Tripomatic Widgets

Tripomatic, the personalised trip planner, has now released Tripomatic Widgets. Tripomatic Widgets can be created and used to show nearby points of interest and attractions.

One of the embeddable widgets allows users to create a Google Map of nearby sights and attractions. It is ideal for conference venues or hotels who want to suggest interesting sights nearby. The size of the map can be adjusted and users can add their own map marker to the map.

The other widget creates a list of nearby sights and attractions. The list contains thumbnails of the attractions and links to view the attraction's listing on Tripomatic.

Plan & Download a Trip to Your Phone

TouristEye allows travellers to plan a trip and download an itinerary and map for the trip to an Android or iPhone.

Using TouristEye is is possible to easily plan a personal itinerary for any trip. To plan a trip you just need to select your destination and confirm your length of stay. You can then select to add places to visit from the TouristEye recommendations or add your own recommendations. To add a place to your itinerary you just need to drag its thumbnail image to any day on your itinerary.

When you have completed your personal itinerary you can view all the places you plan to visit on a Google Map and you can download your trip to your smartphone.

Hat-tip: Street View Funny

Sightseeing World Heat Maps

Sightsmap is a heat map of the world based on the number of photographs submitted to Panoramio.

The heatmaps are based solely on the number of available Panoramio photos for an area. The dark and the blue areas have fewer photos, the red areas have more and the yellow areas have a large number of photos geotagged.

As you zoom in on an area on the Google Map the heat map becomes more detailed and map markers appear for Wikipedia entries for locations and Foursquare venues.


Alexander Tchaikin has an interesting project on building photo density maps based on Panoramio photograph submission. The project's goal is to show on Google Maps the number of photos geo-tagged at particular locations. For example, the screenshot above shows the areas being photographed most in Paris.

Alexander explains how he created these photo density maps on his project website. He also has a number of kml files, so you can review the results of his analysis on Google Earth.

A Cross Platform Guide to Mumbai

The Guardian Mumbai City Guide is the latest of the The Guardian's Google Maps based guides to the world's favourite cities. This time however they are trying something new.

Like the paper's previous city guides the map shows the best places to stay, eat and visit and includes videos and sound recordings taken in the city.

However with this map The Guardian has created an application that is "responsive to the platform on which it is viewed ... if you view the guide on a desktop or laptop, it looks one way, if you view it on a tablet, it looks another way, and if you view it on mobile, it looks different again. Crucially the source behind what you are viewing is exactly the same on all of them, it's just adapting accordingly".

One of the beauties of version 3 of the Google Maps API is that it it works with desktop computers, smartphones and tablets. Even Street View in the Google Maps API works on these very different platforms.

The cross-platform functionality of the API presumably helped The Guardian in creating a responsive application. The menu system (the map sidebar) is where The Guardian have worked their own magic. Check out the application on different platforms to see how the map menu adjusts to suit the platform on which it is viewed.

A Video Map of the London Olympics Park

The Guardian's Alternative Olympics Park Tour is an interesting mapped video guide to the 2012 London Olympics Park and the surrounding area in east London.

The tour starts in north Hackney and winds along the Lea River into the Olympics Park. The route is displayed on a Google Map and points of interest along the way are indicated with numbered map markers. If you click on a map marker you can view a video introduction given by Simon Cole, of Hackney Tours.

The map does work well as an introduction to the 2012 Olympics Park but I can't understand why The Guardian removed the navigation controls from the map. If you are going to include a map in your tour why then make the map difficult to navigate?

A Personal Travel Itinerary on Google Maps

Tixik.com is a multilingual trip planning application. Using the application it is possible to search for travel destinations by location and by various categories, such as cities, beaches or ski resorts.

Each location features a Google Map as well as detailed reviews of points of interest that can be found at the location. As well as searching by location users can search via a number of categorised dedicated maps, such as a map of the world's longest beaches or the biggest coastal cities in the world.



The application includes a useful trip planner that enables users to save individual locations to a personal itinerary as they browse the website. Users can plan a trip to a destination and save places they want to visit on their trip and even on which day that they wish to visit. You can view an example itinerary for a trip to London here.

