Light reading...

So I picked up a couple books on European travel this past weekend and started reading them on yesterday's flights to California: Europe from a Backpack and Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door (chuckles all around). Steves' book isn't bad, especially when it comes to unknown and "off-the-beaten-paths" things to see and do in Europe. I remember having to watch boring PBS videos of this guy back in middle school and high school language classes. While he's still out-of-touch with the 25-and-under crowd, I'll defiantly utilize his travel tips. That's where the second book comes in. Written by young backpackers, the authors share their stories and experiences from a variety of towns, some of which we'll be visiting.

Backpacking Europe: Facebook groups

Just out of curiosity today, I hopped on facebook and looked to see if there were any groups dedicated to backpacking. I was sure some would pop up and I ran into these.

• Generic Backpack Europe Group
• Backpack Europe in May 2009 (This is the exact time we are planning to go)
• Backpack Europe in Summer 2009

If anything, ideas could be pulled from these groups.

Last two:
Coldplay - Things I Don't Understand
Terror Squad - Lean Back

Trip tracking with Google Maps

I have been a huge fan of Google stuff since I stopped using altavista back in middle school. I think one of the coolest features that Google has is the ability to track your trip. They have a few ways you can do this.

• Static route. Point A to point B.
• Dynamic route. Point A to point B, with various stops in between.

However, what happens when you decide to veer off course? What if you want to build a hybrid map? Answer: Use the API they released.

One thing I want to do on this trip is to build an initial map. All of our stops could be pinpointed. For instance like this guys city to city map, except I want to take this idea a step further. We will be traveling with GPS enabled phones so I am going to research a way to geotag photos as they are taken and uploaded.

So, we will have an intitial route planned and as we go another line will pop up on the map in case we decide to split off.

All of this thanks to the power of the Google Maps API.