Last year I did a Google Map of my travels in 2005, and so of course I wanted to do it again this year. I'd written scripts that built the map from my photo topic map, but they were lost with the old laptop. That meant I had to write them all over again, but the benefit is that they are much cleaner this time around. It gave me a nice, recreational task that didn't require too much concentration to do over Christmas, too. (For more detail on how it was produced, see last year's posting.)

You'll find the actual map below, together with a checkbox that can be used to turn on lines showing the routes of travel.

A quick comparison with last year's map shows that while I went west in 2005, I've gone east in 2006. From the three trips I have booked so far, it seems like 2007 will be mostly east, too.

Another thing that stands out is that while I travelled more in 2006 than in 2005 it doesn't really show on the map, because there were lots more repeat trips. There must have been about 10 trips to Bergen, for example, but the map only shows a small subset of those.

I also travelled a lot more in Norway last year than before, and I can't quite decide if that's a good thing or not. I like travelling in Norway, and the shortness of the flights is also quite attractive, but on the other hand the beer selection is crap, and while Norway is nice, it's not very exotic (for me, anyway).

The statistics are a bit surprising: the map for 2005 has 44 places and 54 route lines. The map for 2006 has 44 places and 53 lines. I have no idea what to make of this, but it definitely confirms my impression above that I travelled more in 2006 than in 2005, without really getting to many more places.

It'll be interesting to compare the 2007 map with the one for 2006. It could easily wind up looking quite different. We'll see.