Best Movies to Stir Your Wanderlust
Inspiring Movies that Will Make You Want to Get Off the Couch and See the World
Movies have the ability to transport you to another time, another place and another state of mind. If you’re looking to travel from the comfort of your own living room or want to motivate yourself to get out and explore, I’ve got the perfect list for you.
From trekking the globe, epic sagas and foreign films depicting beautiful faraway exotic lands, you will be sure to love every one of these great films as they transport you away from the familiar to the novelties of far off lands.
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Australia - 2008 film starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman
Australia is a film set in northern Australia right before the start of World War II in some of the most beautiful countryside you’ve ever seen. An English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley, inherits a sprawling ranch in the far off reaches of Australia known as Faraway Downs after her husband is murdered.
At first, she is unaccustomed to life on a ranch but quickly adapts after learning of a plot to take her land and surprises everyone when she insists on heading a cattle drive over unforgiving terrain. With the help of a cattle drover and a young Aboriginal boy she sets out to save her land forging unbreakable bonds with both of them. The film takes you right into the start of the war and the Japanese bombing of Darwin, Australia.
The scenery will leave you breathless and the bonds created will be forever engrained in your mind after watching this stunning screenplay. It also deals with the complexities of the Aboriginal’s plight in Australia at the time.
The Bucket List - 2007 comedy starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman
The Bucket List is the story of two men who set out on the road trip of a lifetime after both being diagnosed as terminally ill. Carter Chambers is a blue collar worker and Edward Cole is a billionaire who owns the hospital where they meet. For fun, Carter creates a “kick the bucket list” of sites he must see before dying but later discards it. Cole finds it, adds to it and offers to fund the trip to which Carter eventually agrees.
The unlikely pair takes you on an incredible journey to the North Pole, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, Tanzania, and Mount Everest. They go skydiving, drive race cars and attend a lion safari. It’s a story of true friendship between strangers who bond at the pyramids of Giza while confiding in each other about faith and family giving a whole new meaning to the phrase, “life is short, make the most of it.”
Dances With Wolves - 1990 film directed by, produced by and starring Kevin Costner
Dances with Wolves is based off a book by the same name and was Kevin Costner’s feature directorial debut and a masterpiece film about the American Old West. Set in the 1860s, Union Army Lt. John J. Dunbar is sent to the American frontier to man a military post he finds to be abandoned. After months of living alone, he befriends the neighboring Sioux tribe who he comes to respect and admire. It isn’t long before he finds himself living amongst them as a member of their tribe as they grow to accept him as one of their own.
This movie is an epic saga of the history between the white man and the natives of the American frontier and the tragedy that befell the great horse culture of the American plains. It is beautifully written with an incredible cast. It was shot on location in the vast open stretches of South Dakota with rolling prairies against a backdrop of majestic mountains.
Eat Pray Love - 2010 film starring Julia Roberts
Eat Pray Love is based on the memoirs of Elizabeth Gilbert. After her divorce and finding herself at a cross-roads, Gilbert sets out to find her true self. She steps out of her comfort zone on a journey that “saves” her as she discovers her love for food in Italy, the power of prayer in India and her true identity in Bali.
The film follows her on a path of self realization across continents into areas with stunning scenery and gorgeous backdrops on a quest many dream of but few actually step out of their comfort zone to do. Although the film can be predictable at times, it is still worth watching and Julia Roberts is full of her usual charisma. Besides, you cannot help but want to get off the couch and travel after seeing it.
Everest - 2015 film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke and Josh Brolin
The film Everest is based off a real-life incident that took place in 1996, often called the “Mount Everest Disaster.” A group of climbers set off to tackle the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. Caught in a blizzard as they approach the summit, it becomes a true test of survival.
While this film may sound a little depressing, it is anything but. It will have you on the edge of your seat not wanting to miss a single moment. It is absolutely incredible watching what these heroic climbers put themselves through in their journey to reach the top of the world’s most deadly peak and what the decision to climb it entails.
