Best Travel Movies : BestTravelMovies.com

This is my collection of Best Travel Movies, I am Andy Graham a perpetual traveler of 14 years and 90 countries. My goal here is to choose travel movies that in total captures the spirit of real travel, and hopefully keep the cliché, romanticized version at bay.

The best travel movie should help you dream of a real and possible world.

The Best Travel Movies include these concepts:

1. Leaving ones own culture and comfort zone, and entering another whereby the actors explain the uncomfortable idiosyncratic events of being there.
2. Travel: Transportation from on location to another, therefore travel
3. List of stops, more than one location, and easy is different.
4. Reality: There is a feasibly resemblance to reality, or the dream, fantasy is to explain by contrast a point, not just fantasy portrayed as real.
5. Culture: Two or more different cultures clashing or meeting.
6. Sleeping: Spending the night in room other than at home
7. Time: A Journey over time, the journey happens normally over a period of month or years.
8. Dream, fantasy, with hope.
9. Search for something.
10. Love
11. A Story line, not a documentary.
12. Starting a journey without a good reason, just faith and belief that it will work out.
13. Serendipitously learning about ones self.
14. Packing and unpackiing
15. To learn unique things about the world, return home and nobody believes you.
    
    

What is not a Travel Movie

1. Situational comedy in a foreign country where there is only comedy between the characters, but not interplay with the locals.
2. Documentary, it is for factual interpretation and is not the word movie or film.
3. A movie about a foreign culture, with charaters from the same culture.
4. Non-realistic encounters, when a person meets something that is not real in foreign place, this is a fantasy movie, not travel.
5. Cliche characters, cliche locations, nothng real, just a romanticized version of something that has no basis in reality. (Note, sometimes the writer does not know he or she does not know.)


Genres or Types of Travel Movies
1. Train trip. (Darjeeling Limited)
2. The search for reason for being. (Eat, Pray, Love.)
3. Entering a country where you cannot talk the language.
4. Conquering a new land.
5. Going Native - (Lawrence of Arabia)
6. Love crosses all cultural boundaries. (The World of Suzie Wong)
7. To do something unique with our life. (The Bucket List)
8. To believe society does it wrong, and revolt. (Into the Wild.)
9. Cultural Clash (The Ugly American.)
10. Revolt Against the Machine or Government (Easy Rider.)
11. Search for Paradise, the Romanticize Travel (The Beach)
12. The endless hardships or hassles of travel piled on top of each other. (National Lapoons Vacation Series)
13. Search for the Meaning of Life (The Razor's Edge, Eat, Pray, Love.)

The Top Travel Movies

1. The Razor's Edge - Explains the search for meaning as a Darrel travels from country to country reading books and looking for meaning. This delves into the spirituality of India, Nepal and the Asian World. The movies flips back and forth between the Bohemian world of France and the Bourgeoisie, truly an adventure of the spirit..
   The Razor's Edge
   
   
2. The World of Suzie Wong - All people are real, whether we are the same, we all have feelings, we love, we hate, and can have our feelings hurt. This movie explains the story of an upper crust writers in Hong Kong who meets a common "Bar Girl" and falls in live in spite of himself. Love in the world is to accept people flaws, and that shows us hope in all people. True travel needs, must, and does accept others, we must, we have no choice. This also explains the inner intimate ideas why Expatriates love women in Asia and even marry prostitutes. All major Expat area have women, this is an inherent draw to the destinations, and love is love, unstoppable if you meet the right person and love can overlook, and forgive anything.
   The World Of Suzie Wong
   
   
   
3.   Don Quixote - Hallmark Film - Chasing dreams movie, and is analogous to the modern Backpacker who go off and outfit themselves with gear that is not needed, to chase adventures that are not there. Dreaming is the game, fantasy, and the hope of a new life, this is Travel. This Travel Movie explains how Titling at Windmills is part of genius and the spirit in all travelers.
   Themes: --- The great elsewhere --- Adventure --- No Filters ---
   
   
4. Bucket List - Dreams of Travel, make a list of places before you die, the idea of bringing meaning to a boring life. This movies explains how two men have an epiphany when told they would die, they asked themselves, shall we live our lives to the most and savor all that life has to give or accept our fate. Travel Movies like this are inspiring, and this one is a charmer, everything they do is truly possible, this is not beyond the will of the traveler.
   
   
5. The Beach - Classic explanation of Backpacker being Tourist, and searching for Paradise. The classic line, "Khao San Road, the center of the Backpacker World," which it is.
   The Beach The Movie
   
   
6. Lawrence of Arabia - A classic movie full of culture, long journey, and the every present problem of travelers going native.
   
   
7. Christopher Columbus - The Discovery
   Themes- The Journey - Faith of going somewhere will be good - To have all your friends think you are crazy, yet to make the journey anyway.
   
