Unlike some of the time-travel movies I love like 'Primer' or '12 Monkeys ' 'Looper' is not about time travel. It's about this situation that time travel creates and the people dealing with that situation. So narratively the big challenge was to have time travel get out of the way.
After I finished high school I went to Hong Kong and Thailand and spent some time there. Just to get that whole experience of being out of the bubble that I was in from high school in Vancouver to be able to travel around and be on your own was an amazing experience.