The film also features some of the most breathtaking scenery ever caught on film having been shot in Nepal, the Italian Alps and Iceland.
Find Me - 2018 indie film written, directed by and starring Tom Huang
Find Me is the tale of a somewhat boring accountant whose friend goes missing leaving him clues on where to find her in national parks across the U.S. At first, he’s reluctant to go. However, he soon breaks from routine, leaves his comfort zone and sets out on a solo journey in search of her.
This charming film starts off slow and you may even not want to like it, but you will soon find that you just can’t help yourself. It is such a sweet, sincere plot without any of that extra Hollywood drama that you will find yourself completely engrossed. Plus, with such stunning landscapes as Zion, Death Valley and Yosemite National Parks, this film will absolutely make you want to get outdoors and explore.
Gorillas in the Mist - 1988 drama starring Sigourney Weaver
Gorillas in the Mist is the gripping true life story of wildlife expert Dian Fossey that chronicles her work in Rwanda with its mountain gorillas. Fossey went to Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas and made ground breaking discoveries in their intelligence and ability to communicate. This led her on her plight to protect them from extinction which put her own life at great risk and is believed to have eventually led to her murder.
This film is absolutely fascinating and probably Sigourney Weaver’s greatest work. Many of the scenes use live gorillas and it was authentically filmed on location in the rain forest of Rwanda, Central Africa. The scenery is incredible with a spectacular backdrop of mist covered mountain tops and lush, unforgiving jungle.
Into the Wild - 2007 film directed by Sean Penn starring Emile Hirsch
Adapted from the 1996 book by the same name, Into the Wild is the true life story of Christopher McCandless. After graduating college, McCandless cashes in his law school fund and leaves the suburbs and worldly possessions behind to hitchhike his way deep into the Alaskan wilderness. He keeps journals of his travels and sees himself as free not homeless. Unfortunately, he may not have been as prepared as he should have been and soon faces the harsh, unforgiving reality of life in arctic terrain.
This film, despite its tragedy, has a unique way of making you question the value of a comfortable life full of belongings and almost makes you want to transcend on your own lonely quest into the wilderness leaving everything behind.
With so many beautiful filming locations, including Anchorage, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, Cape Disappointment, Denali National Park and Preserve, Grand Canyon and Slab City, it is no wonder this movie inspires the travel bug in most of us.
Kon-Tiki - 2012 historical drama and a remake of the 1950s documentary by the same name
Kon-Tiki is based on the incredible true story of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. After having noticed similarities between South American statues and the Polynesian moai, the explorer came up with the theory that Peruvians were the first to colonize the Polynesian Islands. His ideas were widely mocked as impossible given pre-Columbian technology. So, he set sail on a primitive, balsa wood raft with five men in 1947, using only the stars and ocean currents to navigate by, in order to prove it.
This harrowing adventure must have truly tested the fate of the small crew and it is incredible to watch the 3-month journey unfold on the big screen. Filmed primarily on the island of Malta, the scenery is stunning full of powder white sandy beaches stretched along turquoise waters.
Life of Pi - 2012 film directed by Ang Lee starring Suraj Sharma and Irrfan Khan
Life of Pi is the story of a young teenager in India who goes by the name of Pi. The film starts off with adult Pi telling a novelist about his incredible, hard to believe life story and how he survived a shipwreck at age 16 spending months drifting through the Pacific Ocean on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. It then transports you back in time where the audience watches the story unfold in real time.
The fascinating tale draws you in right from the beginning and the cinematography by Claudio Miranda is absolutely captivating. It is one of the most intriguing films with some of the most beautiful visual effects I’ve ever seen.
