What old TV show sparked your travel interest when you were a kid?
Just for fun on a Friday. What silly, juvenile (but fun!) TV show first had you saying "yes, I want to travel to Europe" when you were a kid? For me, I was probably about 8 years old and it was a spy show in which a character named Alexander Mundy was always traveling all over Europe, stealing jewels, engaging in spy stuff and being a suave international playboy. Silly stuff, but it sure made Europe look like a fun, exciting place where I wanted to go someday...
What childhood show, movie, book, etc, first made you think about travel to Europe?
Thomas
Vienna, Austria 2/8/13
Send Private Message
Page:1 Next ›
Inspired to go to Europe by characters named Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mussolini, Churchill.
Pink Floyd's The Wall.
George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm.
RS certainly inspired me to travel within Europe once I got there.
It wasn't a kids show per say, but as a kid I used to love watching the original BBC series of Great Railway Journeys of the World on channel 13 (PBS) here in NY. I couldn't get enough of it. Later on there was another series on PBS called Travels with John Heminway which also captivated me. Not a TV show, but the National Geographic (remember the free maps)gift subscriptions my late grandma gave me, helped nurture my travel bug as well.
A fun question! For me it was the TV show/computer game Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? Not just to see Europe, but to travel the world. Played it endlessly at the baby sitters, if I could get away with it!
Remember the series Time Tunnel? If not that, it was definitely Sea Hunt (Lloyd Bridges es mas macho).
Seriously though, I'm not sure what got me started. I didn't have money to travel when I was a kid but we did cross the border into Mexico regularly - and many of my friends in San Diego were from different parts of the world.
I knew I wanted to travel before I graduated from college so I joined the Air Force. I was flabbergasted at the number of Lts who asked for the base closest to home - I wanted to see as much as I could (I asked for a fighter to Europe and received a bomber to Guam - not exactly what I had in mind).
It wasn't when I was a kid but when I was 19 I saw the film "Summer Lovers" with Darryl Hannah and just knew I Had to see Greece. I went 6 months later with my best friend and thats when I caught the Travel Bug!!
It was the Sherlock Holmes stories that first introduced me to London and started what latter became a huge fascination with all things England. It was, and still is, history that motivated me to see the rest of Europe and the rest of the world.
But in the 6th grade, I had to read a novel called "The Rain Forest." Although I remember nothing about the story itself, it did put in my head a desire to see Papua New Guinea, and that goal still remains on my "bucket list" for no other reason than that.
Oh, those spy shows.
Mine would have to be Alias, the Jennifer Garner series from the last decade. Watching it, I realized I kind of always wanted to be a spy. While I can't be recruited by Langley, I could always visit the former hot spots spies used to hit!
Summer Lovers w/ Darryl Hannah. I forgot all about that. I'm gonna have to rent that one again. :-)
Not a TV show, but I remember pouring over an Ideals magazine that I had and there was a Holiday Section about Christmas Traditions around the world, and it was so romantic to think about those wonderful European traditions...I don't tend to keep a lot of 'stuff', but recently when I thought about the impact it had on my love of travel I went on ebay and within about 10 minutes found a copy. It's so fun because some of the countries don't exist anymore as they did then. (Yugoslavia)
Ah Thomas, just the name Alexander Mundy brings back memories. I too loved "To Catch a Thief" with Robert Wagner - wonderful locations and a cute guy, what's not to like. I also own the Alfred Hitchcock movie on which it was based and watch it about once a year. Two of my favorite "chick flicks" from my early years were "Summertime" (Venice) and "Three Coins in the Fountain" (Rome). All of these made me want to see Europe but when cable TV came along and the Travel Channel, oh that did it!
As a kid, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang made me want to go see that castle (Neuschwanstein). Even though it was filmed on a lot in Hollywood, Hogan Hereos made me want to learn German and go to Germany. And of course.....the Sound of Music!!!
As an adult though, Roman Holiday captured my heart.
When I was 13, I discovered the Beatles. Had dreams of moving to England from then on! But alas, was stuck in New Jersey until a young adult. Never moved to England, but visited a few times and loved it.
National Geographic
We didn't have television when I was a kid. I did read the Farm Journal though.
National Geographic got me started too - specifically the issue about Pompeii in the early/mid 60's. Later that decade, I was crazy about the Beatles and became obsessed with London. Also, French class in high school made me yearn for Paris.
My first trip to Europe was to London about 30 years ago. I made it to Paris four years ago. Still haven't been to Pompeii, but it's on the list.
Just remembered one more inspiration - the Olympics. Especially the Winter Olympics because the scenery is always so pretty. The first one I remember well is 1968 in Grenoble, France. I'm still an Olympics junkie.
Love of travel runs in my family, but only my sister and I developed the desire to explore Europe. It started mainly with the UK from watching and reading All Creatures Great and Small set in the Yorkshire Dales. Shows such as Dr. Who, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and Fawlty Towers, though pretty much filmed entirely in studios, thrilled us with the British imagination and sense of humor.
Gilligan's Island---just kidding.
There wasn't TV when I was a kid. I read HEIDI and thought Switzerland sounded beautiful.
Someone just reminded me that reading Heidi and seeing the movie made me want to go to Switzerland - I fulfilled that dream on my second trip to Europe about 15 years ago.
