Visited Canals (dot co dot uk)

I was amused by 'Visited Countries', a neat and simple way of creating a map to show all the countries one has visited. (How did they think up that name?)

Considering I was born in a corner of Arabia and I didn't see the UK until I was 8 and my papa worked abroad until he retired (he was a colonial policeman in the days when we had colonies), I was surprised to see how bare my own list of visited countries is.

Many of them are tiny places, like Jamaica and Trinidad, that are too small to show, wonderful though they are.  Most of the big ones were literally flying visits.  (Alaska is fanciful - it's lumped in with Alabama, Illinois and New York, the only three US states I've set foot on.) 

Anyway, to the point:  Wouldn't it be neato to have a similar sort of 'canals I have cruised' map to put on one's canal blog.

It shouldn't be too difficult.  All you'd need is someone with an interest in mapping and the English waterways, and I suspect he could run up a website like that over a weekend.   Are there any such people? 

Update:  Mark Muscroft points out the bin there, done that map on Ramyshome's website.

Comments

[Nick Atty]

I've only just got down to reading this item in the blog.

I did wonder if that comment was aimed at me.

I've always intended to keep Canalplan pretty open - it's just that no-one has been particularly interested in doing much with the stuff so I've kept it to myself.

If anyone would like the entire database - either raw or in some format you could define (I've got coordinates as OS eastings/northings but can easily translate to lat/long) drop me a line. As long as it is for the waterways and the web, and you aren't going to sell it on, you can do what you like with it.

[Jason King]

I've been mulling over a project idea for some time...

A website which incorporates a database and either Google maps or Google Earth to enable travellers to plan and record journeys.

You'd mark your progress with a pin on a map. At every stop you make you could upload photos and write a blog entry about that place.

It could be used to plan trips, create a log of a journey, keep you in touch with other travellers and be applicable to a person on any kind of journey.

Importantly, the code would be made "open source" meaning anyone could take it and insert it into their website and use it for their own purposes. I'd use it to create a boaters' log site; someone else might use it to track cyclists or walkers.

I've got the web design and database skills to do this and the free time next year. Any opinions/ideas/suggestions? And importantly, does something like this already exist because I don't want to reinvent it.

[Mark Muscroft]

http://www.ramyshome.co.uk/wearehere.htm
they do something similar to what you describe on there blog site, have included the link don't know if it will work

[Richard Fairhurst]

Well, we're gathering GPS tracks over at Openstreetmap (see here for the wiki page relevant to waterways). The other source is out-of-copyright maps - after all, the canals haven't moved much in 50 years - but more of that anon.

[Sven Latham]

Sounds like a perfect addition for CanalPlan?

The biggest obstacle, it seems, is the canal mapping data. If it were downloadable (in a lat,long list-of-points format) this might be fairly doable, but I didn't see anything obvious on the net, and presumably commercial companies want to keep it to themselves! It's not clear on CanalPlan where the data is from (or I've completely missed the obvious).

Anyway, if you know of some source data I might give it a go. Mapping programs are definitely an interest.

And if there's no data around maybe you could plug in a GPS and start tracing your routes - how long will it take...!?