Lion - 2016 film starring Nicole Kidman, Dev Patel and David Whenham
Lion is an adaptation of the autobiography, A Long Way Home, based on the true story of a 5-year old Indian boy Saroo Brierly who became lost in India after accidentally being locked in an empty train. Days later, he finds himself completely stranded, all alone far from home, unable to speak the local language before being adopted by a family in Australia who then raises him as their own. As an adult, Saroo cannot stop thinking about the family he left behind in a country he no longer knows with few clues to guide him. Using Google Earth, he works tirelessly to locate them 20 years after having been separated.
This movie is an absolute tear jerker that takes you from the heart of India to the beautiful coast of Australia on a journey unlike any other.
It also raises awareness of an ongoing problem in India where over 80,000 children go missing each year. The producers have helped provide financial support to over 11 million children on the streets of India and its star Dev Patel has appeared in videos urging viewers to donate in an effort to transform the situation. This is an absolute must see.
Marco Polo - 2014 to 2016 Netflix series
Although Marco Polo is not a movie, I’m including it here because I think it deserves recognition. Marco Polo is a two season series on Netflix that follows the life of legendary explorer Marco Polo in his youth during the time he spent in Kublai Khan’s court in 13th century Magnolia in what is now Beijing. Having crossed thousands of miles in unforgiving terrain with his father and uncle, they leave Marco behind as a “guest” of the court under the control of a fascinating historic figure.
Although at least one historian claims the plot plays a little fast and loose, the story line is mesmerizing as is the absolutely stunning scenery having been filmed in Italy, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Slovakia and Hungary. I just wish they had not stopped after just two seasons.
Mia and the White Lion - 2018 film starring Daniah De Villiers and a rare white lion named Thor
Mia and the White Lion follows the journey of a 10 year old girl whose family decided to move from the only home she ever knew in London to live on a lion farm in Africa. Distraught over leaving everything behind, Mia eventually learns to love her new life through an unlikely friendship with a rare white lion cub.
French director Gilles de Maistre filmed this production over a period of 3 years so that the film’s young actors could actually develop a real bond and relationship with the little lion cub co-star who is fully grown by the end of the film. This concept absolutely fascinates me and even though it’s not a true story, it makes you realize such a bond does appear possible.
The film also brings to light an important issue, the real-life tragedy of lions being slaughtered by tourists on “safari” at point blank range for sport and the breeding farms of South Africa raising them. According to the film, 250,000 wild lions reigned over Africa 100 years ago. Their population has fallen by 90% and there are less than 20,000 left. If their numbers continue to fall at the same rate, they will have completely disappeared in the wild in 20 years time.
In South Africa, in just the 10 years prior to this film hitting the screens, over 10,000 lions were trophy hunted in “canned lion” hunts, a legal industry. They come from breeding farms, most of which are not sanctuaries but places where cubs are bred for slaughter, volunteers are duped and tourists are lied to.
North Face - 2008 German film with English subtitles starring Benno Furmann and Florian Lukas
North Face is a film based on the true story of a May 1936 attempt by four climbers to scale the north face of the Eiger. The Eiger is a 13,105 foot tall mountain in in the Bernese Alps of Switzerland known for its insanely quick weather shifts and huge avalanches of snow and rock. Its north face is quite literally a 5,900 foot vertical wall of rock and ice.
Nazi propaganda at the time urged the nation’s alpine climbers to conquer this unclimbed north face of the Swiss mountain. So, two young amateur climbers from Berchtesgaden, Toni Kurz and Andreas Hinterstoisser attempt the ascent followed by their Austrian competitors who they end up teaming up with in what ends up being a terrifying twist of fate.
This movie is full of so much suspense that you will find yourself right at the edge of your seat waiting for the gripping tale to be over. Watching these fearless climbers risk their lives to reach the summit, you will definitely find yourself asking, “would I do that?”
Out of Africa - 1985 drama starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford
Based on the life and writings of baroness Karen Blixen (who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen), Out of Africa takes you on the journey of a Danish aristocrat who follows her husband to Kenya after he has spent their money on a coffee plantation on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. After learning he has been unfaithful, she forms a special friendship with a free-spirited hunter that becomes romantic in this epic love story set in some of the most beautiful East African terrain near the Kenya-Tanzania border.
