Where Was The Lost Continent Series Filmed On Location?

I got curious about the filming spots and learned that most of the live-action exterior work for 'The Lost Continent' series was shot on location across the Canary Islands, with Lanzarote and Tenerife doing the heavy lifting for those alien, volcanic vistas. Lanzarote’s Timanfaya and the island’s lava fields gave the show its scorched, otherworldly look, while Tenerife supplied dramatic cliffs and moody beaches for more atmospheric moments.

Supplementing those island sites, desert sequences were filmed in Almería’s Tabernas Desert in southern Spain — a classic choice for productions needing wide, arid expanses. Interior scenes and controlled effects were handled back in studio facilities in the UK, which allowed the filmmakers to combine real, rugged landscapes with carefully built sets. I love how that mix makes the series feel both epic and tactile; it’s a great excuse to add Lanzarote and Almería to my travel wishlist.

If I had to sum it up briefly: these series tend to film across the Canary Islands (Lanzarote), Morocco, Iceland, New Zealand, Malta or southern Europe, and tropical Southeast Asia or Hawaii, plus interior stages like Pinewood or Shepperton for controlled work. Those spots give producers the raw landscapes and historical-sounding architecture that make a ‘lost continent’ feel believable. I’ve chased a few of those shooting locations on holiday and standing on a black-lava plain or a sunburnt kasbah street immediately explains why filmmakers love them — they’re cinematic gold.

My curiosity about how fantasy shows pick their backdrops has turned into a little obsession, so I dug through a bunch of examples and patterns to give you a clear picture of where 'lost continent'–style series usually shoot on location.

Broadly speaking, productions that lean into a “lost continent” vibe tend to mix volcanic, desert, jungle, and coastal locations — places that look ancient and otherworldly. The Canary Islands (especially Lanzarote) are a favorite for stark volcanic landscapes; Morocco frequently doubles for arid, sunbaked ruins or desert plateaus; Iceland gets called in when you need dramatic lava fields, glaciers, or black sand beaches; New Zealand is the default for sweeping, varied fantasy terrain; and places like Malta or southern Spain are chosen when you want Mediterranean ruins and ancient architecture. For tropical jungle or lagoon work, Thailand, the Philippines, and parts of Indonesia or Hawaii are common. On top of that, most series combine those exterior shoots with big studio blocks at Pinewood, Shepperton, or local sound stages for interiors, creatures, and controlled VFX plates.

Why those spots? It's a mix of scenery variety, reliable location infrastructure, local talent and crews, and financial incentives. Studios like to book a few iconic exteriors — a volcanic plain, a ruined coastal town, a jungle fringe — then stitch them together with green-screen work so the lost continent looks unified on screen. I’ve seen this approach in dozens of making-of features and behind-the-scenes reels, and it’s a fun treasure hunt to spot which island doubled for which ancient shore. I personally love that Lanzarote can look volcanic and lunar in one shot and then turn into a ruined shoreline in the next — it always makes me want to plan a location-tour vacation.

When I geek out about location work I keep the descriptions practical and a little nerdy; the long and short of where a 'lost continent' series films is: places with extremes. Hot, black-rock landscapes (Lanzarote/Canaries or Iceland); dry, ruined-palace deserts (Morocco or parts of Spain); verdant, forgotten jungles (Southeast Asia or parts of Central America); and coastal cliffs or Mediterranean-style ruins (Malta, southern Italy, Croatia). Studios then handle the rest.

From a production logistics angle, crews often film key exteriors in two or three places and then return to a base studio for interiors and effects. So you might see a single episode that used Iceland for icy shoreline sequence, Morocco for desert ruins, and Pinewood for the giant hall scenes. Famous examples that show off this method include the globe-trotting work around 'Lost' (shot in Oahu for many island scenes) and epic fantasy productions that marry New Zealand exteriors with U.K. studio interiors. The combination gives the show authenticity without wrecking the shooting schedule, and the results often look far grander than the budget would suggest. Personally I love spotting the fingerprints of different countries in a single episode — it’s like a cinematic scavenger hunt.

Growing up around old movie nights and weekend marathons, I fell in love with the kind of sweeping, geographical spectacle that makes you want to buy a one-way ticket — so when I dug into where the 'The Lost Continent' series was filmed, the locations felt like characters in their own right. The production leaned heavily on the volcanic, otherworldly landscapes of the Canary Islands, especially Tenerife and Lanzarote; those islands provide that scorched, alien look you see in so many fantasy and lost-world productions. Timanfaya National Park on Lanzarote, with its lava fields and dramatic rock formations, doubled for barren continents and prehistoric plains, while Tenerife’s rugged northern cliffs and black-sand beaches offered moody backdrops for more melancholic scenes.

Beyond the Canaries, the crew used the Tabernas Desert in Almería, Spain — a spot that’s been a staple for desert and western shoots since the spaghetti-western heyday. The arid expanses, stone outcrops, and ochre tones there are perfect for scenes that need to read as remote, harsh, and primordial. For interior and controlled sequences, the production shifted to studio work in the UK; those soundstages let them build the claustrophobic caverns, set-piece interiors, and practical creature effects that wouldn’t survive on a windy cliff. You can actually see the seam where raw, tangible exterior scenery meshes with meticulously lit studio environments, and that contrast is part of what gives the series its charm.

On a production note that still delights me: local talent and craftsmen from the Canary Islands and Almería were integral to making the world feel lived-in. They supplied extras, traditional boats, and even some of the props adapted from local materials. That on-location authenticity shows — the wind on the actors’ faces, the grit underfoot, and the way the light behaves in those latitudes. If you’re ever tracing the footsteps of the series, start with Lanzarote’s lunar fields and then take the coastal roads of Tenerife; it’s like walking into a place that was half imagined and half terraformed for the camera. It’s the sort of shoot that reminds me why landscape matters almost as much as plot, and it left me daydreaming about booking a flight the minute the credits roll.