Star Wars Rogue One film locations – are they worth visiting?

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As soon as Rogue One was released, the internet was flooded with copy-paste articles about ‘The Rogue One filming locations you can visit’. Fun to read, sure, who doesn’t like the combination of Star Wars and exotic locations? But with digital imagery being used as often as it is, not every film location might be as recognisable – and not every location is really suitable for a holiday trip, no matter what the local tourist office would want you to believe. So, let’s look at some of the most often-mentioned locations and see if they’re really worth it.

The Force is strong in Iceland
Planet Eadu was recreated in Iceland, a country that has been very successful in getting large filmcrews to their shores recently. When you visit the coast of Reynisfjara, you’ll be able to recognize the black sand immediately, and link it to the surface of Eadu. There’s a volcanic crater and some rock formations in the Krafla area too that were visible in Rogue One, The Force Awakens and Game of Thrones.
Visit when: you want to fill social media with ‘Look mum, I’m a stormtrooper/whitewalker/Jedi’ selfies.
Stay at home when: rocks and black sand depresses you.

Laamu Atol – Star Wars tourists welcome
The beaches of the Laamu Atol, part of the Maldives, were used for a lot of battle scenes. Thankfully, every so-called article on the internet tells us that the explosions were created digitally. What a relief… The Maldives are really working the whole Star Wars angle to get more tourism, so a lot of articles on Rogue One even give you a link to book flights and comment on how they would make a great honeymoon location. We could see how this could totally work for geek-inequal couples; the non-geek wants to have a tropical island honeymoon and is able to convince the geek by saying: ‘But it’s where Rogue One was filmed!’ ,
Visit when: you need an excuse to go to a tropical island.
Stay at home when: you hate tourism.

Pilgrimage to Wadi Rum
This one is really a stretch – and we mean that literally.
Wadi Rum is a desert area in Jordan that was used in the Martian, and then blatantly ripped off by Rogue One. Just kidding, of course; this location has been used for lots of movies ever since Lawrence of Arabia in 1962 and we can see why this beautiful stretch of sand would look great in any big-budget sci-fi blockbuster. In Rogue One, this place is Jedha, the pilgrim place for Force believers. In real life, the area has been very successful in setting up eco-tourism and luxury camping – but that also means that those seemingly empty stretches of sand might be much fuller in real life than in the movies.
Visit when: you think that the Force really does exist.
Stay at home when: you’re allergic to camels.

-Julia