The Landscape: Stony Adriatic islands scattered along the
length of Croatia's coast. Coarse green shrubs and olive
trees whose thin leaves flash silver undersides to the
breeze. Translucent blue: a breath would cloud that water
of glass.

Light has a clarity there that is like no place else, and
it provokes a clarity of thought. Priorities and needs slip
so easily into place. You realize the hollowness of the rat
race, of consumerism, of chasing anything at all. Life is
distilled down, and you understand contentment: a bottle,
a gentle breeze, a pretty girl to cuddle. What need for
anything else?

Self-contained with car, tent and food, you hop from island
to paradise island. Travel by ferry - the shush and
ebb/swell of the waves and the salt smelling air - standing
on deck gripping a freshly painted rail, watching the
islands recede as the coastal mountains near.

Each new island brings a small village or two with winding
streets and stone houses, maybe a fortress or an ancient
Venetian trading house from the days when that city-state
ruled the waves. In each new town or village you pause for
bitter coffee softened by a mound of cream, and
all-absorbing conversation over a round cafe table in a
sleepy plaza.

Inevitably, you thread your way down rough gravel roads to
your own deserted stretch of shore, where you peel off
sweaty clothes to slip naked into the silken waters. You
dive deep, past the thermocline, into the grip of the cold.
Then, surfacing, float on your back with eyes closed,
gently rocked by Amphitrite's currents. The rest of the
world sinks down through your back to melt away, lost in
the briny deep.

On the stony shore the sun dries salt to a thin powdery
crust on browned skin. Under the olive trees you eat a
rustic lunch of bread, hard cheese, and coarse local wine
drunk straight from the bottle. Your backdrop is the
bleached bony spine of the mainland that towers over the
islands and the sea, and in the distance the slow clonk of
sheep bells.

The poet Derek Walcott wrote that islands can only exist if
we have loved in them.

Islands symbolize isolation, remoteness, and sometimes even
shipwreck: the forlorn seclusion of the castaway. We sit
and gaze out at the sea that surrounds us, but it is
ourselves that we are looking into. How remote the past
seems. Island life is insular, detached, inward looking.
It's closed off, like the blinders of first love, when
nothing exists except the two of you within the little
round space of that cafe table. The outside world is
helpless to intrude. Perhaps that's why islands symbolize
romance better than anyplace else.

Large islands embody the permissiveness and sensuality of
islands in general, but they lack the feeling of isolation.
Small islands are better. You feel it most acutely at
night. Sitting on a tiny sandspit surrounded by the inky
void of ocean and sky, you're like Vishnu on a lotus
flower, dreaming entire worlds, creating realities because
nothing else exists, and nothing can.

Movies shape how we see the world. Movies also shape the
world we expect to see when we go out into it. Few things
inspire us to travel like a well chosen backdrop. It paints
romantic visions in our heads, visions that often linger
for years.

Sometimes the reality of a place matches or exceeds our
vision, and sometimes it falters. In the end, anything that
inspires us to travel, to break the bonds of the everyday,
is a force for positive change.

Here are a few films, old and new, that have inspired me to
travel or that kept me sane between journeys. I hope they
do the same for you.

The Mosquito Coast (1986) - Based on the bestselling novel
by Paul Theroux. Disgruntled inventor Harrison Ford takes
his family to the jungles of Central America to found a
town and goes insane in the process. Filmed in the lush,
steamy jungles of southern Belize, the film and the book
inspired me to travel to Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast back in
2000.

The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003) - The most accurate
film I've ever seen on Mongolia's south Gobi region. Apart
from a few minor scenes, the film was shot by following the
day to day lives of a family of nomads. As luck would have
it, the filmmakers arrived during the camel birthing
season. A natural drama ensued when a mother camel rejected
its calf, endangering the life of the newborn creature. The
reconciliation between the two camels, brought about by a
traditional shamanic ceremony, is one of the most moving
scenes ever set to film.

