Let me start by saying that I'm not a massive Game of Thrones fan. In fact, I'm not much of a TV show fan in general.
So when Harper's Bazaar made this video on "Places That Will Make You Feel Like You're on Game of Thrones," I noticed we've been visiting them one by one for the past three years without even realising it!
That said, because I still have a pretty good recollection of our visits (and the photos!), I thought it'd be fun to go through all of them in one big blog post.
This was the easiest to visit because David's family lives a mere 15 minutes from the Dark Hedges, otherwise known as the King's Road in the series.
90% of the show was filmed in N. Ireland, mostly for scenes of Winterfell, the Iron Islands and of course, King's Road.
We first visited the Dark Hedges in the December 2014 when we were back in N. Ireland for Christmas and went back a second time in July 2017 when the weather was much more pleasant.
But beware though, the Dark Hedges has become a tourist hot spot since the show aired so you're going to have to work hard for the perfect photo (like I did in my Instagram here). Get there early!
Port Ballintoy plays the backdrop for the Iron Islands.
We also visited Port Ballintoy and Tollymore Forest, both the locations for the Iron Islands and random scenes throughout the show.
Without realising it at the time, we visited the site for Dorne - called the Real Alcázar in Seville, Spain - in October 2014.
Out of all the locations, this was by far my favourite.
For a fee, you can enter the vast complex of the palace grounds and visit the stunning Alcázar gardens that were featured in the show.
All of the scenes from Sunspear castle and water gardens of Dorne were shot right here.
Volantis, another in-show location, took inspiration from the real-life Roman bridge in nearby Cordoba, which we also visited in 2016.
Our latest travels took us to the Old City of Dubrovnik in Croatia, possibly the most well-known location of all.
The Old City is famously known for the Walk of Shame scene where Cersei Lannister was paraded through the city (in the buff, at that), as she was pelted with dung by the townspeople. I don't know why though.
If you ever visit Dubrovnik, you'll quickly realise that GoT has contributed tremendously to the number of visitors.
There are brochures promoting GoT tours at the airport and the local souvenir shops now carry GoT merchandise. A GoT walking tour starts from 100 euros per person (ouch).
We also heard there's a replica of the Iron Throne somewhere in the city but we didn't manage to catch it.
According to the Harper's Bazaar video, parts of Meereen were filmed in the city of Split, Croatia.
Just so happens we were heading to Split anyway after visiting Dubrovnik, so the I guess the GoT tour continues!
The ancient Diocletian Palace in Split is the primary location for many of Daenerys' scenes.
It is where she kept and trained her dragons and is also the backdrop for her throne room.
The ground levels of the palace have been turned into a souvenir market (tacky, I know) and you can walk around here for free, but to visit the cellars where most of the scenes were shot, there is an entrance fee of around 40 Kuna (5 or 6 Euros) without a guide.
More filming locations on our list?
Iceland.
Our travels in the last three years have been one massive GoT tour without us even realising it.
Now that we're on it, I figured - why stop?
After this, I'm excited to check out even more filming locations in N. Ireland, especially Castle Ward (the Stark castle in Winterfell) where you can see the direwolves from the show. There are still parts of Morocco and Spain I'd love to explore more of.
Have you visited any GoT filming locations? If you haven't, which ones would be on your list? Let me know in the comments.
Camelia Z. Battersby is a writer, female entrepreneur and owner of Diaries of a Female Entrepreneur. Here, she chronicles her journey as a female entrepreneur in Asia while discussing topics of travel and lifestyle for the modern woman.
