Tours in Make Believe

“When Florida native Michele Maro became captivated by The Lord of the Rings movies, she never imagined she would one day be walking around in the Shire, touring Hobbiton and peeking into hobbit holes,” writes A. Pawlowski for CNN Travel. “Though all fictional places, fans can visit the closest thing possible in New Zealand, where the trilogy was filmed and where specially designed tours will take visitors to some of the stunning locations featured in the movies. ‘The scenery was so pretty that I thought it had to be computer-generated,’ Maro said. ‘I just stood there and cried. I couldn’t believe I was actually there,’ she said. Such passion has prompted tour operators all over the world to take fans to sites that have served as settings for blockbusters on the big and small screens, including London locations used in movies such as Bridget Jones’s Diary and Four Weddings and a Funeral. And sites used during the filming of The Sound of Music have many visitors singing with joy in Salzburg, Austria.”