If you can’t travel this Summer, you can watch movies about traveling. Here are some of my favorite movies to help you take a Cinematic Road Trip.

• It Happened One Night Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert at the height of their popularity, I love this film about a runaway bride and a journalist on the road together.
• Vacation Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo star in this film. Any parents (and kids) who’ve ever taken a family vacation in a car can relate this journey to WalleyWorld.
• Almost Famous One of my favorite movies, I love the scene on the bus singing Tiny Dancer. Kate Hudson’s breakout role as Penny Lane, a charming groupie.
• Rain Man Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman star in this touching and funny movie about forging bonds as brothers.
• Easy Rider Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper wrote the script and starred in this film about two bikers who head from L.A. to New Orleans.
• Sideways Hysterically funny and sad, set in beautiful Napa Valley. Just don’t watch while drinking Merlot.
• Little Miss Sunshine An extremely dysfunctional but loving family, take a road trip in a VW Van to a Beauty Pageant.
• Thelma and Louise It doesn’t end well, but this movie was ground breaking in for its role as being one of the first female “Buddy” films.
• Stagecoach One of the first movies John Wayne starred in, directed by the legendary John Ford about a group of misfits on their way to New Mexico.
• Smokey in the Bandit Watch Sally Fields and Burt Reynolds (who were dating at the time) star in this Southern-fried flick, with Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Buford T.
• Two for the Road This was my Film School Director’s favorite movie, with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney taking a trip to the South of France, with flashbacks to their troubled marriage.
• Motorcycle Diaries Dramatization of a trip around South America that a young Che Guevarra took and how it shaped his world views.

I always have a little cooler with me for Road Trips, where I keep my cheese sticks and fruit to snack on, and wine for when I arrive at my destination. Other snacks I like to carry: nuts, popcorn, dark chocolate and I always have my trusty water bottle, which I refill. It’s always fun to stop at a Local Farmer’s Market on the side of the road and get whatever fruit or nuts that are grown in the area. Pecan log anyone?

Stay safe and if you can’t go on a Road Trip, watch one!