After visiting so many countries our lives are now pretty much all about travel and where we want to go next. Our hard drive is filling up with inspirational films about travel. Here’s our list of what we consider to be among the best travel films out there.
If you know of more comment below.
As we find them we will load here on this page
#1 – A Map For Saturday
On a trip around the world, every day feels like Saturday. A MAP FOR SATURDAY reveals a world of long-term, solo travel through the stories of trekkers on four continents.
The documentary finds backpackers helping neglected Thai tsunami victims. It explains why Nepal’s guesthouses are empty and Brazil’s stoplights are ignored.
But at its core, SATURDAY tracks the emotional arc of extreme long-term travelers; teenagers and senior citizens who wondered, “What would it be like to travel the world?” Then did it.
#2 – Seven years in Tibet
Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud
Columbia TriStar 10/97 DVD/VHS Feature Film
PG-13 — violent sequences
The key to being born again, receiving enlightenment, or undergoing a spiritual transformation is to step aside from the ego. All the religious traditions teach this truth. In Seven Years in Tibet Brad Pitt stars as Heinrich Harrer, a cocky and egocentric Austrian mountaineer whose thirst for fame leads him to abandon his pregnant wife in order to join a 1939 expedition to climb Nanga Parbat, one of the highest peaks of the Himalayas. His dreams of glory are shattered when the team fails in its mission. Meanwhile, World War II has broken out in Europe and Harrer, an enemy alien in a British colony, is imprisoned in a POW camp in India. He escapes and with climbing partner Peter Aufschnaiter (David Thewlis) finds sanctuary in Tibet, “Land of Snows.”
The two Westerners struggle to adapt to life in the holy city of Lhasa. Peter meets and marries Pema (Lhakpa Tsamchoe), a beautiful Tibetan tailor. Heinrich, who misses his wife and longs to know the son he has never seen, finds fulfillment, meaning, and love in a friendship with the young Dalai Lama (played with incredible vibrancy by Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk). He tutors the 14-year-old boy in Western ways and, in turn, learns much from the holy one about compassion, humility, and slowing down.
Heinrich’s seven-year idyll is abruptly ended when the Chinese invade Tibet in 1950 and force the Tibetans to sign an agreement surrendering their sovereignty. He feels the deep pain of the Dalai Lama as these peaceful people who reject violence on principle are killed and their monasteries and cities are destroyed. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud subtly conveys Heinrich Harrer’s spiritual transformation. By the time the egotistical mountain climber returns home, he is a gentler and more sensitive man, tempered by his contact with Tibetan Buddhism.
#3 – Eat Pray Love
A married woman realizes how unhappy her marriage really is, and that her life needs to go in a different direction. After a painful divorce, she takes off on a round-the-world journey to “find herself”.
Elizabeth Gilbert (played by Julia Roberts) tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali
#4 – The White Massai
Published on 11 Apr 2012
Based on the autobiography of Corinne Hofmann; one of the most popular books of the past decade; “The White Masai” is at once a visually stunning and captivating romance and a breathtaking travelogue into the Kenyan outback. This epic tells the unbelievable but true fish-out-of-water tale about Swiss-German tourist Carola (Nina Hoss) who falls in love with Masai warrior Lemalian (Jacky Ido); from the Samburu tribe. Made by the team behind Oscar-winner “Nowhere in Africa” and “Downfall” The White Masai is a gorgeous film of incredible beauty that will make your heart sing.
#5 – One Week
Confronted by his own mortality after being diagnosed with virulent form of cancer, a disillusioned twenty-something rails against the many disappointments in his life by impulsively purchasing a motorcycle and heading out west, instead of taking his doctor’s advice to begin immediate treatment. Ben Tyler (Joshua Jackson) has an unfulfilling job as a high school English teacher and a manuscript that’s gathering dust after being rejected by every publisher in town. And while Ben is undeniablycomfortable in his relationship with faithful fiancée Samantha (Liane Balaban), he can’t help but feeling that there’s something in their relationship that he has never truly confronted. Informed by his doctor that he is suffering from a highly malignant form of cancer and has only a 10% chance of survival if he begins treatment immediately, Ben rails against his fate by straddling a vintage motorcycle and embarking on a 4,000 kilometer journey from Toronto to Tofino, B.C., meeting a variety of people who help him understand what it truly means to be alive along the way. Later, while hiking in Banff, Ben becomes dangerously sick and desperately lost before an intense encounter with a woman named Tracey (Emm Gryner) convinces him once and for all that he isn’t in love with Samantha. In the emotional aftermath of that encounter, Ben terminates his relationship with Tracey and makes a pledge to live a lifetime with each passing day. It isn’t long before Ben’s condition begins to deteriorate, however, and by the time he finally arrives at mile zero of the Trans-Canada highway, he’s fresh out of road and seriously close to death.
#6 – The Beach
Published on 27 Feb 2013
Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a young American backpacker, willing to risk his life for just one thing: the mind-blowing rush he can only get from braving the ultimate adventure. After hearing the improbable tale of a secret island–the perfect beach, unsullied by tourists–Richard sets off on a journey to find paradise on Earth. But Richard soon discovers that what seems like paradise can hide a deadly secret. Now desperate to escape, Richard explores the hidden perils and dark places that lurk just beyond the shores of paradise.