The Tempest (1982) - A little-known film by John
Cassavettes, starring a very young Molly Ringwald, Susan
Sarandon, and Raul Julia. The Tempest is a loose adaptation
of Shakespeare' s play, filmed on a stunning Greek island in
the Ionian Sea. I first saw this back when cable TV was
new, during a free weekend preview of the movie channel. It
had me dreaming Mediterranean dreams long before I was old
enough to know where the Mediterranean was.

Mountains of the Moon (1990) - Based on the life of Captain
Sir Richard Francis Burton. Burton spoke some 29 languages
and dialects, was a prolific writer and translator, and one
of the greatest explorers and travelers of all time. He was
the first European to enter the Ethiopian city of Harare,
was co-discoverer of the source of the Nile, and was one of
the few foreigners ever to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in
disguise. Burton was also a master of the sword. On one
expedition he fought off an attack by Somali tribesman that
saw him wounded through the mouth by a spear, the scars of
which are visible in all his later photographs. Whenever I
begin to feel like I've accomplished something, Burton's
example puts me to shame.

Before Sunrise / Before Sunset (1995/2004) - The
quintessential traveler's films, Before Sunrise and its
sequel Before Sunset perfectly capture the feeling of the
all-consuming road romance. They go further in considering
what would happen if we said 'yes' instead of 'no' at that
one crucial juncture that could change the course of our
lives. Set in Vienna and Paris (respectively) , both films
are steeped in Old Europe's streets, and they capture those
rambling traveler's conversations better than any other
film I know.

Summer Lovers (1982) - Every guy's Mediterranean dream - a
summer-long threesome on a beautiful Greek island. It's a
film about freedom, individualism, charting your own course
and creating your own personal morality. It explores what
it's like to completely let go of the preconceived,
immersing yourself totally in the present. Stunning scenery
and an absence of tan lines make this classic a winner.

High Road to China (1983) - A little known and vastly
underrated film by Tom Selleck. This film captures the
spirit of high adventure and stubborn independence, and
includes jaw-drop footage of Central Asia and the
Himalayas. Plus, it's got biplanes in it. Who wouldn't want
to rip around the world in one of those?

The Lover (1992) - Lush scenery of French colonial era
Vietnam circa 1929: crumbling moss-eaten architecture,
exotic street scenes, slow lazy ceiling fans, and lines of
afternoon light casting rectangles of shadow through
slatted wooden blinds. The film reminds us that sometimes
those blinds also conceal illicit pleasures. You can almost
feel the heat and humidity steam through the lens. And the
heat between the main characters doesn't hurt either... The
Lover perfectly captures the feeling of old Hanoi.

The Dreamers (2003) - A shocking coming of age story set in
Paris in the turbulent summer of 1968. A young American
exchange student goes to the decadent City of Lights to
study French, where he falls into a bizarre love triangle
with a brother and sister and is drawn into their strange,
sheltered world. Though controversial when it was released,
the film is oddly enchanting rather than lewd, and it
conveys a vivid sense of what Paris must have felt like
during that turbulent summer of riots when social norms
were shattered.

Lost in Translation (2003) - This film portrays the
dazzling disorientation of Tokyo and the loneliness and
exhaustion of culture shock better than any I've ever seen.
It reminded me of the many times I've been cast adrift on a
hostile shore, and it brought back so many vivid memories
of everything that's surreal about Tokyo, where.

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) - Based on the posthumously
published diary of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, the film
chronicles his coming of age journey through South America.
Shot on location in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. I
read the original book of Guevara's travel journals years
ago, and feared the film would be an overblown
foreshadowing of the world figure he would later become.
That wasn't the case. The movie stayed true to the road
trip lark of the book, complete with the sort of South
American scenery that'll have you lacing up your hiking
boots before the credits begin to roll.

The English Patient (1996) - Romance and archaeology in the
Sahara desert in an age when high adventure was still a
possibility, and when parts of the globe remained
undiscovered. The film contains stunning desert footage,
and was based on the real-life search for the lost city of
Zezura. Yes, it's a bit of a chick flick, but if you love
the desert you only have to switch off the sound and feast
on the imagery.

So that's it. Twelve picks to inspire wanderlust and
Vagabond Dreams.

What are your special travel films? I'd love to hear about
them.