The Untamed Philippines on Google Maps

The Untamed Philippines is a tourist guide to the Philippines. Google Maps are used throughout the site to help users explore and find interesting locations throughout the country.

The 'Places' tab is a good place to start discovering interesting destinations in the Philippines. This map allows the user to explore points of interest in a number of different categories, for example 'churches', 'museums' and 'restaurants'.

Many more Google Maps can be found throughout The Untamed Philippines website, exploring all aspects of Philippine life and culture. The 'Explore' tab allows the user to find Google Maps and Google Earth browser tours in a number of different categories.

Cleveland's History at Your Fingertips

Cleveland Historical is a fantastic free app for the desktop and for Android and iPhones that puts Cleveland's history at your fingertips. Using the app you can wander around Cleveland and explore the people, places, and moments that have shaped the city’s history.

The Google Map on the Cleveland Historical home page allow users to explore the many historical locations and tours available on the site. The site includes a large number of map-based, curated historical multimedia presentations of the city's history.

If you live in or plan to visit Cleveland then get this app. It's brilliant and it's free!

Secret Rosario on Google Maps

Rosario Invisible is a community driven Google Map that highlights the secret and hidden wonders of the Argentinian city of Rosario. The map allows anyone to share photos, text and videos of the interesting locations, characters and stories of the city in order to provide an insider's guide to the city.

Users of the map can explore the experiences added to the map by selecting from categorised map markers. There are a number of categories of locations added to the map, including 'architecture', 'food' and 'nature'.

Washington DC Memorials on Google Maps

The National Capital Planning Commission has released a Google Map, called Memorials in Washington DC, to help users locate and learn about commemorative works in Washington, DC.

The memorials displayed on the map can be filtered by theme. Each information window includes a brief description of the memorial and a link to read about the full history and significance of each memorial.

The map also includes a Foursquare leaderboard. If you log-in with a Foursquare account you can see how you rank amongst other users of the map in your number of check-ins made at Washington DC memorials.

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World Heritage Sites on Google Maps

UNESCOplaces.org is a nice Google Map exploring the 911 UNESCO World Heritage Sites around the world.

It is possible to filter the locations shown on the map by 'cultural' and 'natural' World Heritage Sites. It is also possible to browse the sites in a number of categories via the drop-down menu.

If you select a World Heritage Site from its map marker you can click through to view photographs, details about the site and view other sites nearby.

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Nerdy Days Out with Google Maps

When nerds go to the beach they go to Marconi Beach, named after the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. Or at least they do if they consult Nerdy Day Trips.

This Google Map is a great collection of fun trips for geeks and nerds. Consulting the map for my own part of London I find that Edmund Halley's grave is nearby, there is a Cold War era nuclear bunker museum just down the road and numerous small museums nearby that I never knew existed.

Users of the map can not only find great nerdy places to visit they can also add their own nerdy locations to the map. Brilliant!

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Trip Planning with Google Maps

Tripomatic can help you create a personalised trip itinerary for a number of major destinations in Europe.



Creating an itinerary with Tripomatic is incredibly simple. Each destination includes a Google Map featuring the city's attractions, places to eat and hotels. You can select to view a number of categories to view on the map.



Clicking on an attraction's map marker will open an information window with details about the attraction. If you want to visit the attraction you simply add it to your personal trip itinerary. Once you think you have enough attractions for one day you can simply add another day to your itinerary.



After you have completed your itinerary Tripomatic will devise a Google Map for each day of your trip, that includes all of your selected destinations. Your personal itinerary guide includes your map and details about all of your selected attractions presented in an easily printable form.



All you need to do then is print out your personal guide and pack your bags. Simple



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Putting Culture on the Map

In the UK tourist signs have a brown background and are often referred to as 'brown signs'. Their purpose is to direct people to tourist attractions, such as castles, museums or historical buildings.



Brown signs are the responsibility of local authorities and therefore there is no central record of all the country's brown signs. Follow the Brown Signs is a website dedicated to tracking down (and mapping) all the humble brown signs in the UK.



It is possible to search for brown signs by address or postcode and view a Google Map of all the signs around that location. There are 93 different types of brown signs, signifying such diverse categories as good brass rubbing locations and 'heavy horse' centres.



