Mapping the Tour

The preparations for the world tour continue at a frantic pace. Over the past several days I've focused my attention on creating a Google map the includes all of the destinations that we've planned so far. This map features the locations and the trajectory of our trip. I've even included short description for each element on the map. You can even find contact information of our accommodations, where appropriate; when it is not personal to respect the privacy of the friends who we are visiting in Japan and Turkey.

This map will be a living tool that will be updated throughout the trip with stories about our experiences and the places that we visit in each stop of our tour. For now, it provides an interesting visual perspective regarding the trip that we have planned. This map is a way to bring this trip to life that helps us visualize and plan the trip, and share our vision and experiences with friends and families.


View Julio & Lauren's 2009 World Tour in a larger map

I have not made much progress in the next steps that I identified earlier this week. Here is a quick updates of the baby steps that have been taken:

• I've identified the following applications for capturing and publishing video and images on the iPhone: for video I plan to use Video Recorder V3.0, which is available only for jailbroken iPhones. This application (pictured on the side) enables capture of long low-resolution 14fps videos and supports direct upload to YouTube. To capture pictures I will use the standard camera application; the Mobile Photos application will be on hand to support upload of pictures to flickr. From a sound perspective I am testing out TweetMic. This application creates tweets with links to an uploaded version of the recorded audio file.  I have not found a solution to post any of these types of media directly to our Tour blog, nor for publishing written blog posts.
• By the end of the weekend our official World Tour travel blog will be up and running (I only half belief this claim at this point in time, but I am willing to continue being optimistic about it). Lastly, I have not yet finished developing a list of additional technology requirements such as cameras, book readers - but I think we will have little more than a second iPhone and a camera in terms of additional technological gadgets.