Just 3 hours offshore of Sandy Beach.
Well, the trip certainly started from somewhere populated in Hawaii, so that narrows it down considerably.
EDIT: Though we don’t know that it’s within three hours of populated islands. The tour was planned to be that long, but the weather obviously changed that plan.
Even as a kid I thought the Professor was smart enough to see the women as having the best assets to work with. As a Professor it was his duty to fill them with as much science as he had time for.
Coconut Island was used for the opening sequence of the television program Gilligan’s Island
Now granted, at less than half a mile off the coast of Oahu, it wouldn’t make for a plausible setting for the series. But the fact remains that Coconut Island is shown at the end of the opening credits in a way that implies that is, in fact, the island where the castaways live.
The harbor they left from was Long Beach, but that’s just lazy filmmaking.
I think the island is in a time/space vortex, not entirely connected to the real world.
I believe you. The one in California? There is also one in Mississippi. Can you direct me to which episode this is disclosed. I just want to see it for my own education.
How many of you all, like me, just assumed they set sail from Hawaii?
And another Long Beach in Washington State, which has a really long beach, 28 miles.
I think he means where they filmed the bit in the opening.
Everywhere in the world is somewhere in southern California.
Yes, correct! (I actually thought it looked like Marina del Rey, but I guess not.)
Yup!
Oh I did, though I couldn’t quote which episode (if any?) specifically stated that. I thought the surfer was reported as coming from Hawaii.
Hawaii is much more likely because it had been in the public’s consciousness since becoming a state in 1959. Also, the Minnow would have had to drift an awfully long time to travel from California to a point south or southeast of Hawaii.
Hawaiian Eye (1959–1963) and Follow the Sun (1961–1962) both preceded Gilligan’s Island (1964–1967).
I assumed the three-hour tour started in Hawaii, but don’t remember if that was ever explicitly said in the show.
Filmed in, of course, Los Angeles. 
Mostly on the back lot.
No cite, but I’m pretty sure I read in a companion book that Ginger jumped onto the Minnow just as it was about to set sail, to get away from some sailors who were pursuing her. In which case, she wouldn’t have had anything with her, except maybe a handbag.
Fun Fact: Hawaii had virtually no production facilities until filming started on Hawaii Five-0 (1968–1980). It was a great setting, though!
In MAD Magazine’s satire of I Spy, there were several seconds of location shots “to convince people the entire episode had been filmed in Hong Kong.”
I’ve read somewhere that when Hawaii Five-O ended production, there was a desire to create a new show to keep those facilities in use, and the workers employed. That was one of the factors that led to the creation on Magnum P.I.
On the original pilot, I respected what they did with the two girls. It was just a more realistic performance. Show was probably better off going more cartoonish, but I respect the acting in that pilot. Dawn Wells’ Mary Ann was still more of a Daisy Maeish thing than a realistic person.
John Gabriel as the original professor is the one that didn’t make a lot of sense. Too much of a stud muffin for that role. Gabriel wound up on a soap and probably had a better career anyway.
I respect Tina Louise. She probably had the most realistic portrayal on the original show. She did come back for the Roseanne reunion where they were playing against type and you can tell that’s really the type of stuff she wanted to do. Like the Eva Grubb episode, she did a great job with that. I do think she had talent and you can see her light up when she was interested. But most of the rest of the cast were character actors that kind of had variations on their shtick. She really didn’t have that, and the biz can be tough sometimes.
The motivation for Macgyver was that the studio had stock footage of a lot of exotic locations, and they wanted to make a show that would make use of it.
Its location is referenced twice that I can think of off the top of my head.
First, in the episode where they make the movie, there is a scene where the Skipper tries to point out on a map where the ship left (and he does say Hawaii - part of the joke is, everybody else suggests that they show somewhere else; Mr. Howell says Fort Knox), and where it ended up.
Second, in the episode with the rocket launched toward the island, a radio report announces the target’s latitude and longitude as 10 North, 140 West, which is about 1200 miles SE of Hawaii.
That’s a bit far, episode writers!. That’s maybe a week of powered travel, much more if the Minnow just drifted. The Minnow washed up on shore the next day after the storm, didn’t it?
Just reinforces that the island is not in our universe at all. But it randomly phases in and out of reality. It exists in a universe with profoundly different laws of physics. Like where breathing helium not only makes you float, but it doesn’t change your voice. And radiation gives you fantastic eyesight.
And don’t forget the Smoke Monster!