The latest and – some are already saying – greatest Bond movie of all time finds 007 back in his old haunt of Istanbul. (Both From Russia With Love and The World Is Not Enough were filmed here.) We can’t tell you much more than that the Grand Bazaar takes a battering, but suffice to say that when it comes to creating havoc on a motorbike, while looking dead dapper, nobody does it better. Travellers can stay at Georges Hotel in ultra-hip Galata. A renovated art nouveau building with a killer rooftop terrace, Georges blends sharp-as-Dan’s-suits retro with hi-tech gadgetry, including iPad check-in and (M, please note) laptop-sized safes. Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. TM Danjaq, LLC. All Rights Reserved
• Georges Hotel, pictured, (+90 212 244 2423, georges.com) has doubles from €150 Photograph: PR
This was Bond at his most bonkers (he disguises himself as a crocodile at one point), and Octopussy’s flamboyant script was only outmatched by its main location, Udaipur. Fittingly, The Taj Lake Palace, which sits mirage-like on Lake Pichola, doubled as Octopussy’s babes-only aqueous hideout. Once the Maharaja of Udaipur’s summer palace, it’s now strictly hotel guests-only. For a cheaper option, head for Roger Moore’s digs – the Shiv Niwas Palace. Best bargain, though, is the view over the city at sunset from Kamal Khan’s hilltop lair – the Monsoon Palace, also known as Sajjan Garh, which is open to daytime visitors. Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. TM Danjaq, LLC. All Rights Reserved
• Taj Lake Palace, pictured, (+91 294 242 8800, tajhotels.com) has doubles from £230. Shiv Niwas Palace (+91 294 252 8016, hrhhotels.com) has doubles from £160 Photograph: PR
QOS explodes into action with a car chase (14 Aston Martins were wrecked during the filming) through the tunnels around Lake Garda. Moments later, James is in terracotta-tastic pursuit of M’s double-crossing bodyguard, as the chaos of Il Palio, Siena’s centuries-old horserace, unfurls around him.
Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. TM Danjaq, LLC. All Rights Reserved Photograph: Susie Allnutt/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. TM Danjaq, LLC. All Rights Reserved
• Campo Regio Relais, Siena (+39 0577 222073, camporegio.com) has doubles from €190 B&B, which rise to €300 during Il Palio (pictured). It is a B&B close to Siena’s Campo, where Il Palio takes place on 2 July and 16 August each year. The hotel can arrange seated race tickets (standing is free). Live out your Bond fantasy by renting an Aston Martin DBS V12 and heading for Lake Garda. (From €1,500 a day, +34 682 266 450, europeluxurycarhire.com, quote GUARDIAN for 10% discount) Photograph: Fabio Muzzi/AFP/Getty Images
“How do you kill five hours in Rio … if you don’t samba?” Bond (Roger Moore) asks his ravishing aide. Chap that he is, he still finds energy to grapple with Jaws atop of the cable car to Sugarloaf Mountain, before hang-gliding over the spectacular Iguaçu Falls, on the border with Argentina, to Drax’s HQ. (Which, considering it’s actually Tikal, in Guatemala, is some feat.) Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/Cinetext Collection
• The Sugarloaf cable car (bondinho.com.br) leaves Praia Vermelha for Morro da Urca and then the summit (this is the view from there) every 20 minutes, 8am-9pm. Adults £16, children 6-12 £8 Photograph: Alamy
“I can assure you my intentions are strictly honourable.” So swore a clearly duplicitous double-O on spotting bikini-clad Honey Rider (Ursula Andress) emerging from the surf. Filming of the scene, voted the sexiest movie moment ever, took place on private Laughing Waters beach, near Ocho Rios. Unless you’re up for evading security guards (very Bond), you’ll need permission to visit … or a boat. Sunshine Watersport can take you there and for a private tour of the (usually packed) Dunn’s River Falls, where Honey and James took a dip. Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. TM Danjaq, LLC. All Rights Reserved
• Sunshine tours (+1 876 295 6918, sunshinewatersport.com) cost from $65pp, based on two people, less if there are more of you. Fleming’s home here, called Goldeneye, pictured, is now a hotel (0844 573 2460, vhiphotels.co.uk, seven nights’ B&B from £1,949pp, including flights in November 2012) Photograph: PR
As the setting for Casino Royale and Thunderball, the Bahamas is the top Bond location – and not just because of Daniel Craig’s La Perla trunks. If you count all his underwater grapples, seven 007 movies have been shot here, including Connery’s face-off with a shark in Never Say Never Again. Choreographer of much of that sub-aqua action, and Connery’s diving instructor and stunt double, was Stuart Cove. His company now runs scuba and snorkelling trips to key 007 sites, plus personal submersible excursions. M would approve.
Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. TM Danjaq, LLC. All Rights Reserved Photograph: Action images
• Stuart Cove’s Aqua Adventures (+1 242 362 4171, stuartcove.com) offers half-day snorkelling trips for $70pp, as well as more serious dives, such as this one with Caribbean reef sharks. Bond’s Casino Royale hotel was The One & Only Ocean Club, where Tropical Sky (0843 249 5238, tropicalsky.co.uk) has seven nights' room-only including flights from Heathrow from £2,199pp Photograph: David Fleetham/Alamy
Featuring the coolest SPECTRE hideout – the since-active Shinmoedake volcano – and the ultimate dogfight over Ebino Kogen, with James in the autogyro called Little Nellie, Bond’s fifth excursion shoved Japan into the spotlight. Inside Japan offers a Bond tour taking in all the main locations, including Tokyo’s New Otani hotel (see next picture), which doubled as the sinister Osato Chemicals in the movie; Himeji Castle, home to James’s ninja training academy; and Kirishima national park, where you’ll stay at a traditional ryokan with hot spring baths. While 2011’s eruptions means you can’t currently hike up Shinmoedake, you can view it from a safe distance before heading to the Ebino Kogen highlands.
Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar/Cinetext Collection Photograph: Action images
• A 13-night Bond’s Japan tour (0117 370 9751, insidejapantours.com) costs from £2,872pp, including flights, three days’ car hire, three nights in Tokyo's New Otani hotel (pictured), 14-day rail pass, breakfasts and two dinners Photograph: PR
“Bit off the beaten track, isn’t it?” was Bond’s arch appraisal of Scaramanga’s island hideout, Koh Ping Kan – and he was right, then. Back in 1974, Phang Nga bay was so undeveloped, the cast and crew stayed, unwittingly, at a brothel. Now “James Bond Island” heaves with daytrippers. Photograph: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. TM Danjaq, LLC. All Rights Reserved
• The island is best viewed from the sea. John Gray’s Sea Canoe (+66 76 254 5057, johngray-seacanoe.com) offers overnight kayaking trips in the area from Phuket from about £170pp Photograph: Alamy
The setting for a car chase like no other, Iceland’s Jökulsárlón lagoon saw Bond careering across the vast frozen lake, past icebergs of cobalt blue. In summer it’s possible to explore the lagoon by amphibian boat or, for that 007-vibe, a Zodiac rigid inflatable. Just not an Aston Martin. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
• Discover the World (01737 214291, discover-the-world.co.uk) has a seven-night tour of southern Iceland from £758pp B&B including flights from London, Manchester or Glasgow and car hire. Jökulsárlón excursions from £16pp Photograph: Ragnar Th Sigurdsson
The tank chase through St Petersburg was filmed mainly in Leavesden studios, but GoldenEye had us right from its vertiginous start, when Bond dives head first off a ludicrously high dam into a USSR weapons facility. It was shot at the Verzasca dam in Switzerland’s Ticino region where innocent civilians can also experience 007’s bungee freefall – all 220m of it. Caffè dell’Arte in Locarno, on nearby Lake Maggiore, is a kooky little B&B. It is moments from the bars of the town’s Piazza Grande, where you can annihilate post-plummet shakes with a martini or six. Photograph: x/Eon Gldn 243 Moviestore Collection Ltd
• Bungee jumping (+41 91 7807800, trekking.ch) adults £150, 14-18 years £130. Caffè dell’Arte (+41 91 751 9333, caffedellarte.ch) has doubles from £160 Photograph: Alamy
