Mapping completed tours

[Loveshack]

I would like to produce electronic/digital maps of trips we’ve been on over the last 10 years. Mostly EU, but a few longer UK tours.
Any suggestions?

 

[RogerThat]

You can do it automatically with some trackers:

But for the historic trips...

Hmmm.... ?

Google Earth is probably your best bet?

 

[nicholsong]

Careful with the coming 90 in 180 day rule in Schengen, or even the current 90 day limit in any one country.

They will know where you are/have been

 

[Loveshack]

I’ll have a look.
Campsites, sights, major landmarks.
Not bothered about every twist and turn. A tracker sounded a good idea, but I’d forget to start it every day and correcting my mistakes would become a chore.
I’m trying to do something with photo’s, scrapbook style, to have something to flick through on dark winter nights. Had a project in mind for a few years.

 

[Loveshack]

Careful with the coming 90 in 180 day rule in Schengen, or even the current 90 day limit in any one country.

They will know where you are/have been

That’s not going to affect us, we can live with restrictions.
Feeling less of a European will hurt tho’

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[PhilMary]

Why not make a "document"?
If you used, for example, Microsoft Word you create a book with maps, text, pictures etc.
Maybe you could make available for others to read/learn from.
Phil

 

[Loveshack]

Hi Phil,
I think I can do the photo’s and texts stuff in “Pages” on the iMac, but locating places on maps and annotating is the one I can’t crack.
I think I did an apporox map of our first trip around France, but finding it in Google Maps for example would require username, password etc, from 10 years ago. Then things have moved on since then, could I access it now?

 

[Happy Jim]

I use an app called “Journi Blog”. It uses the metadata in the photo’s to put them in chronological order and gives you a map (taken from the photo if geo tagged) on the front page that shows which country/cities you’ve visited in that particular “book” that you create. We create 1 book for each year, add a small handful of the best photo’s each day and pop in a short paragraph about the place if it was interesting, at the end of the year we turn the blog into a Printable Book (OK....the software does this!) and then pay about £30 for a hardback printed book of the year - nice momento to pop in the bookcase.

Rgds

Jim

 

[Clarky]

Polarsteps should do what you want.

Polarsteps

Polarsteps is the personal travel log in your pocket.

www.polarsteps.com

Richard

 

[Loveshack]

Is that Journi Travel, Jim? Seems like this one is £48 for an annual subsscription.

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[pandas]

Google Maps. Having had the same issue we now use 'My Timeline' for any current trips - logs automatically where you are, or where your phone is, and produces a good history which can use either as crow flies between places or you can drag to specific nearest roads to show the actual route. Once it hits a road it will contour to that road. It is also date/time specific. Some maybe bothered about 'big brother' knowing where you are but really we are not that interesting and not into drug smuggling.

For retrospective trips we are going through the process of going through individual trips keying in towns/villages, or a marker you can actually plot on a map. You can only use something like 30 places in one map (sorry cannot remember exactly) but all you do is add a sub set and you can add hundreds if need be. I will re educate myself how to do this and re post. Works really very well for us and is very interesting. Plus it gives you all the data if need be - dates miles/km etc. Also quite stunning to look back on our travels on a map to other continents.

You can also do this by 'Creating a New Map'. When you double click on a place it brings up a google reference to that place. Good luck - worth the effort whatever system you use.

 

[pandas]

Just had a look at 'Polarsteps' posted by 'Clarky' - it look very good and worth looking into.

 

[DBK]

If you are happy to let Google track the location of your phone the Google Timeline feature might work for you in the future, although it may only work for Android devices.

For example we arrived at Ouistreham the other day and drove to an aire via a supermarket. This is what the trip appears like on Google Maps.

Then the next day we explored on foot.

Sadly, it doesn't have the ability to display a track over more than a day at a time. In theory it may be possible to download the data and combine it into a kml file for display on Google Earth but I haven't tried that. The data is stored and I can look back several years now to where I was on a specific day.

A useful feature for me is Google knows where any photograph I upload to Google Photos was taken. It does this by looking at the time the photo was taken then looking at my Timeline to see where I was then. The thumbnail photos you can see above were taken using my camera not my phone. It isn't foolproof as it depends on the phone having a reliable position signal but it works well enough and you can edit the timeline to correct errors. For example, in the second image above it has me jumping about all over the place due to these inaccuracies but the overall shape of the track is correct which is good enough.

