James Bond is renowned for his globetrotting adventures. Sean Connery was buried at sea off the coast of Japan, Roger Moore drove a gondola hovercraft through the canals of Venice, and Pierce Brosnan surfed on a tidal wave in Iceland.
Daniel Craig’s widely adored Bond movies continued this tradition, taking audiences to such exotic locales as Madagascar, the Bahamas, and Jamaica. Craig’s 007 earned his license to kill and 00 status in Prague and died in a nuclear blast on an abandoned island between Japan and Russia.
Czech Republic
The gritty black-and-white opening scene of Casino Royale takes place in Prague, where Bond assassinates traitorous section chief Dryden at the British Embassy to earn his license to kill and a spot in the 00 line-up. This sequence provides a thrilling origin story for 007, while the visuals evoke the grounded tone of old-school spy thrillers.
Madagascar
The first large-scale action sequence in Casino Royale – a parkour chase across a construction site – takes place in Madagascar. This is one of the most breathtaking and visceral set-pieces in the entire franchise, and it popularized parkour briefly.
The Bahamas
The trail of breadcrumbs that Bond follows to crooked Greek official Alex Dimitrios eventually brings him to the Bahamas. There, he wins Dimitrios’ Aston Martin DB5 (Bond’s signature car) in a poker game and, to add insult to injury, seduces Dimitrios’ wife Solange.
America
Bond’s pursuit of Dimitrios takes him to Miami, where he gets into another action-packed set-piece at an airport. This isn’t Bond’s first dalliance to the U.S.; big chunks of Live and Let Die, Roger Moore’s first Bond movie, take place in Harlem and New Orleans.
Montenegro
In order to make back the money that his clients lost, Casino Royale’s villain Le Chiffre puts together a high-stakes Texas hold ‘em tournament at the eponymous Casino Royale in Montenegro. MI6 gets Bond a spot in this tournament so he can beat Le Chiffre at poker, in the hopes that such a loss would lead the diabolical villain to seek refuge with the British government.
Italy
Craig’s Bond spent a ton of time in Italy. Casino Royale’s shocking finale takes place in Venice, as a building sinks into the Grand Canal. At the end of the movie, Bond returns to work at MI6 when he finds Mr. White in Vesper’s phone and locates him at an estate in Lake Como.
Directly following on from this, No Time to Die takes place in Matera, where Bond visits Vesper’s grave and is unexpectedly attacked by Spectre assassins. Craig’s Bond couldn’t get enough of Italy.
Haiti
The central investigation in Quantum of Solace kicks off when Bond and M follow a perp named Edmund Slate to Haiti. There, Bond learns that Slate is a hitman hired by Dominic Greene, which draws him into the primary villain’s oil-based plot.
Austria
When Bond first learns about the villainous Greene, he tracks him down at a performance of Tosca in Bregenz, Austria. The Austria connection comes full circle in Spectre when Bond finds a dying Mr. White in Altaussee and promises to protect his daughter.
Bolivia
After following Greene to Austria, Bond follows him to Bolivia (the plot of Quantum of Solace gets a little repetitive) and runs into trouble with Bolivian police. This is where Bolivian General Medrano, the secondary villain, comes into the mix. The movie culminates in a spectacular finale set in the Atacama Desert.
Russia
There’s a crucial Russia-set scene in Quantum of Solace that calls back to Bond’s heartache from Casino Royale. In Kazan, Russia, 007 meets Vesper Lynd’s former lover, Yusef Kabira, a member of Quantum who turns out to be indirectly responsible for her death.
