Online Project: Travelogue

Online Project: Travelogue

I like to travel, and write about it. Over the years I’ve done a decent amount of traveling all over the world, and for the most part, I’ve written at least one or more blog posts about all of my significant trips.

As you would expect, all of my travel writing is housed under the “Travel” category on my blog. However, when browsing to that category, you simply get a list of posts. One of the central themes in “travel” for me is actually going places, and so, I feel like presenting my travel writing as merely a list of text doesn’t really do it justice.

To more properly display an index of my travel writing, I’ve created my Travelogue project. This page uses the Google Maps API and a custom Google Map to present map markers on all the places I’ve been and written about. Users may pan around the map of the world, and zoom in on any areas they want. Upon clicking the map marker in a given location, the user gets a hyperlink list of blog posts I’ve written about that particular area. I’m ordering the links in each location details popup chronologically, so not only can a users select to see an index of blog posts by geographic region, but they’re also able to see a timeline of my travels in any given place.

Additionally, on my end, administering this map and adding content is fairly straightforward – I simply login to my Google account, and update my custom map with any new spots – the changes are automatically synched across to the embedded interactive map on the project page. Since Google Maps has an extensive API, all of the locations I spend time inputting to the map will remain extensible into the future, so I can continue to evolve this project, without worrying about the need to re-enter data.

Travelogue

Listening to: The Prodigy – Worlds On Fire