5 replies to this topic

[mshparber]

Hi,
I am looking for the most efficient way to keep a travel journal.
Usually every weekend I go traveling or camping with my son or friends.
I am looking for some best practices to keep the trips' journal so that there are these features:
1. Pictures with geo-tags - with possibility to write comments
2. Map with all the places' marks I've visited on that trip
2.a Optional - map with ALL the places I've visited
3. Sharing feature (like blog)
4. GPS tracks shown on maps - optional
5. Calendar tracking - so I can easily find where we've been on a certain weekend

Will appreciate any thoughts and ways you guys keep such notes

Thanks
Michael Shparber

[jmayson]

1. Pictures with geo-tags - with possibility to write comments

I carry a small GPS tracker with me and use that to geotag photos. My camera is over 5 years old and doesn't have a built-in GPS. This is hugely important because once I get back to civilization it's hard to remember what was what.

2. Map with all the places' marks I've visited on that trip

I rely on my GPS tracker and Google Latitude for this. I also use Google Maps to track things like all airports I've ever used.

2.a Optional - map with ALL the places I've visited

I really like Google Latitude. As long as I have my phone with me, it tracks all of this for me. I did once go back and try to populate a Google Map with everywhere I've been and it became a mess, so I gave up.

3. Sharing feature (like blog)

Google Maps. Also Picasa Wab and Flickr. They support geotagged photos and can show you visitors where you've been.

4. GPS tracks shown on maps - optional

GPS tracker. Google Latitude.

5. Calendar tracking - so I can easily find where we've been on a certain weekend

I send my Foursquare checkins to my Google Calendar. Every Foursquare account has rss, kml, and ics feeds. Just subscribe to your ics feed in Google Calendar. Also Google Latitude has a calendar in the history.

This is one of my big geeky topics, so if I can share more or if I didn't explain something well, don't hesitate to reply and ask.

[jmayson]

Here's one example where I did use Evernote to document a stop I made while driving from New England back to Texas.

http://www.evernote....5914e21436c0334

I manually geotagged the photos, but I don't think the geotagging shows up in this view.

[calipidder]

I blog about all of my trips. The blog gives me a central place to include my photos, notes, maps, and the kind of filtering I want to find trips later on (calendar/tags/categories, etc). The blog is kind of my central gathering place for information that I collect in different places. All my notes, planning, blog drafts, etc are in Evernote. My pictures are in Smugmug. And my gps tracks/maps are in a tool called Everytrail. The nice thing is that you can embed those maps elsewhere (maybe even clip to evernote - I haven't tried!). You can upload photos and have them placed on a map based on their time stamp (or just where you manually put them). Here is an example of one trip I did about a year ago. And here is how it all comes together in a blog post.

Hope this helps!

[BurgersNFries]

One thing I do is take a photo of the room number, so I don't forget! I don't always put that in Evernote. But if it's a hotel you frequent often & it's a room you enjoy (or one you don't want again), you can put it in Evernote for future reference. (IE request a room you like.)

[jmayson]

I blog about all of my trips. The blog gives me a central place to include my photos, notes, maps, and the kind of filtering I want to find trips later on (calendar/tags/categories, etc). The blog is kind of my central gathering place for information that I collect in different places. All my notes, planning, blog drafts, etc are in Evernote. My pictures are in Smugmug. And my gps tracks/maps are in a tool called Everytrail. The nice thing is that you can embed those maps elsewhere (maybe even clip to evernote - I haven't tried!). You can upload photos and have them placed on a map based on their time stamp (or just where you manually put them). Here is an example of one trip I did about a year ago. And here is how it all comes together in a blog post.

Hope this helps!

Everytrail is cool. I hadn't come across that site. I've been using Google Maps which is utilitarian, but it works.

Here's a hash run I did back in February: http://g.co/maps/be26c

But I have no way to annotate it. Everytrail would let me do that.

Now all I need to do is travel again some time soon.