Back in 2003, I built an interactive travel map, leveraging a Flash plugin (thank you Indy Junior), an XML file of coordinates, and a whole bunch of my own photos. Obviously, Flash wasn’t long for this world, and I never seemed to find the time to update that functionality to modern tech.
Well, thanks to Claude, I found the time and the will. Please give a warm “welcome back” to the map!
It’s rebuilt from scratch, and leverages Leaflet.js, React, and actual photos from the blog. You can click around to read old posts without leaving the map. Pins cluster together when you’re zoomed out, and split apart as you zoom in. If you end up at max zoom with pins that still won’t separate (here’s looking at you, Chicago), clicking the cluster shows all the posts for the area at once. There’s also a search box if you’re trying to find something specific, and the whole thing should wowrk fine on your phone without any embarrassing layout disasters.
It’s a nice way to see where we’ve been. Twenty-something years of trips, condensed into a bunch of little circles on a map.