Today the house where Blixen lived is a museum and most of the filming locations are within protected parks and reserves you can still visit today.
Seven Years in Tibet - 1997 film starring Brad Pitt, David Thewlis and BD Wong
Seven Years in Tibet is based on the memoir of Austrian mountain climber, Heinrich Harrer. It is a true story about his experiences in Tibet from 1939 to 1951 during a time of war.
Harrer set off to climb Nanga Parbat in British India with a team of mountaineers. When WWII breaks out, they are arrested and sent to a POW camp. After several failed escape attempts, he successfully breaks out with fellow prisoner Peter Aufschnaiter and the pair end up in the holy city of Lhasa where foreigners are not allowed. Harrer eventually becomes friends with the Dalai Lama right at the time of communist China’s takeover of Tibet and the spiritual leader’s fight for Tibetan independence.
The film was shot on location in Argentina and British Columbia, Canada and includes breathtaking landscapes and incredible climbing sequences across snow-covered mountain ranges.
Interestingly, Heinrich Harrer was a member of the 4-man climbing team that made the first successful ascent up the North Face of the Eiger, the mountain which the movie North Face is based on (see review above).
The Last Samurai - 2003 film starring Tom Cruise, Hiroyuki Sanada and Ken Watanabe
The Last Samurai was largely based on real-life French officer, Jules Burnet, who was sent to train soldiers in Japan in modern warfare, its plot inspired by the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion. In the film, a former U.S. Captain of the 7th Cavalry Regiment Nathan Algren, broken by war, accepts an offer to train the newly created Imperial Japanese Army of 19th century Japan. The intent is to use the army to suppress a rebellion of samurai against the new emperor. During battle, Algren’s life is spared by a samurai soldier and what ensues is a friendship that changes Algren’s life forever. He becomes sympathetic to the samurai cause and helps change the Emperor’s view that modernization must come at the cost of forgetting their own culture and history.
This movie is fascinating to watch unfold and although it’s set in Japan, was mostly filmed in New Zealand using Mount Taranaki as a backdrop. It does a great job of imitating Japanese rural life in the 1860s with lush green rolling hills and sweeping views of the countryside landscape.
The Motorcycle Diaries - 2004 film starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo de la Serna
The Motorcycle Diaries is a film about the memoirs of Ernesto Guevara who would become the infamous Marxist guerrilla revolutionary leader Che Guevara. The film recounts 23-year old medical student Guevara’s 1952 motorcycle road trip across South America with his friend Alberto Granado that led him to his life’s calling. The epic adventure takes them from Buenos Aires to the leper colony in San Pablo, Peru where his experiences among the indigenous impoverished people and communists in the Chilean desert open his eyes to a new way of thinking that reshape his future and eventually led him on a path to becoming one of the most famous armed revolutionaries of his time fighting against political repression and income inequality.
Regardless of ideologies, the film is a great tale of friends traveling abroad in this coming-of-age movie set in some of the most beautiful landscapes of South America.
The Peanut Butter Falcon - 2019 film starring Shia LeBeouf, Zack Gottsagen and Dakota Johnson
Touted as a modern day Mark Twain fable, The Peanut Butter Falcon is the story of Zak, a young man with Down’s Syndrome, who has been forced to reside in a nursing home facility full of older residents. Bored and unhappy with his current circumstances, living with people he has nothing in common with, Zak runs away to chase his dreams. Through a chance encounter, he meets up with Tyler, a small-time outlaw on the run. The two strike up an unlikely friendship while nursing home employee Eleanor is sent out to find Zak and bring him home. When Eleanor finally catches up to them, the pair convinces her to go along with their adventure through the winding deltas and the bayou of the Savannah.
