Film
Expedition Happiness
A couple converts a school bus into a mobile home and travels across North America with their dog, chasing a vague notion of happiness. It's achingly earnest, visually gorgeous, and quietly asks whether running toward something is the same as running from something. For people who've fantasized about escape, who wonder if they're living right, who love travel docs but want something more introspective than usual.
If you liked this
Into the Wild2007
A young idealist abandons civilization to find authenticity in nature. Like Expedition Happiness, it's a meditation on whether freedom and happiness are the same thing, shot with real beauty and urgency.
But It ends in tragedy, which can feel manipulative if you're not in the mood for a film about consequences. Also quite long and deliberately paced.
Nomadland2021
An older woman lives in a van after losing everything, traveling America's workinglands. It has the same visual poetry and the same quiet question: what does home actually mean? Dignified and searching.
But Meditative to the point of stillness. Very little plot momentum; if you need narrative drive, this will feel slow.
180° South2010
A man retraces a legendary road trip through South America, grappling with aging and whether the adventure he remembers matches reality. Stunning cinematography and genuinely moving about time and change.
But The self-awareness can feel performative at times. It's very much a product of adventure-travel culture, which not everyone connects with.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Expedition Happiness
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Road2009
Both follow a traveler's journey across America seeking something essential, but one asks the question gently and one asks it in the dark.
A father and son walk through post-apocalyptic America searching for safety. It's a journey film about what we're really looking for and what happiness actually is—but Cormac McCarthy's prose stripped of its lyricism into ash-gray despair.
But This is bleak to the point of suffocation. It's about catastrophe and love amid death. Watch it when you're already okay, not when you're fragile.
More like this (7)
The Dawn Wall2017
Two climbers attempt an impossible route on El Capitan, spending weeks on the wall. It captures obsession and partnership with the same intimacy and visual grandeur as Expedition Happiness, but with clearer stakes.
But If you're afraid of heights, watching this is genuinely uncomfortable. Also assumes some interest in climbing culture.
Windy City Heat2003
A struggling actor is taken on an all-expense-paid trip across America. It's oddly similar in structure—journey, search for meaning, a camera documenting it all—but funny and weird in ways Expedition Happiness isn't.
But It's a prank film, which means it's partly about humiliation. The humor is mean-spirited by design and hasn't aged especially well.
Alive1993
Survivors of a plane crash in the Andes struggle toward rescue. It's a journey film about what humans are actually capable of when illusions burn away—darker than Expedition Happiness but asking related questions.
But It's a survival film from the 90s, which means some of the craft is dated. Also quite brutal, especially toward the end.
Rivers and Tides2001
Andy Goldsworthy makes temporary art in nature across seasons and continents. It's a meditative journey film about process and impermanence, very beautiful, very quiet in the way Expedition Happiness aspires to be.
But There is almost no narrative. If you need story or conflict, this is wallpaper with a filmmaker following someone around.
Koyaanisqatsi1983
Images of American landscape and industrial life set to Philip Glass, no dialogue. A completely different language for exploring what it means to move through the world, with an environmental conscience Expedition Happiness doesn't quite have.
But Entirely abstract. If you prefer documentaries to explain things and tell you what to think, this will feel pretentious or empty.
Stalker1979
Both examine the human drive to journey toward an invisible goal, and both quietly suggest that the destination is less important than what the search reveals about us.
A guide leads two men through a mysterious zone to a room that grants wishes. A Russian science-fiction parable about desire, meaning-making, and what we actually want when we think we want happiness. Hypnotic and slow.
But It's glacially paced, deliberately opaque, and completely abstract. You won't know what just happened until you sit with it. Requires patience and comfort with ambiguity.
Samsara2011
Both are visual journeys across the world seeking some essence or truth, but one is a personal story and one is a pure cinema meditation on existence itself.
Four years of cinematography across the planet, no dialogue, no narrative—human ritual, labor, and beauty filmed with such precision it becomes hallucinogenic. It's what Expedition Happiness would be if someone removed the couple and the bus and kept only the wonder.
But Entirely wordless and non-narrative. Some people find it transcendent; others find it empty. If you need explanation or emotional direction, this offers neither.
People
Cast
- Felix StarckSelf
- Selima TaibiSelf
Directing
- Felix StarckDirector
- Selima TaibiDirector