Another one I just thought of is "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara - that one instilled in me a deep need (not just a want) to go to Ireland, even though I have no Irish in me. Have been twice now, it's one of my favorite places and it's better in person than watching a movie.
Thomas, thanks for this thread.
3 things. My mom gave me a set of books that she had read when she was a kid and each book was about kids from different countries all over the world. I loved playing "Masterpiece", a board game, and wanted to see all the famous paintings on the game pieces in real life. Saw "A Little Romance" with a 13 year old Diane Lane and wanted to go to Venice and I finally got there when I was 12 and would get up at dawn each morning to wander off from the hotel on my own and walk alongside the canals and back streets, stopping at the gondolas docked in the water and looking at the Bridge of Sighs just to see it without any crowds snapping photos.
Love Pink Floyd's "The Wall", too - the album and the movie (especially when Bob Geldof shaves off his eyebrows - but that's an American hotel room he trashes before he floats in the swimming pool while he flashes back to his childhood in England). But "The Wall" just makes me want to take a couple bong hits and cook Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.
More of a reader than a TV watcher when I was a kid. National Geographic for sure, as well as Life. I remember reading about the building of the Aswan Dam and wanting so badly to go to Egypt. There was this whole hippie lifestyle thing going on, where the thing to do was go to Europe on Iceland Air, round trip for $100 I think, get a Eurail Pass for 3 months, and do Europe on $5 a day. That sounded so wonderful, but never did it.
I read encyclopedias when I was younger too as a hobby. Loved World Book. Lots of history books about the Greeks and the Romans and the Middle Ages.
Now, here I am, living in the middle of all of it and enjoying being in the center of so much history. Lots of fun, and I like doing research on the different eras, the kings and queens, the architecture, the wars, and the people.
The only silly show I can think of that made me want to travel would be, "Johnny Quest" and "Clarence, the Cross-eyed Lion."
I loved All Creatures Great And Small and now we have Downton Abbey. I've never been to England but now, I must!
Crash
Sindelfingen, Germany formerly Santa Rosa Beach, FL
Posts: 124
Send Private Message
Great thread, Thomas!
Didn't have TV until we moved to the States. Saw movies though once in a while.
Irma la Duece for sure, with Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. I just couldn't get over Paris, the buildings and small apartments with all the windows. Michael Caine in The Ipcress File was good and cheesy.
Once in America I loved The Saint and The Avengers also. And Bond, James Bond of course.
Endless Summer? I think I remember it ;-)
Didn't they jump off of a cliff into the sea?
I seem to recall that someone asked this exact same question a few years ago... so I'll repeat my answer.
Monty Python's Flying Circus. Why? I simply had to experience a culture first-hand that could produce such sublimely briliant (and silly) humour. And from there, you might say Britain was my gateway drug into the rest of Europe.
The Third Man...always longed to visit those old streets in Vienna. Realized that dream having been there many times now. I always hear Anton Karas playing in the background when walking those streets at night.
Mine was the UK mini-series 'The Third Eye' on Nickelodeon. It was like a Dr. Who for kids. I spent months scouring Ebay for bootleg DVDs of the episodes you can't buy anymore (or ever). My copies even have the creepy intro they did for the US. Great scenery of England. After that, it was definitely the Indiana Jones movies.
This is a great thread Thomas!! Let's see...
I think mine would be "The Adventures of TinTin", NOT the recent movie, but the cartoon TV show that used to come on the Family Channel in the early 90s. Same character, although few remember the animated series.
If we want to take it back even further, Fraggle Rock (I wanted to be Red when I grew up... I still do!! - but don't judge haha!). Anyway, fans of the show remember Uncle Traveling Matt who would send postcards from some "exotic place", like, oh, say, the mall, but to him it was outer space. I don't think he ever went to Europe but the whole concept of traveling and trying new things stuck with me ever since.
And more recent, the whole Bourne series (the first 3 with Matt Damon). It's my fav trilogy outside of Star Wars, and to this day I watch for the plot AND the scenery. Can I please visit Tangier??
And as an old movie fanatic, I credit (or blame) my fascination with Paris on "Charade" with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Saw it when I was around 12 and have been obsessed ever since.
There was a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs and Yosemite Sam were in a competition to climb atop the "Shmatterhorn" and win 50 thousand "kronkites". That sparked my interest in traveling to Switzerland as a wee lad. But I still don't know where the "Shmatterhorn" is.
Fun responses here!
Terry Kathryn, I'm with you. I believe it was Ideals magazine that made the series of books about Christmas in each European country. I remember looking at the Santa Lucia celebrations in the Sweden one (much as an annual ritual now is to watch Rick's European Christmas!!).
Now I enjoy looking at the books with my nieces, to share with them about Christmas where I live and where their uncle is from (Italy). Hopefully someday they'll come experience Christmas here with us (as their parents and our parents did before they were born).
@Kim... what a coincidence... I also remember the Swedish one, vividly...as I am Swedish (have not made it there yet) but the drawing of St. Lucia had some sort of crown on her head with pine boughs and candles. The one from Poland had the mother wearing some sort of head ornament with stars on it and as a child I spent hours try to make one for myself out of cardboard...it never quite fit! Good thing I didn't try the lit candle one. I have since gone to the Christmas markets a few times and am sure this was the inspiration for those trips.
Page:1 Next ›