Interestingly, this heartfelt movie came about after the directors met real life Zack Gottsagen at a camp where he expressed his desire to become a movie star. This prompted them to actually write a script around Zack and his dreams of being “free” and not seen for having limitations. In 2020, Gottsagen was the first person with Down’s Syndrome to become a presenter at the Academy Awards.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - 2013 film starring Ben Stiller and Sean Penn
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is about a man who works for Life Magazine as a negative assets manager. Walter normally escapes the mundane reality of his tedious, boring life through day dreaming about being a hero. When a negative for the cover page of the final issue of the magazine goes missing, Walter sets off on a real adventure of a lifetime searching for the photographer O’Connell who took it. He finds himself trekking across the globe to a small Icelandic fishing village surrounded by sweeping green landscapes and migrating seabirds flying over a towering lighthouse set atop a rocky shore. He explores Greenland, Afghanistan and even treks across the Himalayas where he finally finds O’Connell photographing an elusive snow leopard.
Although this film got mixed reviews, it remains one of my favorite movies of all time. I cannot get enough of the breathtaking scenes the films depicts although truth be told, they were all actually shot in Iceland.
The Way - 2010 film starring Martin Sheen
The Way is a film about a father whose estranged son dies while traveling the El Camino de Santiago. When he heads overseas to France to retrieve the son’s body, something comes over him. He decides to continue his son’s pilgrimage himself spreading his son’s ashes along the way.
I almost didn’t include this movie. However, after having seen it, it just stuck with me. For days, I kept thinking back to it and how interesting it would be to take a traditional pilgrimage. Given how much it got me thinking about it, I realized it really is a must see.
It’s a touching story with beautiful scenery written for the screen by Emilio Estevez based on selected stories from the book “Off the Road: A Modern Day Walk Down the Pilgrim’s Route Into Spain.” In the film, Estevez plays the son who passes away while his real life father Martin Sheen is cast as the dad who makes the journey.
The idea for the film was further inspired by Estevez’ own son Taylor who traveled the length of the pilgrimage route by car with his grandfather Sheen in 2003, and met the woman who later became his wife. Sheen apparently thought it should be a documentary, but Estevez dreamed of bigger plans and I’m glad he did.
Tracks - 2013 film starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver
Tracks is the incredible true story of Robyn Davidson who set out on a 1,700 mile, 9-month solo trek across the harsh West Australia desert in 1977, with just four camels and a dog. Before, heading out on her journey that takes her from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean, Robyn works tirelessly to purchase the camels and fund her trip. She finally reluctantly writes to National Geographic asking for financing. The magazine writes back accepting the proposal under the terms that she writes an article about the journey and allows a National Geographic photographer to periodically join her to document it.
What followed was a 1978 article that made the magazine’s cover story. After being read by thousands of readers, Robyn Davidson was turned into an international, overnight sensation that eventually prompted her to write a book about her experience.
The scenery in this film of the Australian deserts is nothing short of magical as are the final scenes when Robyn finally reaches the white sand beaches of the Indian Ocean and swims alongside her camels in its turquoise waters. It’s a truly beautiful film.
Wild - 2014 film starring Reese Witherspoon
Wild is based on a book written by Cheryl Strayed. It is the true story of how she set out to hike the Pacific Crest Trail alone with no training or backpacking experience. After numerous problems have left her life in shambles, Cheryl sets out on her epic journey feeling completely lost and alone only to discover that through her own determination, she is able to truly find herself and heal after 94 days and 1,100 miles in nature.
This uplifting story of a life forever changed, takes you through some of the most beautiful terrain in the western United States. Primarily shot on location in California and Oregon, the film takes you to Crater Lake National Park, Lassen Volcanic National Park, the Mojave Desert, Smith Rock State Park, Bridge of the Gods, Oregon Badlands Wilderness and other incredible spots.
Is there a movie you think I missed that you love? I am ALWAYS looking for new ideas on what to watch. Please share it with my readers by telling us about it in the comments below.
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