When i was considering how to continue building out this site, one of the initial ideas i had even was to create a map. Something that i could create and have a visual journey of all the places and countries i’ve been to.
But that’d be too simple of an idea. I could create an SVG map that has all my visited countries highlighted. I could add a world map with pins using my Google Maps-backed history. But these things would only tell where i’ve been. They wouldn’t tell a story, or why i was there or what i was doing. the v I wanted whatever this map was to show the shape of my journey, tell my story. After all, a journey is not just the destinations you’ve visited but the sum of all the things that happened within and between those places.
So i set out trying to do just that. The very first iteration i tried working through was an interactive map that had trails going across it, to show where i went and what place i next visited. And in each location i’d have a blurb attached to it, describing my ideas and thoughts of the place. This though lacked that basic need to show, what was i doing there? What happened during my time there? Could i truly fit that into this blurb?
Then the idea occurred to me, this very site already had parts of that history and those details. I’ve already written about my journeys in 2024 and 2025. I’ve written about a few trips such as the ones to Athens and bits of my early time in Chiang Mai and Bangkok. But also other things i’ve written show what i was thinking of or wanted to write about at the time.
These very things i’ve been writing and publishing are entries in my journey and can show the history of my thoughts, writings, and even photography. After all, a map can only show you where you’ve been, but how do we show the things that happened within and between those places?
The Trips page came out of this very notion, that the things i’ve written about were at a specific time and place. Let’s show that. There are, intentionally so, no pins on the maps or maps of countries. Instead it is a timeline of places, that shows the things i’ve written or shared at those times.
I’ve watched a lot of movies in a lot of cinemas in a lot of countries, but if pressed i could hardly even tell you more than 2 or 3 of them and where i was. I’ve shared in the past how my memory is not what it used to be. I don’t recollect things as easily as i once did. Now though, i have a Films page, where i can add the movies that i’ve watched and a brief thought around them or even a fully rounded out review. Now i can also just add the one missing piece to not just that but everything else; a location.
Each page and entry on this site is a markdown file. Markdown files can also have frontmatter, that have properties. Typically these can be a publishing date, tags, and more. But by adding a location frontmatter to something as simple as a film, i can then recall where i saw that and from the publishing date roughly when i saw it.
This can also be expanded on to other things, which i already have started to. I recently created the Rolls page as well, serving as the little snapshots of my photos of places and things. Each individual Roll gets also a location now. Some of these will be back-dated though, simply because they represent things i want to share from a specific time and place, or a mood. Those things won’t always be in the here and now and that’s fine. Each thing, memory, or photo has its time and place and it doesn’t always have to be today when it is shared.
This gets expanded to my writing as well. While not all my writings have had a location added to them, a number of them have. Truth be told, i am not confident enough to remember where and when some of these things were written so they’ll sit there for the time being without being on the map. Going forward however, i intend to add a location to all my writing, to add to this history and journey.
Writing something down and putting it here means it exists somewhere i can find it again. These entries are waypoints as much as they are anything else. The map is still incomplete, and probably always will be. There are places i’ve been that i never wrote about, gaps in the timeline where i was clearly somewhere but left no trace here. That still sits right with me, a map that has blank spaces is still an honest one.
Now that i have also created a /now page, i can also add details and flesh out more of the here and the now to my journeys. That page will also have its own archive, a history of what “now” meant to me over time.
Maybe i’ll add those entries to the map in time, but for now i am content to keep them separate. A wayward journey doesn’t really lend itself to a clean map anyway.