I have been to Westeros four times,
and half of it is already gone

I got into this late and badly. The show had already ended, everyone I knew had already had their argument about the last season, and I watched all of it across one monsoon in a flat in Pune with the fan on, and came out the other side wanting to stand in the places.

Four trips over five years: Northern Ireland, Croatia, Iceland, Spain. I have kept notes, and the thing the notes mostly record is loss. A surprising amount of what the listicles still promise you is either shut, collapsed, or dying. So this is partly a love letter and partly a correction.

Are Game of Thrones filming locations still worth visiting?

Yes — but not the ones the listicles lead with. The Azure Window in Malta collapsed into the sea in 2017. Grjótagjá cave in Iceland is closed to entry. Fort Manoel, where Ned Stark was executed, is usually shut to the public. And the Dark Hedges are dying — of roughly 150 original beech trees, about 75 remain. What is still genuinely worth the flight: Northern Ireland’s coast and the HBO Studio Tour, Dubrovnik’s walls, Split’s cellars, Seville’s Alcázar, and Itálica — which at €1.50 is the cheapest great screen location in Europe.

Northern Ireland: the one that is still alive, in more ways than one

I went here first and it remains the best of the four, partly because everything is within ninety minutes of Belfast.

The Dark Hedges are the photograph everyone wants — the beech avenue that was the Kingsroad in the second season, when Arya escapes King’s Landing in a cart. They are free to visit, with free parking at The Hedges Hotel a two-minute walk away, and Bregagh Road has been closed to vehicles since 2017 to protect the roots, with fines of up to a thousand pounds for driving or parking on it.

They are also going. Of about a hundred and fifty original trees, roughly seventy-five now stand. Storm Gertrude took some in 2016, Storm Isha more in January 2024, Storm Éowyn more in January 2025. One of the fallen trunks was carved into a Game of Thrones door and sits in the hotel.

Go at sunrise, outside summer. I went just after dawn in October and had the avenue to myself for eleven minutes. This is a location with a deadline and I would say that to anyone still putting it off.

Castle Ward at Strangford is Winterfell — the farmyard clock tower is the backdrop — and it is a National Trust property at £15 adult, £7.50 child, £37.50 family, with an off-peak rate on Tuesdays and Wednesdays of £12 adult that nobody seems to know about.

Then the coast, all of it free: Ballintoy Harbour as Lordsport in the Iron Islands, Cushendun Caves where Melisandre gives birth to the shadow, Downhill Beach as Dragonstone where Stannis burns the Seven, Murlough Bay, and Tollymore Forest, where the Starks find the direwolves.

And the HBO Game of Thrones Studio Tour at Banbridge, thirty minutes from Belfast, is open and is the real thing — screen-used costumes, weapons, props and standing sets, plus a dragon ride. It is the only place you can stand in the actual rooms.

The part that surprised me most: Northern Ireland is filming Westeros again right now. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms premiered in January 2026, was shot in Belfast, and its second season has been filming there since December 2025 for a 2027 release. This is not a nostalgia trip to a place that finished in 2019. It is a working production region.

Croatia: beautiful, expensive, and about to change how it sells tickets

Dubrovnik is King’s Landing and the walls are the whole point — Minčeta Tower as the House of the Undying, Fort Lovrijenac as the Red Keep, and the Jesuit Staircase where Cersei begins the walk of shame, which is smaller and steeper than television makes it and always has three people photographing each other on it.

The pricing has a trick in it. The City Walls are €40 in high season (1 March to 30 November) and €20 off-season (1 December to 28 February). Fort Lovrijenac is included in the walls ticket — so visit Lovrijenac first, keep the ticket, and present it at the walls the same day, and what you paid is deducted. And the Dubrovnik Pass at €40 for one day costs exactly what the walls alone cost, while also covering six museums, two galleries and the buses. If you are paying €40 for the walls, buy the pass instead. That is not a tip, it is arithmetic.

Enter at Ploče Gate, not Pile. The queues are visibly shorter. Go at eight in the morning or late afternoon.

Two things are changing. From 2026 access to the City Walls moves to an advance booking system, part of a set of measures that also limits cruise ships to two a day, each docking a minimum of eight hours to stagger arrivals. But note carefully — there is no hard daily visitor cap on Dubrovnik. It is flow management, and plenty of articles describe it wrongly.