Follow the Brown Signs lets you search for brown sign locations by category. As well as providing a little history about each category you can also view each of the 93 different types of brown sign on its own individual map.





The UK's Blue Plaque scheme is a way of commemorating the lives of famous residents of the country. Blue circular signs are erected on houses to indicate that someone of note was born or once lived there.



The PlaqueGuide is a Google Map of the UK's blue plaque houses. The map uses blue circular map markers to show the location of houses with plaques. You can find out who the plaque is for by just mousing over a marker. If you click on a marker you can view a Street View of the plaque and read a Wikipedia article about the individual commemorated by the plaque.



The PlaqueGuide is crowdsourced, so anyone can add information about the location of a blue plaque.



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Your Google Maps Guide to Paris

If you want an alternative to The Guardian's Google Maps city guides then you need look no further than the New York Times. The NYT's Travel section provides Google Maps based guides for many of the most popular tourist destinations around the world.



Each of the city guide maps allow you to select different categories of markers to view on the map. The categories are hotels, restaurants, attractions, shopping and nightlife.



As well as using the map as a guide to the city you can use the links in the map sidebar to click through to the New York Times' recommendations in each category.



NYT Travel Guide to Paris Map



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Your Google Maps Guide to Berlin

The Guardian's Google Maps based city guides now includes Berlin.



The Berlin City Guide maps the best places to stay, eat and shop in the German capital and also maps great bars, clubs, museums and galleries to visit. You can select a category to view on the map from the menu above the map. When you select a category as well as dropping the appropriate markers on the map a list of the venues is displayed beneath the map.



If you select an individual venue, by clicking a marker or from the list beneath the map, The Guardian's review of the location will then be displayed.



The Guardian - Berlin City Guide



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Travel Blogs and Google Maps

Blogabond is a neat application that allows anyone to create their own travel blog with an accompanying Google Map that shows the location of your blog posts and photographs.

Blogabond is very easy to use. After you create an account you can create a new travel blog. This simply involves choosing a location, adding your text and uploading any photographs that you want to share.

When finished your travel blog is presented on its very own page. The blog includes a Google Maps header that displays markers for all of your entries. The map can therefore be used as an index for your blog. You just need to click on a map marker to view the entry for that location.

Blogabond

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Audio Tours on Google Maps

Geotrio is creating a world-wide library of mapped audio tours that can be accessed from smart phones and desktop computers. Using Geotrio users can create, browse and share digital audio tours for any location in the world.

Each uploaded tour includes a Google Map of the audio tour. The map includes markers for each stop and each stop contains an audio commentary of what you can see at that location.

Geotrio is available as a free iPhone app so you can listen to the audio tours whilst actually walking the route of the tour. If you are more of an armchair tourist or you are interested in listening about locations that you can't visit you can also access the tours from your desktop computer.

Geotrio

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Boris' Cabs on Google Maps

This certainly qualifies as the strangest map I've seen for a while. The map creates the scenario of the user wanting to catch a taxi from a famous London landmark to the ICC London Excel conference centre.

The map displays a number of videos of London mayor Boris Johnson moonlighting as a London taxi driver. Each of the videos contains a brief description, by Boris Johnson, of a famous London landmark. When you click on one of the landmarks you can watch the appropriate video and, at the same time, a route is displayed on the map from the landmark to the ICC London Excel conference centre.

There seems to be a little bug in the map that stops the video displaying properly in FireFox but it worked fine for me in Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Take me there Boris!

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Scrolling Backgrounds with Google Map

Tourism New Zealand has implemented a very clever and striking website using Google Maps in conjunction with a series of related background images.

As you use scroll through the New Zealand 100% Pure website the background images change to create some impressive effects. The scrolling images are used to create animated clouds moving across still landscape images or to provide a narrative, for examples as the people portrayed in the images move around.

The effect of the scrolling images is hard to explain, so you really need to see it yourself on the 100% Pure website. When you visit the page notice how the Google Maps inset changes as you scroll the page to reflect the location of the current background image shown on the page.

New Zealand 100% Pure

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