A Map for Saturday

Whiny, spoiled boy quits his TV job and dumps his Manhattan apartment to take a year long vacation from his tough life. In this useless travelogue, he focuses on socializing with fellow backpackers and does not talk much about the places or sights. Once in a while, he complains about Indian trains, altitude sickness, and getting mugged. Hey, there's a way to avoid this- it's called research! Also he low-balls the cost of his trip ($20k USD)- bullshit on that, especially when you're buying your many plane tickets last minute in the terminal. So sorry you're lonely on your trek, but maybe if you had concentrated more on where you are and what real locals are doing, and not just f**king Euro girls in hostels, you'd have had a better time.

In my opinion it's difficult to report any sort of aspects of a trip-movie in one hour and thirty minutes. You've to choice what represent, what kinda of details to describes. Doing a movie about travels it's not so easy, even the most famous ones are oriented to describes some aspects. I gave a rating of 8/10 'cause in this documentary u can see normal people, true feelings and true explanations from different points of view of guys who comes from different nationalities. It broadcast the common desire to see the entire world without being wearisome, u could be one of the guys interviewed,it's a psychological movie that tells the reasons of why some people need to backpack. It could be an inspirational movie for someone who hasn't yet the brave to leave the material world to knowing better himself and the world in which we live. Switch off the TV and BACKPACK!!!

I'd rate it higher but I think the film doesn't have enough shots to show the really awesome aspects. It's mostly interviews with other travellers talking about their own opinion on travelling, rather than actually showing the real-life shots of the mostly *cultural* experiences that are had on the journey.

By the end of the film, I wasn't left with a burning desire to pack up my things and go back out to do it all again. I think it's because my personal interest in travel is hardly based on the interpersonal relationships at all. But that's the only thing this documentary seems to cover. Travelling is more than just meeting new people in hostels.

However, Brook Silva-Braga I'm sure you'll read this, so I'd just like to say that if I was somewhere in the world and I met you, and we talked, and you told me you were making this movie, I would be hugely impressed - you definitely made the most of your time away. And we'd no-doubt form the classic 'traveller friendship' you described in the movie, hah.

I give the documentary a 6 because it sadly didn't really cover the key aspects of travel that I was expecting to see, and instead just focused on meeting new travellers and how it 'feels' to be one. However for the effort and generally awesome motivation and hard work that will have gone into making and filming it for a full year, I give a 10/10, because, as I said, it is a hugely impressive thing to do, no matter what.

I'm interested to know how it's perceived by people who've never left home before.

This is a vaguely sweet little film does make me want to travel again. It offers precisely no insight about anything, but if you take it as a travelogue, you'll be happy with what you get.

Although the film visits exotic locales in Asia, Europe, Australia and South America, the undisputed star is the American film-maker. I guess I'm jealous of what I perceive as a uniquely American luxury of assuming everything you utter is profound; that not only should you record your thoughts, but they're worthy of a full-length film. It's not Asia or Europe that are interesting, but what this young American thinks about his experience visiting them.

Watching this, I was reminded (and, yes, the irony of writing about my own experiences isn't lost on me) of going to a concert by an 80's songstress in 2003 in Hicksville – yes, Hicksville – outside New York. I'm from Tasmania, Australia, and at the time I was living in Manchester, UK, travelling with a British girlfriend. We met a lovely group of American chaps at the concert and not one of them asked what we were doing in Hicksville watching a Cyndi Lauper concert in 2003. When they heard where we were from, one launched into a story about Sydney and another about London. My friend and I laughed about it at the time, commenting on the fact that they had no interest in us or our countries, just in their own experiences in relation to us. And that's what this whole film is like.

I do recommend watching it if you're young and about to go travelling, or thinking about it. I suspect it's already out of date with social media affording kids of all nationalities and incomes the ability to create travelogues, but if you don't know anyone who's backpacking with a blog, this does show what it's like. In fact, the entire film is just a Facebook update that a rich bloke managed to make into a motion picture.

It's a great movie. It's true that a backpacker trip in hostels gives you these kind of experiences but it's totally different if you avoid hostels and use couchsurfing, or just walk in a street to find a host or stay at local people's houses. I've traveled both way, stay with locals and go to hostels and believe me, it's absolutely not the same trip at all. You learn much less about the country, specially when you begin to move around with other backpacker, you become a group of tourists for the local people and you don't experience the real life and culture of the locals and they are also different to you in that way. The less you meet people who speaks the same language than you, the more you get to know the country and their people as you have to find a way to live with these people.

However, the movie, was great and it is really helpful for the people who like to travel to understand that it's not one year holidays... There is almost no comfort but it worth the freedom :)

I gave 8 just because it would be much better to be more with local people than with other travelers in hostels ;)