 

[Southdowners]

We use Polar Steps but we do it as we travel, not retrospectively.

 

[chaser]

If you are happy to let Google track the location of your phone the Google Timeline feature might work for you in the future, although it may only work for Android devices.

For example we arrived at Ouistreham the other day and drove to an aire via a supermarket. This is what the trip appears like on Google Maps.

View attachment 328113

Then the next day we explored on foot.

View attachment 328114

Sadly, it doesn't have the ability to display a track over more than a day at a time. In theory it may be possible to download the data and combine it into a kml file for display on Google Earth but I haven't tried that. The data is stored and I can look back several years now to where I was on a specific day.

A useful feature for me is Google knows where any photograph I upload to Google Photos was taken. It does this by looking at the time the photo was taken then looking at my Timeline to see where I was then. The thumbnail photos you can see above were taken using my camera not my phone. It isn't foolproof as it depends on the phone having a reliable position signal but it works well enough and you can edit the timeline to correct errors. For example, in the second image above it has me jumping about all over the place due to these inaccuracies but the overall shape of the track is correct which is good enough.

Google will tell you where you have been for years back, this is one example

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[DBK]

Indeed, but I haven't found a way to get it to plot a route joining all these dots. It also has its quirks, the dot in the Baltic is Google telling me I've been to Europe.

 

[chaser]

Indeed, but I haven't found a way to get it to plot a route joining all these dots. It also has its quirks, the dot in the Baltic is Google telling me I've been to Europe.

View attachment 328131

Just googled and found this answer but afraid it's way above my head

 

[LesW]

I use Garmin's 'Mapsource' to keep a record of our trips, works well and is a good resource for previous locations/routes.

This is our recent trip.

 

[chaser]

Indeed, but I haven't found a way to get it to plot a route joining all these dots. It also has its quirks, the dot in the Baltic is Google telling me I've been to Europe.

View attachment 328131

Might also be something here if you can understand it

 

[Stonemags76]

We use track my tour. You do need to remember to add a photo each day, but I use it as a campsite/Aire review thing as well. Produces a map, but does not track the journey.

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[The Simpsons]

If you use google maps you can create routes. Then use an image grab app like snippit, which allows you to annotate and save as jpeg image.

 

[Loveshack]

I like the look of the Garmin “map source” , but not looking to buy a Garmin satnav.
I’ve experimented with Google Maps since last night and can produce a map of places visited, by adding points sequentially, from diary entries, so this looks like a starting point.
I’ll be happy to produce a manually created scrapbook with notes and sketches with a map for reference only. Simplifying daily journies will be good, we do tend to backtrack a bit.

I’ll investigate other apps, thanks all

 

[LesW]

like the look of the Garmin “map source” , but not looking to buy a Garmin satnav.

I'm not sure if you need to buy a Garmin satnav to use Mapsource.

You may be able to download it from their website.

 

[chaser]

Indeed, but I haven't found a way to get it to plot a route joining all these dots. It also has its quirks, the dot in the Baltic is Google telling me I've been to Europe.

View attachment 328131

If you do find out how to do it , I'd be very interested in how you do it.

 

[chaser]

If you do find out how to do it , I'd be very interested in how you do it.

Btw only interested in Google , as I am fully into using it for satnav.

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[Happy Jim]

Is that Journi Travel, Jim? Seems like this one is £48 for an annual subsscription.

Photo attached, I think there is a subscription version but I don’t bother with it.

 

[Steve Taylor]

Going back to Polarsteps, I use it. When I first installed it, it looked at the photo's already on my Ipad and suggested retrospective trips, one of which I kept. So, it occurs to me that if you put all your pictures (assuming that they have geometric data) onto your device before installing Polarsteps, it may well do the same for you...

 

[scally]

I’ll have a look.
Campsites, sights, major landmarks.
Not bothered about every twist and turn. A tracker sounded a good idea, but I’d forget to start it every day and correcting my mistakes would become a chore.
I’m trying to do something with photo’s, scrapbook style, to have something to flick through on dark winter nights. Had a project in mind for a few years.

I keep a log too, one of Jim's earlier versions. Poor to the diary