind a fence. Much of the complex can be walked for free, with separate tickets covering the Substructures, the cathedral bell tower and the Temple of Jupiter. The historic core, palace included, has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1979.

The filming footprint here is narrower than Dubrovnik's. Split's screen locations can be covered in under an hour, which leaves the rest of a visit for the Roman architecture, the Riva waterfront promenade and the hiking trails on Marjan hill above the city. Klis Fortress, about a 20-minute drive inland, served as the exterior of Meereen in the same series and is reachable by local bus from the center.

Hvar sits about an hour from Split by catamaran, or roughly two hours by car ferry to Stari Grad. The island was not a filming site, but it works as the practical third stop on a Dalmatian coast itinerary. It is known for its lavender fields, the hilltop Spanish Fortress above Hvar Town and a harbor crowded with yachts through July and August.

Ferry and catamaran links between Split, Hvar and Dubrovnik run frequently from roughly May through September, then thin out in winter, so timetables are worth checking before booking off-season. Split's airport takes direct summer flights from across Europe, which makes it a practical entry point for a trip covering all three stops.

Illustration: Quartz

FX's 2024 adaptation of "Shogun" was filmed primarily in British Columbia, Canada, not Japan. Crews built large outdoor sets in and around Vancouver, so the places where the series was actually shot sit on Canada's Pacific coast rather than in Kansai.

The gap between where a story is set and where it is filmed is worth understanding before booking any trip, and it applies well beyond this series. Studios follow tax incentives, crew availability and the practicality of controlling a big outdoor build. Those sets were temporary structures, dismantled rather than preserved for visitors, which leaves little to tour.

Japan still holds the real geography behind the novel and the show. Osaka Castle, the seat of power at the center of the story's political maneuvering, stands as a 20th-century reconstruction; earlier versions were destroyed and rebuilt several times. Inside, a museum covers the castle's history and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the warlord who ordered the original construction, and an observation deck near the top looks out over the city. The grounds sit in a public park, and entry to the keep itself requires a ticket.

Kyoto gives the clearest view of surviving architecture from the period. Nijo Castle, begun in 1603, served as the Kyoto residence of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the shogun who inspired the character of Lord Toranaga. Its Ninomaru Palace keeps its painted sliding screens and the squeaking "nightingale" floorboards laid along the corridors. The site is open to the public and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage property.

Gion preserves the wooden machiya townhouses and narrow lanes behind most visual impressions of old Kyoto. It is also a residential and working district, and photography is restricted on some private side streets. Temples including Kiyomizu-dera and Ryoan-ji round out a trip for anyone drawn to the era rather than the production. Trains link Kyoto and Osaka in under 30 minutes, so a single base covers both.