New Viz: Road Trippin'
In October and November of 2024, I took a road trip through Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. I stayed in several towns and cities along the way, including Red River Gorge, KY, Nashville, Chattanooga, Gatlinburg, Charlotte, and Roanoke.
See the viz here: Road Trippin'
I stayed at Airbnbs, working during
the week and adventuring on the weekends. I did a lot of hiking, racking up almost
100 miles and over 20,000 feet of elevation gain. But I also did a lot of
driving (nearly 5,000 miles), walking, eating, drinking, and spent quite a bit
of time at the gym.
And as a data person, you probably
won’t be surprised to hear that I collected a lot of data along the way.
1) Driving – I was able to
download basic driving data from the Kia portal and I used Google Maps history
to download my detailed coordinates for each drive.
2) Hiking – I tracked all my hikes
using Strava and was able to download all the details, including tons of
metrics and the actual coordinates of each hike.
3) Gym – I also tracked gym
visits using Strava and recorded the exact location of each visit.
4) Photos – I took lots of photos
on my trip and, using each photo’s timestamp, I was able to align them to
actual dates and times along my trip.
In the end, I had a ton of metrics that
I could measure day-by-day, as well as in aggregate. I also had a ton of
geospatial information—basically, every detail of everywhere I went over the
course of the two-month trip.
So, of course, I simply had to
visualize it!!
I started off by visualizing all the
metrics—things like driving distance & time, hiking time, miles, and
elevation gain, calories burned, etc. I borrowed my design from some of the
amazing KPI designs of Ellen Blackburn.
The date slider on the top right
allows you to move through each day, seeing what I did that day and highlighting
that day on each KPI. You can also click the Image button below the slider
to see a photo from the selected day.
Clicking the Map button will
take you to a map of all my activities for that day, including driving, hiking,
walking, and the gym. You can use the Activity Type filter to choose
which type of activities you’d like to see. For hikes, you’ll be able to see
the start and end point and the highest elevation. You’ll also see photo icons.
You can click these to view the photo taken at that exact location. You can also
choose from one of six different Mapbox map styles, allowing you to focus on
things such as the surrounding towns, roads, or the terrain.
I spent so much time collecting all this data and visualizing it. It seemed like a very “Flerlage Twin” way to remember my trip and this viz was a real labor of love. I hope you enjoy it!
Thanks for reading. Feel free to
leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Ken Flerlage, January
13, 2025
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