A television courthouse in Georgia. A cave hotel where Luke Skywalker grew up. A Sevillian plaza that stood in for an alien capital. Millions of travellers now plan trips around the places where their favourite films and series were shot — a habit the industry calls set-jetting. Most of these locations were remarkable long before a camera arrived, which is why so many of them already have a full guide on this site.
What set-jetting is, and why it works
Set-jetting means going to see a filming location in person. The pull is simple. A place you have watched dozens of times becomes somewhere you can stand. And the heritage behind it usually runs deeper than the production that made it famous: a medieval castle, a Roman-era desert, a twelfth-century temple. What follows is a short tour of six real, visitable sites. Each links to its own guide, with directions, opening details and the facts behind the fiction.
There is a reason so many of these places already sat in a heritage catalogue before a film crew found them. Location scouts look for what museums and conservators protect: a legible town square, an untouched skyline, a landscape without modern clutter. When a production cannot build convincingly enough on a soundstage, it borrows a real one — and the qualities that read well on camera are often the same ones that earned the site protection in the first place. That is why a set-jetting trip so easily doubles as a heritage trip. The visit outlasts the film: the courthouse, the castle and the temple were all there long before, and will remain long after the sequel.
Hazzard County: the South that television built
The Dukes of Hazzard ran on CBS from 1979 to 1985. The fictional county was filmed in and around Covington, in Newton County, Georgia, where the courthouse square served as the centre of Hazzard through the early seasons. The town square is public and free to walk, and the local visitor bureau hands out a self-guided driving-tour map. The same square has since played Mystic Falls in The Vampire Diaries. Full guide: Hazzard County filming locations.
Europe on screen: a desert, a plaza, a castle
Sergio Leone arrived in the Tabernas Desert in Almería in 1964 to film A Fistful of Dollars, and turned the only semi-desert in continental Europe into the American West. The Westerns kept coming; some of the sets survive today as theme parks with daily shows.
In Seville, the Plaza de España — built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 — has stood in for a British headquarters in Cairo in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and for the palace city of Theed on Naboo in Star Wars: Episode II (2002). It costs nothing to enter.
North, in the Scottish Highlands, Eilean Donan Castle rises from a small island where three sea lochs meet. The medieval fortress was destroyed in 1719 and rebuilt between 1919 and 1932. On screen it has been Connor MacLeod’s home in Highlander (1986) and MI6’s Scottish base in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999).
Deserts and jungles: Tatooine and the Tomb Raider temple
The interior of the Lars Homestead, Luke Skywalker’s boyhood home in the first Star Wars (1977), was filmed at the Hotel Sidi Driss in Matmata, a Berber village in southern Tunisia where homes are dug down into the earth around open sky-wells. The hotel still takes overnight guests, set decoration included.
Further east, Ta Prohm at Angkor in Cambodia is the temple the jungle reclaimed, its stone galleries split by silk-cotton and strangler-fig roots. Built in 1186 as a Buddhist monastery, it became known worldwide as the “Tomb Raider temple” after Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). It is part of the standard Angkor ticket.
The locations as a route
None of these places sits next to another. Together they make a bucket list rather than a road trip — a Georgia square, a Spanish desert, a Sevillian plaza, a Highland castle, a Tunisian cave-hotel and a Cambodian temple. The map below gathers all six in one place, each pin opening its full guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is set-jetting?
Set-jetting is travelling to visit the real places where films and television series were shot. The term grew popular as streaming raised demand for the landscapes and landmarks seen on screen.
Can you actually visit these film locations?
Yes. All six here are open to the public. Some are free, such as the Plaza de España and the Covington square; others charge admission, such as Eilean Donan Castle and the Angkor temples.
Which is the most visited Star Wars filming location?
The Hotel Sidi Driss in Matmata is among the most visited. It provided the Lars Homestead interior in 1977 and remains a working hotel where guests can stay in the set.
Sources
- Hazzard County, Tabernas Desert, Plaza de España, Eilean Donan Castle, Matmata and Ta Prohm — full guides on Cultural Heritage Online, each with its own sourced references.