Split is the quiet triumph. Diocletian’s Palace is free and open twenty-four hours — it is a living neighbourhood, not a gated site, and you can walk into it at midnight. The cellars beneath it are Daenerys’s throne room and the dragon vaults in Meereen, and the ticket is about €6. Be careful here: there is a free through-passage of the cellars lined with souvenir stalls, and a great many visitors walk that and believe they have seen it. The ticketed halls are a different space and are the ones you came for.

Klis Fortress, fifteen kilometres out on a local bus, is the Meereen exterior.

Iceland: go for the country, get Westeros for free

Everything here is free or nearly, because the locations are landscape.

Þingvellir, where the Bloody Gate and the approach to the Eyrie were shot — park entry free, parking around 1,000 ISK. Svínafellsjökull on Vatnajökull, where Jon captures Ygritte and where the dragon battle beyond the Wall happens. Dimmuborgir at Mývatn as the wildling camp, Hverir for the blizzards. Kirkjufell, the arrowhead mountain, free parking and a five-minute walk to the viewpoint.

And the correction: Grjótagjá — the hot-spring cave where Jon and Ygritte have their scene — is closed to entry as of 2026. You can look in from the entrance. You cannot get in the water. Every listicle I read before I went told me to swim there. I stood at the mouth of it feeling foolish with my towel.

Spain: the cheapest great location in Europe

Seville’s Real Alcázar is the Water Gardens of Dorne, at €15.50 general and €8 reduced, and it routinely sells out its morning slots, so book well ahead. It is the most beautiful location on this entire list and it would be worth the trip with no dragons in it at all.

Nine kilometres away, at Santiponce, is Itálica — the Roman amphitheatre that became the Dragonpit in House of the Dragon. EU citizens enter free; everyone else pays €1.50. One euro fifty, for one of the largest amphitheatres in the Roman world and a location from the biggest show on television. It is closed on Mondays and reachable on a city bus. I have never had better value from a ticket anywhere.

For House of the Dragon, the other Spanish anchors are Cáceres and Trujillo in Extremadura, about forty minutes apart, both standing in for King’s Landing — the producers added a lion fountain in Cáceres and swapped the Pizarro statue in Trujillo’s Plaza Mayor for a dragon.

One honest note, because I nearly built a trip around it: San Juan de Gaztelugatxe — Dragonstone’s staircase — was recreated digitally for House of the Dragon, not filmed on site. It is still a spectacular place. It just isn’t what you saw.

For the original show, Girona doubles as Braavos and King’s Landing — the cathedral steps as the Great Sept, the Arab Baths as the Braavosi bathhouse, and the Pujada de Sant Domènec as the Arya chase, all free to walk. Zumaia’s Itzurun beach, with its flysch cliffs, is the Dragonstone shoreline and is a free public beach.

Malta: the one I would skip

Malta was season one only — from season two the production moved to Croatia and Spain — and its two showpiece locations are both unavailable.

The Azure Window collapsed on 8 March 2017, at about twenty to ten in the morning, after heavy storms. Nothing is left above water; the debris is now a dive site. It was the Dothraki wedding. It has been gone for nine years and articles still promise it.

Fort Manoel, where Ned Stark is executed at the Sept of Baelor, is usually closed and opens only for special occasions. Verdala Palace, Illyrio’s mansion, is the presidential summer residence and is closed.

What remains is genuinely good and genuinely small: Mdina Gate, free, where Catelyn and Ser Rodrik arrive; and Pjazza Mesquita in Mdina, free, where Jaime ambushes Ned — the most recognisable few square metres on the island.

The practical bit

Do not try to combine Northern Ireland with any of the others on one visa. Northern Ireland is the UK and needs a UK Standard Visitor visa. Croatia, Spain, Iceland and Malta are all Schengen and one visa covers all four.

Which means the sensible shape is: one UK trip, and one Schengen trip that picks either Croatia or Spain. Do not try to do northern and southern Spain in a single Game of Thrones itinerary; Girona and Zumaia are a different trip from Seville and Cáceres.

