Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Mapping The Places I've Been: You Should Try It!

Since this is a travel blog, or at least since it started out that way, it seemed like I ought to add this map that shows all the places I've visited (well over 200!) and a few I've pegged for future travel.

Glacier National Park, Montana
Burano, a beautiful island near Venice.
I found the interactive map on tripadvisor. com. It's a fun way to spend half an hour revisiting your favorite travel destinations. The interface takes you through places all over the world, and you can pin the spots you've visited. I'm not sure how the algorithm works. It started me out with some of the world's most celebrated travel destinations such as New York City and Paris, but each list that came up also had some small towns - like Niantic, Connecticut where my family has had a cottage since 1969. I had pinned over 200 places, yet San Francisco, CA, Vienna, Austria, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, and Oahu, Hawaii- some pretty major spots-still hadn't come up, but I was able to add them manually. So far, I've found 257 places in 14 countries that I've visited.

On the way to Paris
The map includes dozens of small towns-I counted at least 10 I'd been to on Cape Cod-as well as little lesser-know towns around the world, like several quaint spots I've traveled to in France. When I hit 250,  I hit "done" and added the biggies I'd missed, but I'm sure if I'd had more time I would have hit 300.

It's fun. You should try it.
(See the link below my map). And feel free to paste your map in the comments section - it'd be interesting to see where people have been.

Here's my map along with a list of my 20 favorite spots: