Savada wonders if the media marketplace's blurring of fiction and truth affects travelers' abilities to discern a fictional ghost story from a location shot in Maryland. For example: At the now-famous Hitching Post II, the real-life wine-serving restaurant in Sideways, customers occasionally ask if Maya, the sweet, wine-savvy fictional character played by Virginia Madsen, is working that night.

As long as you don't think movie characters really exist, you shouldn't feel guilty for wanting to sip Pinot in the same spots where Miles and Jack did. Movies are stories, and the best stories create settings that remain with us.

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ready, set, pack
whether it's romance or mystery or humor or scenery alone, some movies hit an emotional button that sends us scurrying for our carry-on. here are a few of the more memorable.

little-screen legend
another great example that inhabits the borderline between documentary realism and fiction is kenny kramer's tours of new york city, says jason mittell, pop-culture critic and media studies professor at middlebury college. mittell notes that kramer was the real-life basis for the character kramer on the sitcom seinfeld. "many things in seinfeld were based on tangential experiences of the writers," he says, "but the interesting thing is, i don't know if they ever shot a single episode in new york." fans visit a variety of new york landmarks: the façade of the coffee shop where the characters often met; the bar where kramer apologized for hitting mickey mantle; the midtown office building where kramer found someone to publish his coffee-table book about coffee tables; and the takeout shop with the great soup and the notorious chef. www.kennykramer.com

they built it; people still come