And a note for Indian travellers specifically: since April 2024 an Indian applicant who has obtained and used two Schengen visas in the previous three years qualifies for a two-year multi-entry visa, and later a five-year one. For a series of trips like this one, that is the single most valuable thing to know — your second Europe trip is where it starts paying. Note too that the EU Entry/Exit System has been fully operational since April 2026, so budget extra time at your first Schengen border for biometrics.

What it was actually like

The honest answer is that standing in these places does not feel like the show. It feels like standing in Croatia.

The exception, for me, was Cushendun. A small sea cave on a grey afternoon with nobody in it and the water coming in, and I thought about the scene, and then stopped thinking about the scene and just stood in a cave for a while listening to the sea.

That is what the good ones give you. The show gets you on the plane. The place takes over once you are there.

Go to the Dark Hedges soon, though. Half of them are already gone.

Frequently asked questions

Are the Dark Hedges still there?

Partly, and diminishing. Of roughly 150 original beech trees, about 75 remain as of 2026, with losses to Storm Gertrude in 2016, Storm Isha in January 2024 and Storm Éowyn in January 2025. They are free to visit, with free parking at The Hedges Hotel two minutes’ walk away. Bregagh Road has been closed to vehicles since 2017 to protect the roots, with fines up to £1,000 for driving or parking on it. Go at sunrise and outside summer for any chance of solitude.

Can you still visit the Azure Window in Malta?

No. It collapsed into the sea on 8 March 2017 after heavy storms, and nothing remains above water — the debris field is now a dive site. It was the Dothraki wedding location in season one. Many Malta articles still list it. Malta was used for season one only, and two of its other showpiece locations are also unavailable: Fort Manoel, site of Ned Stark’s execution, is usually closed to the public, and Verdala Palace is the presidential summer residence. Mdina Gate and Pjazza Mesquita are free and open.

How much do the Dubrovnik City Walls cost?

€40 for an adult in high season (1 March to 30 November) and €20 off-season (1 December to 28 February), with youth and student rates at €15 and €5. Fort Lovrijenac is included — visit it first, keep the ticket, and the amount is deducted at the walls the same day. The Dubrovnik Pass costs €40 for one day, exactly the same as the walls alone in high season, while also covering six museums, two galleries and bus travel, so buy the pass instead. Enter at Ploče Gate rather than Pile for shorter queues. From 2026 the walls move to an advance booking system.

Is Grjótagjá cave open in Iceland?

No — as of 2026 the cave is closed to entry and can only be viewed from the entrance, on safety and visitor-behaviour grounds. You cannot swim in it, despite what most location listicles still say. Iceland’s other Game of Thrones sites are largely free landscape: Þingvellir, Svínafellsjökull on Vatnajökull, Dimmuborgir and Hverir at Mývatn, and Kirkjufell on Snæfellsnes.

What is the cheapest Game of Thrones location to visit?

Itálica at Santiponce, near Seville — the Roman amphitheatre used as the Dragonpit in House of the Dragon. EU citizens enter free; other nationalities, including Indian passport holders, pay €1.50. It is closed on Mondays and reachable by city bus from Seville, nine kilometres away. Seville’s Real Alcázar, the Water Gardens of Dorne, is €15.50 general and €8 reduced, and sells out its morning slots, so book ahead.

Can I combine Northern Ireland and Croatia in one trip?

Not on one visa. Northern Ireland is the UK and requires a UK Standard Visitor visa; Croatia, Spain, Iceland and Malta are all Schengen and covered by a single Schengen visa. Plan them as two separate trips. For Indian travellers, note that since April 2024 an applicant who has obtained and lawfully used two Schengen visas in the previous three years qualifies for a two-year multi-entry visa and later a five-year one — for a multi-trip project like this, the second Europe trip is where that begins to pay. The EU Entry/Exit System has been fully operational since April 2026, so allow extra time at your first Schengen border.

Our Croatia journey and Iceland journey can both be shaped around the filming locations without becoming only about them, and the Northern Ireland coast sits inside our Ireland and the Causeway journey.

Start at the thumbprint with the scene you actually want to stand in. It usually turns out to be one, and the trip works better built around that than around a list of nine.

Written by

Ananya Kapoor

Lead Experience Designner

A passionate travel storyteller at PicknicGo, dedicated to crafting experiences that resonate long after the journey ends.

View all 22 articles by Ananya Kapoor →