Hobbiton, New Zealand is the most popular movie location people want to visit. Best known for being featured in Lord of the Rings, Hobbiton has an overall popularity score of 9.13/10, comprising of 58,000 searches for its location each month as well as 36.2 million views on TikTok (36,200,000).
That’s according to search data from a new study by PACasino, who analysed TikTok views, Instagram hashtags and Google search volumes to identify the most popular movie locations available to visit today.
The top 10 movie locations people most want to visit
| Rank | Movie Title | Location | Total Number of Instagram Hashtags | Total Number of TikTok Views | Total Number of Location Searches per month | Overall Popularity Score /10 |
| 1 | Lord of the Rings | Hobbiton, New Zealand | 453,000 | 36,200,000 | 58,000 | 9.13 |
| 2 | Harry Potter | Glenfinnan Viaduct, Scotland | 71,500 | 28,600,000 | 48,000 | 8.39 |
| 3 | The Shining | Timberline Lodge, Oregon, USA | 73,779 | 8,300,000 | 70,000 | 8.26 |
| 4 | Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone | Alnwick Castle, Northumberland | 57,900 | 7,600,000 | 142,000 | 8.02 |
| 5 | The King’s Speech | Ely Cathedral, England | 43,853 | 60,100,000 | 30,000 | 8 |
| 6 | Sleepless in Seattle | Pike Place, Seattle, USA | 253,000 | 10,300,000 | 15,000 | 7.77 |
| 7 | Twilight | Silver Falls State Park, Oregon, USA | 58,851 | 3,700,000 | 37,000 | 7.15 |
| 8 | Star Wars | Skellig Michael, Ireland | 33,400 | 1,300,000 | 38,000 | 6.54 |
| 9 | The Joker | Joker Stairs, New York, USA | 20,222 | 11,400,000 | 15,000 | 6.54 |
| 10 | Mamma Mia! | Skopelos, Greece | 224,000 | 8963 | 120,000 | 6.41 |
Northumberland is the fourth most popular movie location
Taking fourth place, Alnwick Castle has an overall popularity score of 8.02/10. With 142,000 average monthly searches, Alnwick Castle, which played host to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone has 66% more searches than the franchise’s second location to make the list, Glenfinnan Viaduct (48,000). On TikTok, Glenfinnan Viaduct boasts 73% more views (28.6 million), than Alnwick Castle (7.6 million).
PACasino can reveal that Hobbiton, New Zealand, a location used throughout the Lord of The Rings film trilogy, is the most popular movie location to visit in the world. Hobbiton has an overall popularity score of 9.13/10, 29% higher than Skopelos, Greece, which featured in Mamma Mia! and has an overall popularity score of just 6.41/10. With almost 40 million TikTok views (36,200,000) and 58,000 average monthly searches, the Lord of the Rings’ filming location has 68% more searches on average than Skellig Michael which featured in the Star Wars franchise (38,000).
Taking second place with 48,000 searches and an overall popularity score of 8.39/10, is Glenfinnan Viaduct, Harry Potter’s second filming location to make the list. With 28.6 million TikTok views, Glenfinnan Viaduct has 73% more views on the platform compared to Alnwick Castle, which features in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (7,600,000). Glenfinnan Viaduct’s overall popularity score of 8.39/10 is just 4% higher than Alnwick Castle (8.02).
In third place, with a popularity score of 8.26/10, is the infamous Timberline Lodge, best known for featuring in classic horror The Shining. Timberline Lodge has 8.3 million views on TikTok — 99% higher than Skopelos — the filming location of Mamma Mia!, which has the lowest TikTok views in the top 10 (8,963). Despite this, Mamma Mia!’s Skopleos has 41% more monthly searches on average (120,000) than location of The Shining (70,000).
The least popular movie locations, revealed
| Rank | Location | Movie Title | Total Number of Instagram Hashtags | Total number of TikTok views | Total number of location searches per month | Overall Popularity Score /10 |
| 1. | Gooderham Worts Distillery, Canada | X-Men | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2. | Varda Viaduct, Turkey | Skyfall | 404 | 0 | 90 | 0.62 |
| 3. | Dorob National Park, Namibia | Mad Max: Fury Road | 983 | 17,900 | 100 | 1.6 |
Goodheram Worts Distillery is the movie location people are least likely to visit. As featured in X-Men, Gooderham Worts Distillery has no searches for the location in Canada. The second least popular destination, Varda Viaduct – as seen in Skyfall has just 404 Instagram hashtags and only 90 location searches. Just beating Varda Viaduct by an additional 10 location searches on average. Dorob National Park, Namibia, which featured in Mad Max: Fury Road. Has just 100 searches for the location. Despite this, Dorob National Park has the highest TikTok views out of the three (17,900).
Photo Credit: Kraft_Stoff/Shutterstock.com
Methodology:
- PACasino created a points-based index system to uncover the most popular movie locations people want to visit.
- To do this, PACasino created a seed list of movie locations you can visit, using articles from Delicious and Rough Guides.
- From the seed list, each location was then searched on Instagram to discover how many searches each hashtag has, and on TikTok to discover how many views each location has.
- Next, PACasino utilised the Keyword Search section on Ahrefs to uncover the estimated search volumes for each location.
- The rankings were calculated as an overall popularity score. Which was based on the number of Instagram hashtags, TikTok views and location searches.
- All data was collected on 1/03/2023 and is accurate as of then.