Rich Harrill's 17 Travel Films and Books to Make You Yearn and Learn

Love entertaining travel films and books, but want to learn something too?

Each semester for the past few years, I have taught the course "Travel and Tourism in Film and Literature" in the University of South Carolina's Honors College:  the #1 ranked honors college in the U.S.!

Besides travel itself, film and literature is perhaps the most prevalent method of consuming and discussing travel and tourism.  Over the past twenty years, travel and tourism has been widely associated in the public imagination with such Hollywood blockbusters as The Beach (2000); Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), Up in the Air (2009), and Eat, Love, and Pray (2010). 

For better or for worse, personal transformation is perhaps the most celebrated and intuitive travel and tourism theme, as most viewers can identify with a trip leading to introspection and personal growth.  However, not all travel films or "road movies" lead to personal transformation, arguably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), for example, based on the Hunter S. Thompson novel of the same name (1972). Conversely, not all "coming-of-age" films involve travel, e.g., John Hughes' The Breakfast Club, where the story unfolds primarily within a high school cafeteria.

This is not a best of all time list, or about film tourism or film-induced tourism.  I present only a few examples I use or have have used in my course, beginning with those with the theme of personal transformation through travel.  

I provide the film name, setting, and a little bit about what a viewer or class might learn from viewing the film.  Note I don't say too much here:  I try not to play the spoiler!  

Get ready, states, countries, and regions visited include:  Mexico, Cuba, Latin America, Somalia, United Kingdom, Denmark, Japan, United States (Alaska), North Africa, Southwest United States, Rwanda, Uganda, Vietnam, Cambodia, Australia, Haiti, and Antigua.

Roughly in the order shown in the class:

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)

Setting:  Mexico

I usually begin the class with this wonderful film, as it exemplifies the spontaneity and adventure of the travel experience, yet reveals a powerfully transformative experience for the characters at the end.  I love Roger Ebert's response to critics that say the movie is yet another that seems to say "after that summer, nothing would ever be the same."  Yes, but it redefines "nothing."

Una Noche (2012)
Setting:  Cuba

A shimmering, kinetic film that presents a painfully realistic view of life in Cuba and the dreams and aspirations of a generation yearning of freedom.  The film explores the themes of migration and the right to travel, and the United States (Miami) as a idealized, hyperreal destination.

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

Setting:  Latin America

The third in a Spanish language trilogy, this classic film about the early life of Che Guevara explores pilgrammage as an extreme, and likely rare, transformational travel experience.

Desert Flower (2009)

Setting:  Somalia, United Kingdom

Based on the true story of Waris Dirie and her life's journey from Somalian countryside to the streets of London, and finally as a global spokesperson against female genital mutilation.  The film addresses the right to migrate and the social control and surveillance (Foucauldian themes) associated with such travel.  

Because of reinforcing themes, I've also shown Desert Flower after Una Noche and shown The Motorcycle Diaries somewhere near the end of the travel-as-transformation half of the course. 

Teddy Bear (2012)

Setting:  Denmark, Thailand

The unlikely story of a bodybuilding protagonist traveling from Denmark to Thailand with romantic intentions, despite his overprotective mother's objections.  The film explores dark undercurrents about the general unhappiness and social malaise sometimes found in Northern, industralized societies as a factor driving sex tourism.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Setting:  Japan

At this point in the semester, I break up the heavier topics with a comedy, the well-known Lost in Translation.  Despite its comedic tone, the film presents an opportunity to discuss the challenges of interrcultural communication and cultural stereotypes.  The film also shows how a single destinations can hold multiple meanings for each traveler.

Wildlike (2014)

Setting:  Alaska

Wildlike explores that themes of sexual abuse and travel as a form of escape.  Like many films, the Alaskan wilderness itselfplays a character role that is at first forboding, then healing later in the story.

Into the Wild (2007)

Setting:  North America, Alaska

Based on a true story as depicted in Jon Krakauer's 1996 non-fiction account, this film directed by Sean Penn with music by Eddie Vedder, also explores the theme of travel as escape.  The film makes it ambiguous, however, if the protagonist (Chris McCandless) is a heroically Thoreauian, misguided, or possibly suffering from mental illness. 

Thelma & Louise (1991)
Setting:  Southwest United States

A feminist classic with panoramic images of the American Southwest.  The film's iconic final scene has become metaphor for transcendence.

Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky (novel, 1949)

Setting:  North Africa

Bowles' classic novel presents travel as an existentially transformative experience against a colonial backdrop (the North African desert) that can be alternatively comforting or alienating and hostile for the naive and ill-prepared.  It's disappointing the film version (1990) is dreadful.

The second half of the course addresses themes of travel, postcolonialism, neocolonialism, including genocide, exploitation, and psychological terror.

Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Setting:  Rwanda

The true story of the heroic actions of hotel manager Paul Rusesabaginia during the Rwandan genocide (1994).  The film exposes students to the colonial roots of racism and can be used as a context for discussing hospitality and tourism as a form of neocolonialism.

The Last King of Scotland (2006)
Setting:  Uganda

A film about Idi Amin's dictatorship of Uganda with an Oscar-winning performance by Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland follows Hotel Rwanda in addressing the colonial roots of racism and neocolonialism in the form of Western interlopers.  The film can serve as a context for discussing negative African stereotypes.

Apocalypse Now (1979)
Setting:  Vietnam

Controversial and provocative, this film is based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899).  While both the film and book can be criticized as continuing to promote racist language and imagery, they still have educational value as a cautionary tale against the moral emptiness of imperial expeditions and the myth of the "just war."  Can tourists also have a "heart of darkness?"

The Killing Fields (1984)

Setting:  Cambodia

A bit dated, but can be shown following Apocalypse Now, demonstrating war as a "moveable nightmare," from Vietnam to Cambiodia.  The film shows war as a context for ethical and moral interractions between citizens and Western visitors, fraught with serious consequences, in this case an American and Cambodian journalist.

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
Setting:  Australia

A based on a true story, a riveting account of colonialism and human displacement as three aborginal girls attempt to return home after familial separation and forced domicile into an Australian resettlement progam with an agenda for cultural assimilation and destruction.

Heading South (2005)

Setting:  Haiti

Based on the writings of Dany Laferriere, a depiction of sex tourism that can lead to a discussion of Western society's youth culture and divorce rates as factors for numerous tourists, male and female, "heading south" for sex and romance.  

A fitting end for the course, exploring moral choices and consequences, transformation, and sex tourism as a form of tourism spanning both colonialism, neocolonialism, and perhaps even leisure futures.

Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place (creative nonfiction, 1998)

Setting:  Antigua

A short, yet visceral narrative of growing up in a tourist destination founded on colonialism and seeing the new service economy only reinforcing old evils, while at the same time introducing new ones.  A context for discussing hosptiality and tourism as neocolonialism from an emic (insider's) perspective.

These selections are only a few of the many that exist.  I would love to recommend other examples of travel and tourism in film and literature not mentioned here and learn about a few of your favorites!