Wherein memories blur into myth, and the camera roll serves as an unreliable narrator
Tap / click to wander
Markers scaled
by life imprint
Salutations.
You must be one of those rare creatures who delights in other people’s travel photos.
I stitched this map from the frayed cloth of memory, pattern-matching against old emails, abandoned journals, and the internet writ large. Memory is an unreliable cartographer. Like all writing born of the peripatetic, I’ve tried to make these popups about the places themselves—not just the person who passed through them. A kind of field guide, meant to share the spirit of each location. Any flaws are mine alone.
This pale blue dot. It sometimes fills me with existential awe—how improbable it is to be here at all, suspended in this fleeting window of warmth and breath. The ephemeral beauty, laced with loss and the senseless pain of living things.
Saudade. Solastalgia. Mono no aware. Memento mori.
We were here. This is my love letter to that miraculous chance—and to the people, plants, and pets who shared it with me.
May your path ahead surprise you with beauty, whimsy, and awe for the life we share.
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Leaflet – JavaScript library for interactive maps.
OpenStreetMap – Base map and reference data.
OpenRouteService – Auto-generated road routes between destinations.
Overpass Turbo – Extracted hiking trails, railways, and ferry routes from OSM.
GeographicLib – Created great circle paths for flights.
geojson.io – Manually drew custom GeoJSON routes when data was missing.
Nominatim – Used to geocode coordinates and name locations.
Shepherd.js – Powered the interactive guided tour.
Font Awesome and Material Design Icons – Provided icons for the map and UI elements.
Google Sheets API and Python – Maintained the map’s data behind the scenes.
Last but not least, a few epic marathons of ruthlessly sorting through thousands of photos. What began with good intentions soon became a Sisyphean task of brutal, lightning-round photo culling frenzies — like speed-dating with my past, swiping left on blurry sunsets.