CELLULOID STATES

*50 STATES OF THE UNION + DC

1 CALIFORNIA

MOVIE LA LA LAND

ROUTE Let’s start at the Pacific – and while Vertigo and Bullitt sing with the streets of San Francisco and Sideways captures the rolling hills of wine country, LA is the CA city that’s most often captured on film. But has it been done with more nostalgic iridescence than in Damien Chazelle’s postcard-pretty salute, charting its charms from wild parks, magical observatories and buzzing freeways to pastel-hued piers and twinkling bars?

MUST-SEE SPOT The Griffith Observatory – scene of Mia and Seb’s ceiling dance. Their twilight street boogie was in Griffith Park, at Cathy’s Corner.

2 OREGON

MOVIE STAND BY ME

ROUTE: Travelling north to the state that gave us the bucolic vistas of The Goonies and Leave No Trace, Oregon offers woozy nostalgia via quaint towns, verdant forests and dazzling rivers as a group of friends take an odyssey in search of a dead body. Yeah, there’s leeches, but this is really a good time. (That trestle train track was filmed in California, though.)

MUST-SEE SPOT: Brownsville is the town to head to if you want to tour ‘Castle Rock’. And the Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood for The Shining’s Overlook Hotel.

3 WASHINGTON

MOVIE SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE

ROUTE: Further north, the Evergreen State is known for its above-average precipitation, but that doesn’t dampen the love of Tom Hanks’ Seattle-dwelling widow and Meg Ryan’s swoony radio listener. Who wouldn’t want Hanks when he lives on an idyllic houseboat, eats at Pike Place Market (The Athenian Inn has Hanks’ lunch spot marked) and is never knowingly not standing next to the Space Needle?

MUST-SEE SPOT: Vampire fans should head to stunning Indian Beach in Ecola State Park, ‘LaPush’ in Twilight.

4 IDAHO

MOVIE NAPOLEON DYNAMITE

ROUTE Turning east, the moonboot-wearing high-schooler’s home state was repped by the small town of Preston – real-life childhood idyll of filmmakers Jared and Jerusha Hess. It may seem featureless and flat, but it’s so worth a visit that a ‘sweet’ Napoleon. Dynamite map was created by the Preston Chamber of Commerce.

MUST-SEE SPOT Check out Wallace, the pretty former mining town that’s destroyed by Dante’s Peak in the film of the same name. While the townsfolk played themselves, the volcano did not: it’s CGI.

5 NEVADA

MOVIE VANISHING POINT

  have shown the twinkling gem in the silver state’s crown on film, but gloriously showcases the neon-free