TV filming location tours: Game of Thrones and more

No series has sent more people traveling than Game of Thrones. Over eight seasons, from 2011 to 2019, its crews worked in Northern Ireland, Croatia, Iceland, Spain and Malta, and almost every place they used is open to visitors. That makes it the backbone of this theme. In Dubrovnik you walk the walls and the streets of King's Landing; in Split you stand in the cellars of Diocletian's Palace, where Daenerys kept her dragons in Meereen. In Northern Ireland you see Winterfell at Castle Ward and the Iron Islands at Ballintoy Harbour, and the studio tour in Banbridge shows the sets and costumes up close.

Iceland gave the series its land beyond the Wall. Thingvellir, the rift valley where the Hound and Arya rode, is a national park an hour from Reykjavik, and the black beach at Reynisfjara is where the men of Eastwatch set out. In Seville, the Real Alcázar played the Water Gardens of Dorne in season 5, and in Malta the gate of Mdina was used in the very first season, before production moved to Croatia.

TV tours have a different rhythm from film tours. A series spreads its locations over a whole country, so the days include longer drives, which our tour leaders fill with scene notes and clips. You see the same place from several angles, because a series often came back to it season after season. Your leader knows which scenes were shot where, which were built on a stage in Belfast, and which were added by computer later.

Some places from the shows are private homes or working farms. We see those from the road or not at all. Everywhere else, we go in as visitors: castle grounds, harbors, national parks, old towns and museums.

If one series is not enough, the same tour leaders know the other productions that used their towns. Dubrovnik also played Canto Bight in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Northern Ireland has hosted many productions since, and Iceland turns up in film after film.