You know those times when the light finally clicks on and you wonder why it took so long to see the obvious? It just happened to us with the blog trip map. Here's the story.
We started blogging our trips in 2008. We wanted to put a travel progress map on the site from the beginning, but didn't know how to do it.
Map Service #1
After two years we found a mapping service we liked called Blogabond. They provided a very nice way to display our travel stops on a Google map. We used it from 2010 through 2016. In 2017, we discovered they wouldn't allow new trips or updates when we attempted to create our map for the Southwest trip. Our old maps continued to work. They teased us with the statement they were in read-only mode for a while and would be re-launching soon. The service is still unavailable.
Map Service #2
We attempted to use a mapping service called Travellerspoint for the 2017 trip. In short, it was a bust.
Map Service #3
We thought we had hit paydirt when we found Tripblan in 2018. It was a bit awkward to use, but displayed what we wanted for the Kentucky trip. We proceeded to create this year's map with it and had it working perfectly. We loaded the new blog to make sure everything looked ok 2 days ago and ... the map wouldn't display. Their site is down. We discovered the company has 10 employees and locations in Dubai and Casablanca. We have no way to know if it's ever coming back to life. Time to move on.
Map Service #4
The light came on. If Blogabond could display a Google map, why couldn't we link direct to Google Maps? We could and we did. We think we're now hitched to a reliable map source. Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment