Forty years ago, a film for which United Artists had very little hope opened in London. It starred a host of second- and third-choice actors, and when the film went $100,000 over budget, the studio almost pulled the plug altogether.

They’d have felt pretty silly if they had: Dr No inaugurated one of the most lucrative franchises in movie history. Tomorrow night, the number of official Bond films reaches 20 with the premiere of Die Another Day, starring Pierce Brosnan as 007. The surrounding hullabaloo — including an exhibition of his gadgets at the Science Museum — is likely to be deafening.

So it looks like the man with the Walther and the vodka martini will be hard to avoid. But then a hefty part of the spy’s appeal has always been his ubiquity — James Bond travels everywhere, often spanning the globe in the course of one film, from Rio to Reykjavik, Mexico to Macau, Cairo to, er, Cornwall (the villain’s lair in the new film is the Eden Project).

This travelogue element was there from the start, and is key to the series’s success: it is difficult to recall now just how seductive Jamaica’s Crab Key (and, of course, Ursula Andress) looked to British audiences back in the drab pre-Beatles days of 1962, or how glamorous and unobtainable to mere mortals the Monte Carlo casino or the Orient Express seemed a little later.

The films are nothing if not aspirational, and Bond locations have become travel destinations in their own right. Some, like the islands south of Phuket, in Thailand, or Piz Gloria, Switzerland, owe their prominent place on the tourism map to 007.

Not every film has a high I-wish-I-was-there quotient — the most spectacular parts of You Only Live Twice were built in Pinewood (as was much of the Golden Gate Bridge in A View to a Kill), and the two Timothy Dalton movies tried (unwisely) to shift the focus from the settings to the man himself. But that still leaves us a long list of destinations just crying out for a tux and a throw-away line — places where you can slip out of those wet clothes and into a dry martini. There are too many to namecheck them all, so here are our favourite dozen slices of double-o heaven, including a sneak preview of Die Another Day.

Flights leave from London airports unless otherwise stated. Packages originating in the UK regions and Ireland are quoted where available; otherwise, contact the tour operators listed below.

DR NO
1962, Sean Connery
The country: Jamaica.
The scene: the most iconic Bond moment of them all, as Honey Ryder (a dubbed Ursula Andress) rises from the sea in a (by today’s standards) rather vast bikini. She was singing: astonishingly, her voice here was supplied by Diana Coupland, who starred in Bless This House.
The location: although Dr No’s lair was set on Crab Key, filming for this scene was done at various locations on Jamaica, including what is now called “James Bond Beach”, east of Ocho Rios; Laughing Waters estate beach, in St Ann’s; and Dunn’s River Falls, to the west.James Bond Beach (which is private; £3 daily charge) is in front of Goldeneye, Ian Fleming’s Jamaican home, at Oracabessa. Goldeneye is part of the Island Outpost empire, owned by Chris Blackwell, who was a runner on the original production of Dr No. The three-bedroom villa (with 007 master bedroom) can be rented in its entirety, or you can stay in one of the four other villas in the complex.
The details: a one-bedroom cottage at Goldeneye starts at £580pp for three days, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, juices and house wine. The main house starts at £916pp for three nights (both excluding flights). Book direct through Island Outpost in Miami (00 1 305 604 5000, www.islandoutpost.com). The only flights from the UK or Ireland to Montego Bay operate from Gatwick, Heathrow and Manchester. The Airline Network (0870 241 0011, www.netflights.com) has flights from £379, flying from Heathrow or Manchester. Or try Britannia Airways (0800 000747, www.britanniadirect.com), which operates charters from Gatwick.

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
1963, Sean Connery
The country: Turkey to Italy, on board the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express.
The scene: although they weren’t the intended climax of the film (that was the exploding oil drums on the approach to Venice, actually filmed in Scotland), the real adrenaline flows during the scenes on the Orient Express.
The location: this is where Bond first suspects his dining companion, Nash (played by a muscled-up Robert Shaw), is an impostor — he gives himself away by ordering red wine with his fish. This section culminates in a brutal fight between Bond and Nash in a sleeping car, identical to the staff sleeping cars currently used on the train.
The details: although its regular services terminate at Venice, once a year, the Orient Express travels all the way to Istanbul (from Paris), then returns to Venice. The Istanbul-Venice leg is the Bond route, stopping overnight at Bucharest and Budapest (although, in the film, it goes via what is now the former Yugoslavia). Departing on September 5, this leg of the journey costs £3,660pp for nine days and eight nights, including flights from London, hotel overnights and food on board. Book direct on 0845 077 2222 or visit www.orient-express.com.