One factor of a trip to Savannah Georgia was because it’s location for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Forrest Gump.
I was just about to post that I visited Stephen King’s house in Maine, because of some fiction books!
We made a brief detour to see the house a few years ago, and sat in our car out on the street for a few minutes because husband was having some kind of issue with the GPS. While we were sitting there, we saw another group of folks drive by, pointing at the house and waving. Also noticed a young kid mowing a nearby lawn. Can you imagine being that lucky young lad, living your normal life and doing your normal chores, next door to the King?
Anyway, we finally got out and husband took my picture in front of the iconic gates. For some reason, I was really nervous that Mr. King was going to come out and yell at us for disturbing his privacy, but he did not. I look really goofy in the picture or I’d probably have made a framed poster of it by now.
We gotta stop meeting like this. People will talk.
When we moved to New England & had relatives up in Old Orchard Beach, I made a point of passing through Ogunquit so I could see ground zero for Frannie and Harold. The book description turned out to give a good sense of it.
Another book one - I read a book called If I Never Get Back which is a bit of a time travel & historical fiction book mostly about the 1869 Cincinnatti Red Stockings baseball team (and Mark Twain). My dad had given me the book to read, and he had also read it which is kinda weird because dad didn’t read books.
Anyway, we went to the Baseball Hall Of Fame for the first and only time, not long after reading that book. It was super awesome to see photos and memorabilia from the Red Stockings team! Of course, our family being baseball fans, it was awesome to see it all.
Also while we were there we found a burger joint called Burger World, which is the name of the place where Beavis & Butthead worked, and my dad was also a fan of theirs, so we had just as much fun getting to eat at Burger World as we did seeing the HOF.
I do this a lot, take note of places to go based on what I’ve watched or seen. Some good ideas upthread too, but I’ll get back to that. I gotta run…
Chasing Hobbits in New Zealand complete with butter beer.
The Hobbit Trilogy was filmed entirely in New Zealand, throughout locations in both the North and South Islands. Find out where to go and what to see to experience Middle‑earth™ for yourself.
https://www.newzealand.com/au/feature/the-hobbit-trilogy-filming-locations/
I ate a very fancy meal at Ever when I was in Chicago last fall in part because it was featured in an episode of The Bear. And although I I’d kind of wanted to visit Chicago for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if that show subconsciously increased my desire to go there.
I visited Los Angeles last spring as well, and I kind of suspect La La Land kind of made me want to go there on some level, too.
Locally, I’ve tried a few restaurants because they were featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. Namely Squeeze Burger (formerly Squeeze Inn, although the original location featured on the show isn’t there anymore), The Golden Bear, and Dad’s Kitchen.
I can’t be the only one here who went out of his way to stop by the Hook & Ladder Company 8 firehouse in Manhattan and take pictures solely because it figures in Ghostbusters.
Not me, but my wife.
She went on a walking tour of Yorkshire, that featured the town that fills in for Darrowby (Grassington) in the 2021 version of All Creatures Great and Small. We are just finishing up the last season, and she has enjoyed pointing out places that she saw in person.
I checked out the Hill District in Pittsburgh after I moved there in 1988. Much rougher than Hill Street Blues made it out to be.
Oh my adventurous youth!
Slightly off-topic, but it’s my thread, so
Homicide: Life on the Street was filmed half a block from where my sister tended bar - she said cast members occasionally came in. What cracks me up about it is the entrance to the Police Headquarters. The building was an old dock/warehouse at the foot of Broadway in Baltimore. When I was a kid, that door led to a stair that went up to a playground atop the warehouse. I think it’s now apartments or something. I haven’t been there in eons.
Oh yes, I forgot about Forks. My wife and I took our granddaughter on a trip to the Pac NW specifically because she was into the Twilight saga big-time. I felt sorry for her when we rolled into town and it was just this run-down old logging town, the high school was half torn down, etc. She was so disappointed. She did enjoy frolicking in the ocean near LaPush though.
And I just thought of another Pac NW experience, although it wasn’t a deliberate choice. On another trip to the Seattle area, my friend and his wife took us on a day trip to the Port Townsend/Fort Worden area. As we were driving through the fort, I had this weird feeling of deja vu - it seemed really familiar even though I had never been there before. Then suddenly it hit me - “This is where they filmed An Officer And A Gentleman!”
I’m a big fan of the Oxford-based shows Endeavour and Lewis. At one time the organization Road Scholar (Clever name, eh? Better than the original name, Elderhostel.) offered a three-week stay in Oxford with Literature and History classes at one of the colleges. That would have been a dream. I see they aren’t currently offering it.
Walton’s Mountain from The Waltons is a fictional place but it’s based on Schuyler, Virginia, the small town where show creator Earl Hamner grew up. I visited a few years ago. It’s a pretty area, but very remote. We toured the family home, which was smaller and less secluded than the fictional Walton family home. In reality, the father worked in a soapstone quarry; he never had a sawmill and there was never a barn. The former school has been turned into a museum, and is much bigger than the school depicted on TV. Apparently the two old lady moonshiners were based on real people, but unlike the Baldwin sisters, they knew exactly what they were doing. They say the secret ingredient in “The Recipe” was apricots. You can visit the Baptist church and the inspiration for Ike Godsey’s store. I hear the family home is no longer open for tours, but the museum is still open. It was a mildly interesting visit but I can’t say I’d recommend it unless you happen to be in the area and have a special interest. It takes longer to get there from almost anywhere than it does to see everything worth seeing. And if you are at all prone to motion sickness, bring a puke bag. Those mountain roads are something else.
Another local one: When family came to visit the year Lady Bird came out, I took them to see the Christmas lights in Sacramento’s Fabulous Forties neighborhood, because it features prominently in the film.
We went to Cardiff when they had the Doctor Who experience there. And we searched out different filming locations and took pictures by Ianto’s Shrine from Torchwood.
I’ve been fortunate enough to see a lot of places that I dreamed about when I was a kid after seeing them in books and NatGeo magazines. Places like the pyramids in Egypt, wild animals on safaris, Victoria Falls, etc. But the one place from a movie makes me salivate, and that I will never see, is Petra. The movie, of course, was the Indiana Jones film The Last Crusade.
We were going to be heading through Deadwood, SD on a moto trip and would’ve stopped anyone, but because of my love of the show with the same name, we spent more time exploring the town and Boot Hill. Good stuff.
“Burpo and Beetle, two peas in a pod”, they’ll say!