You’ve crossed an ocean or mountain to get there. You’ve treaded through back alleys and museums, breathed foreign air, and mumbled a few clumsy words in another language. You’ve photographed the entire journey from start to finish, and looked through all the shots on your flight home. Then you arrive back to reality, and leave your suitcase half unpacked, open on the bed, to store all those photos on your computer. But what’s next? Show them to your grandma? Blog about it? Print a few and scrapbook…
What if you could map them? Introducing the new platform for travelers and photographers everywhere: MAP.
Under the slogan #finditliveit, Map is a visual platform that celebrates people and their journeys. It is a place to plot your snapshots on a virtual map – much like you would stick a pin in a globe for all the places you’ve been. The founders, Jennifer Puno and Daniel Chin-Yee, would chart their vacations in a traditional way, and decided to develop their passion for travel, food and photography into the virtual version that is Map.
Through a group of selected users, Map showcases the best the world has to offer. The platform’s carefully picked “trailblazers” map their steps and share through photos a cafe you’ve never heard of, the empty beach you’d never have found, or that curious street you might have missed. And because we all love to discover a local’s secrets, Map also provides mini city guides in an innovative way. Featuring a different city each week, Map picks a trailblazer to take us on a tour of their hometown and reveal it through a local’s eyes and lens. With the use of a single hashtag, those of us new to the site can find a city’s best spots, unique places to add to our list.
“We would love to see people use Map as a way to save places they want to go to. We’re working hard to find people that have a good mix of local spots and travel destinations. Most people contribute to Map, which is fantastic, but there’s a lot to be inspired by as well.”
– Jennifer Puno
Beautiful, visual, and a unique way to re-live your adventures all in one place, Map has the potential to be a travelers’ most referred-to resource. And the founders have great plans for the future of the site…
“We hope that our community will be able to search for any place in the world and be inspired by what’s been mapped there. Whether it’s finding a new gem or meeting another person with similar tastes,” says co-founder Jennifer Puno, who has already mapped over 1000 places and continues to discover new places through other mappers: “I often find places on Map that I’ve probably passed a thousand times and never realized was there… When I used to drive up to Mammoth for snowboarding, we never thought about stopping along the 395. Then I found all these cool spots through @lizatags. We ended up doing a weekend road trip up the 395 hunting for hot springs!”
I’ve already joined the community and begun mapping my most recent travels. To see what a profile looks like, you can check mine out here. And to request an invite from Map, write to them and sign-up here. Find it, live it and start mapping!
[Photo credit: 1.@peter0032 2.@Daniel.koh 3.@satriakurniawan 4.@maxartifex 5.@jaimie_lewis 6.@mauriciothomsen via Map]