Summer Abroad

Who hasn't fantasized about traveling abroad during the summer on a quest for life-changing adventure, romance, a good kidnapping or two, or maybe just to get a decent tan? For most of us that doesn't happen, but these summer-themed movies are the next best thing.

No one travels like the Griswolds, and their trip to Europe is no exception. "Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament!"

Liam Neeson has a "very particular set of skills" that he employs to attempt a daring rescue of his daughter, who innocently travels abroad with her best friend and ends up kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Perhaps not a career highlight for the esteemed Michael Caine, 'Blame It on Rio' nonetheless is a titillating coming-of-age movie about what happens when two best friends take their daughters on a summer vacation to South America.

This is not the only movie where Tom Cruise plays a cocky ladies' man who has a thing or two yet to learn about life. It is, however, the only one where he romances Elisabeth Shue under a waterfall in Jamaica.

I mean, what are the chances that you'd go to Hawaii for a vacation and with the sole purpose of forgetting Sarah Marshall, only to have Sarah Marshall there, at that very same Hawaii, also on vacation?!

Most summers end up with you MAYBE going camping and then having to get up early for a couple weeks for tennis lessons. Which is why this movie, about a lovely couple vacationing in picturesque Greece and having a romantic relationship with a beautiful French archaeologist, was made.

Vicky and Cristina go to Barcelona (hence the title) and experience a vacation that changes them both forever. That's what scientists refer to as the "Javier Bardem Effect."

It's not just the pants that travel; two of the four best friends in this story -- Alexis Bledel and Blake Lively -- go abroad for summer, to Greece and Mexico, respectively, and learn about life in the process.

Leonardo DiCaprio is in for one heck of a trip when he travels to Asia and ends up in search of a mystical beach, suggested to him by a crazy guy who later kills himself. Ahhhh, summer.

There's just something about a floating city…. Katherine Hepburn, an independent woman of means, finds summer romance when she least expects it, in Venice, Italy.

Talk about a fleeting summer romance. Tourist Ethan Hawke has one day to spend with his new-found love, Julie Delpy, as they travel from Budapest to Vienna -- before his flight the next day.

Matt Damon has nearly everyone fooled as he travels to Italy, to befriend the likes of Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. But then things don't quite go his way, and he goes off the deep end.

Just like Bodhi and Johnny Utah in Point Break, the surfers in this 1966 documentary are in search of the perfect wave. And they spend the entire summer fulfilling that quest.

Scott graduates high school. Scott gets dumped by girlfriend. Scott travels across Europe to meet someone named Mike, who is actually a cute girl name Mieke. Complications ensue, romance percolates, and the result is a summer for the record books.