The One Travel Movie Every Millennial Should Watch This Year

No planetarium could hope to replicate the awe-inspiring spectacle that is Alison McAlpine’s Cielo, a documentary screening at the 2017 New York Film Festival.

Featuring the starriest night skies seen on this planet, McAlpine’s lyrical travelogue was filmed looking upwards—but also horizontally—in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile.

The bespangled heavens above the Andes, which the director-narrator contemplates with awe worthy of a Romantic poet, is complemented in the film by the rugged hills, arid plains, lunar landscapes, and Pacific shores that yield up a hardscrabble living to the people who dwell on or near the desert with their ubiquitous dogs.

These impoverished people who live in makeshift homes, among the rusting carcasses of cars, maintain a spiritual dialogue with their glittering canopy. They may not be highly educated, but some of them—one gap-toothed woman smilingly shares her knowledge—understand key aspects of astronomy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the stories and bits of lore they tell McAlpine in the film are more affecting than the information and opinions imparted by the astrophysicists and astronomers who work in or visit the billion-dollar observatories that Chile’s clear skies have caused to mushroom on the desert’s ridges and hilltops.

One of the Atacama Desert’s many observatories

Listening to a local storyteller affirm his belief in the presence of UFOs is not only more illuminating than seeing and hearing a group of exoplanet-hunters joking around at a dinner party, it’s also more humbling.

On the other hand, a lady physicist who admits she is not swayed by the beauty of the galaxies strikes a balance between wonder and rationalism when she talks about how surveying them has made her reflect more on how man needs to work harder to correct his self-destructive habits.

In other words, the Atacama Desert is a salutary destination for anyone who is as interested in earth-gazing as well as star-gazing. Those who can’t make it there would do well to gaze at McAlpine’sfilm and drink in the mystery and realities of a place where, as she says, “the sky is more urgent than the land.”

Cielo screens at the New York Film Festival on October 6 and 7. Tickets: filmlinc.org/NYFF.

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in.

Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special.

Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

Culture Trips are deeply immersive 5 to 16 days itineraries, that combine authentic local experiences, exciting activities and 4-5* accommodation to look forward to at the end of each day. Our Rail Trips are our most planet-friendly itineraries that invite you to take the scenic route, relax whilst getting under the skin of a destination. Our Private Trips are fully tailored itineraries, curated by our Travel Experts specifically for you, your friends or your family.

We know that many of you worry about the environmental impact of travel and are looking for ways of expanding horizons in ways that do minimal harm - and may even bring benefits. We are committed to go as far as possible in curating our trips with care for the planet. That is why all of our trips are flightless in destination, fully carbon offset - and we have ambitious plans to be net zero in the very near future.