Thursday 12 October 2006 by Edward.

You have a mobile web-enabled phone. You also are dying to have a coffee and need to find the closest Tim’s (Tim Horton’s coffee) or Starbucks. No poblem! Go to FindByClick and you can summon up the Great Canadian Coffee Map. I never realized how MANY Tim Horton’s coffee shops there were in Canada until I looked at this map — and I know not all are shown on the map.

Rule 7 “The Rule of Perpendicular Signs” in the book ‘The 25 Immutable Rules of Successful Tourism’ by Roger A. Brooks and Maury Forman states that ‘20/20 signage equals $$$.’ When you drive into a new town the most obvious signs you’ll see are the ‘perpendicular’ signs — the signs that best cross your line of vision. The best tourist maps are those that show a single theme, like the coffee map or the Toronto beer map. It’s simple, to the point and clear.

Posted in mobile phone, Maps, DURING the visit | No Comments »

Wednesday 11 October 2006 by Edward.

Tourists who want to keep in shape and need good routes to walk, run or jog when visiting a new destination can go to WalkJogRun. I clicked on Halifax, Nova Scotia, to find several routes. A 5km route was posted downtown, circling the commons (where the Rolling Stones had a recent concert) and the citadel. Start and finish locations were flagged. A table of leg distances, times and turns accompanied the map. My experience with the map revealed an early release with more work required.

Posted in Maps, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Tuesday 10 October 2006 by Edward.

Have you ever used a map index at the back of an atlas, to locate a placename, a mountain, river or lake? Well, geoNames is probably the biggest map index. It is global. Click the name ‘London’ in the USA and you’ll get 2,535 places that contain ‘London’. I clicked London, Kentucky, and found out that it is a town of 7,844 people at 382m above sea level, located 37.129 N -84.083 W. Clicking links in the popup window sent me to interesting local information. Nearby is Cumberland Falls, one of two locations in the world that consistently have ‘moonbows’ (rainbows that show at night), the other being in Victoria Falls, Africa.

This is quite an intruiging tourist webtool and probably a useful bookmark.

Posted in Gadget/Idea/Webtool, Maps | No Comments »

Tuesday 3 October 2006 by Edward.

Mapping has entered a rennaissance on the internet, and map mashups are feeding the creative juices of map creators. The programmableweb.com is a hotbed of mashups with almost three new map mashups appearing daily. Today, for example, one can find new maps of Starbucks Coffee locations, Golf Courses, Rinks, and “drunkest cities” in the USA. Over the last six months the number of mashups has doubled to over 1,000.
The site lists about 70 mashups on travel. Including, for example:

Hotel Map
20,000 motels and hotels in the USA
UK B&B
UK’s B&B, cheap hotel, and guest house accomodation directory
Broadway shows
A listing of current shows, times, pricing, tickets, direction and parking
GeoWalk
A worldwide travel guide with embedded Wikipedia, Flikr and Google News
MCity
Guide to best underground locations in Melbourne, Australia
Toronto Virtual Tour
A 360 degree photo tour of Toronto landmarks

Posted in Maps, BEFORE the visit | No Comments »

Sunday 17 September 2006 by Edward.

Google and TurnHere.com have partnered to place tourist video links on GoogleEarth.

I was impressed with TurnHere videos when I featured Davis Square, in Somerville, Massachusetts, a few weeks ago. Today I clicked on Google Earth’s TurnHere film icons for St. Henri, Montréal and was equally impressed with the earthy feel of the presentation. Well others also seem impressed. InterContinental Hotels has turned to TurnHere to create short films about each of the hotel’s 140 worldwide locations.

Rule 15 “The Rule of Supporting Businesses”, in the book ‘The 25 Immutable Rules of Successful Tourism’ by Roger A. Brooks and Maury Forman, shows how ‘Movie credits tell the real story.’ Brooks writes “In successful tourism, there is never only one business holding up the entire industry.” What can one say about multiple movies about multiple cities at one location? One great stop for the armchair tourist!