   
8. Eat Pray Love - This is movie that is the dream of many travelers, they wish to travel the world and return home to write a best seller, that is made into a Movie. Therefore, this is a success story for Elizabeth Gilbert, who traveled the world, comes home and write a book that was made into a book with Julia Roberts as the lead. The movie is about a stream of never-ending stereotype activities done after person escaped something in their life. The movie highlights the too major escapes of the typical person, marriage and job, and in a way the 9-5 never-ending work mentality of the people in the USA. After she escapes, the story takes Julia Roberts through the normal list of "find yourself" stops, first in Italy to find love and food, then to India to find God, then on to Bali where she is suppose to self-actualize. This movie does an excellent job of selling the dream, the ending was poetic justice, she wins, as she sails off into the sunset with the love of her life, after she has learned to love again. It was an incredibly long list of clichés put in sequence from the perspective of a person who truly traveled. it is refreshing to see the story of a person who obviously traveled, and told their story.
   
   
9. Into The Wild - The nuts of travel explained in a movie, the Che Guerrera, Bob Marley bunch, if this boy would have had dreads it would been more realistic. Explains how travelers romanticizes travel and dream of deserted island and how it is a dead end. An idealistic boy follows a dream, a fantasy, he believes in things, and not people. This travel movie explains how the world of tourist chase the sunset, the shopping, and forget their friends. In the movie people reach out to him continuously and he leaves, friends do not leave, lover does not leave.
   Into The Wild
   
   
10. Gulliver's Travels (1996) with Ted Danson - A miniseries / movie that is loyal to the book by Johanathon Swift. The
    
    
11. Out of Africa, how we fall in love with cultures, and how we do not know why, when we leave, we want to return, but when we are there we have cultural fatigue.
    This movies shows how one person desires to accept a culture, while another wishes to change the culture.
    
    
12. One Week 2008 - There is a leap of faith that is needed to reject one lifestyle and choose to search for another. In the movie "One Week" a boy has cancer, and takes off on his motorcycle going west.
    
    
13. Sullivan's Travels (1942) - A man pretends to be  Hobo, and learns why we must focus on the beauty of life.
    
    
14. The Ugly American, and explanation of the confusion, or the difficulty when two cultures meet, and the inability to communicate. This is reality, brutal, honest, and trying, not meant to entertain, this movie explain real people.
    
    
15. Apocalypse Now, the lost souls of travel, and how they drift into spiritual quagmire. This explains the addiction to travel, when he is in the hotel room, he knows he is alive when in, however, he knows all he can think about is leaving when he is in, but cannot live without the addiction to chaos. Truly Travel is a love / hate relationship, and the ability of our spirit to adapt, accept, and understand how we are the same of different than the world, and that is OK.
    Apocalypse Now
    
    
16. Seven Years in Tibet, surrealist view, the stereotypical, cliché view many travelers dream they will have, full of tough times, but love of life in the end, not realistic.
    
    
17. Easy Rider, show the nature of the "Wanted" and "Unwanted" expatriate or Traveler. the anger and the desire to not fit in, to fit in, and to free.
    Easy Rider
    
    
18. Casablanca, the cosmopolitan world that truly exist, the idea of World Citizens, that do not see language or cultures as an obstacles, they just go.
    
    
19. Everything is Illuminated  recommended by Wade
    A sort of bizarre trip to Ukraine full of culture clash, culture shock, language problems and the search for meaning by illumination of the past.
    
    
20. The Quiet American - The Vietnam situation from the French, to the Americans, and how the West was confused in the endeavors to control. CIA, etc.
    
    
21. The African Queen - A long journey on an African river, whereby two people share a common challenge. .
    - Misrepresenting Culture, showing all the blacks with no teeth. Isolation, separation and clinging to each other, then the loss of faith in ones self.
    
    
22. Magic Trip (2011) - A historical depiction of a group of real people in 1964 who drove an old school bus across the USA: Alison Ellwood and Alex Gibney, about Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, and the Merry Pranksters. The movie introduces the search for new, the name of the bus was "Further," a great way of saying, how traveler are wanting to leave, or go further.
    Magic Trip
    
    
23. Up In Air - A love story, but some truly good business perspectives on how to go through airports fast, and how their is little hope for long term relationships as a perpetual traveler.
    
    
24. The Motorcycle Diaries - A romantic view of travel with a few good true views of the Amazon, as two friends traveled from Argentina north by boat and land. --- Demagoguery story of life of Che Guevara, the Icon of the Backpacker world by smoking a cigar that looks like a joint, and being on all the T-shirts on Khao San Road to the airport in Cuba, this man is famous in legend more than real life. Che is on more T-shirts on planet earth than Coca Cola...
    
    
25. The Wizard of Oz - The idea of following the path, following the road to dreams, making a journey and needing to make choices, this movie although more fantasy than truth, is about leaving home, and not understanding what you have until your gone, they learning to appreciate you home. All travelers learn to appreciate home, and one of the best reason to go home, because there is no place like home.
    
    
26. Lost in Translation - (Watched) A classic phrase, but more cliché.
    
    
27. Away We Go --- A movie where a young couple explore the idea of going away to a new place, the elsewhere. Then because they encounter other people outside their normal world they are force to compare, and learn about themselves.
    Themes - Untethered life - Misfits - Unwanted - Elsewhere.
    
    
28. Slumdog Millionaire - A movie that explains how the media creates an unrealistic view of the hardships of children around the planet, then imbues them with a noble spirit, that poor people are nice. Poor is dangerous, dirty, and problematic for a real traveler. India is difficult, the India people can follow you for days, annoy-you-until-you-give begging. The movie in some ways separates, and explains there is hope for all, but people believe movies more than they believe realty.
    
    
29. Gone with the Wind - (What you believed in, the way you lived, is gone with the wind) A drama explaining what happens when a culture ends, or begins, or is in process.
    
    

Reality Movies --- Cliché-ed-Plots:
Reality in a way, yet too hokey - The producers attempt to depict real travel experiences. However, because of over-romanticizing, stretching the truth, and just plain use of clichés, they belong under a special category, not real, but not unreal.

1.   The Art of Travel - This is the first movie I have seen that attempts to capture the whole story of travel. Oversimplified and cliché characters are grouped together to create the "Traveler Huddle." The small conversations that occur that changes a persons live.
   
   Starting the Movie with the "Hotel Santos" in Managua, Nicaragua was insightful and a signal the writer had knowledge of the "Gringo Trail."
   
   The movie writes
   "The art of travel is to deviate from the current plan."
   
   This movie shows how a person must adapt to the situation and remain happy by not trying to control the events or outcomes. I congratulate them on trying, although the deviation from true ways of traveling were hokey.
   a. Saying they was the first to travel the Darien Gap, then mispronouncing the whole movie, they would say with "Spanish" pronunciation.
   b. Renting a car to see the geyser.
   
   The art of is not to deviate from the plan, it the ability to deviate without losing stride, leaving the girl was romanticizing travel above love.
   
   Plot: High school grad. Conner Layne is about to marry his first love, but when wedding plans fail, he goes solo on his honeymoon to Central America, finding adventure with a ragtag group of foreigners who attempt to cross the Darien Gap in record time
   
   
2. Last Stop for Paul
   
   
3. Up (2009)

Documentaries

1. Encounters at the End of the World - More or less a documentary about the South Pole that extremely glamorizes, extremists, romanticizes every thing, there is not one just moment of authentic feelings. Everyone is talking as if they are in a dream world.
   Themes - Dreams - Clichés - Intimate Comments - Worst Possible
   
   

Stories / Movies that show you travel destinations: These movies were made at stereotypical travel destinations as background, however are not truly showing the interplay between two cultures.

1. Indiana Jones films, these movies make the world as small as it really it, as they go from culture to culture with no great celebration, not trying to save the world.
   
   
2. Chasing Liberty
   
   
3. Darjeeling Limited - A comedy placed on a Train in India, while the movie is entertaining the backdrop is mainly just for effect, very unreal. This movie was fully of the types of traveler conflict one after another, represented in a comedy, however, truly not helping many to travel, just for fun. I wish there was two cultures in the movie, instead of the USA culture looking at the India truly an insulated, segregate movie, the cultures never met, synchronized or clashed, it was a mono cultural interpretation, yet fun.
   Theme - --- Serendipitous learning about ones self.
   
   
4. Eurotrip -- (Started to watch) This is a silly movie... started could not continue.
   
   
5. Before Sunrise (1995)
   
   
6. In Bruges

Travel Movies under Review

1. 180 Degrees South (DL)
2. A Good Year (DL)
3. A Map for Saturday (DL)
4. Amelie
5. An Education (Not a travel movie)
6. Around the World in 80 Days 1956
7. Around the World in 80 Days 2004
8. Chasing Liberty
9. City of God (DL)
10. David Lynch's Hotel Room - (DL) Not Travel Movie
11. Genghis Blues (DL)
12. Gullivers Travels (2010) (DL)
13. Gulliver's Travels (TV 1996) Ted Danson (DL)
14. Have Dream Will Travel - NOT a Travel Movie
15. In July (Im Juli) (DL)
16. L’auberge Espangnole (The Spanish Apartment)
17. Nowhere in Africa (DL)
18. One Week (DL)
19. Pierrot le fou (DL) French
20. Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
21. Que Tan Lejos (How Much Further)
22. Revolutionary Road
23. Roman Holiday
24. Shanghai Kiss (DL)
25. Swiss Family Robinson
26. The Inn of the Seventh Happiness (Submitted by LazyBeacher in comments)
27. The Librarian Trilogy - Three Movies (DL)
28. The Passenger (DL)
29. The Sheltering Sky
30. The Third Man - Not a Travel Movie
31. The Tourist
32. The Traveler (2010) Val Kilmer - Not a Travel Movie, a creepy movie.
33. The Trip (2010 film)
34. Tin Tin
35. Travels With My Aunt (1972) (DL)
36. Under the Tuscan Sun
37. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
38. View From The Top (DL)
39. Whale Rider
40. Y Tu Mama Tambien
41. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Herbert Mundin. Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless ...
42. Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard
43. National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) (DL)
44. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
45. Vegas Vacation (1997)
46. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
47. Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure (2003)
48. Hotel Hell Vacation (2010)
49. Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953)
50. 127 Hours (2010)
51. Roman Holiday (1953)
52. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008