A Better Way To Travel

#1

Post by kirillzubovsky » Tue, Nov 15, 2011, 10:09 PM UTC

Re: A Better Way To Travel

#2

Post by daveschappell » Tue, Nov 15, 2011, 10:19 PM UTC

This was a fun week's worth of work for Team TeachStreet. Felt good to get everybody working on a single project (we've spent many months working on lots of different areas of the site, and working with different partners). It was really refreshing, and you could almost 'feel' morale climb, as we all had a chance to just have fun for a few days!

Re: A Better Way To Travel

#3

Post by swindsor » Tue, Nov 15, 2011, 10:23 PM UTC

This was a really quick build using Rails and jquery. We're using Foursquare & Google places APIs, as well as our own set of "cool attractions". We use the Google directions API for routes & mapping.

Re: A Better Way To Travel

#4

Post by TheIronYuppie » Tue, Nov 15, 2011, 10:31 PM UTC

This is really cool - I can totally see using this!

Re: A Better Way To Travel

#5

Post by porfirio » Tue, Nov 15, 2011, 11:31 PM UTC

"Featured Stops Starbucks (Coffee Shop) In-N-Out Burger (Burgers) Chevron (Gas Station / Garage) McDonald's (Fast Food) Jack in the Box (Fast Food) Los Pinos Mexican Restaurant (Mexican) Six Flags Magic Mountain (Theme Park) Westfield Valencia Town Center (Mall) Chick-fil-A (Fast Food) Porto's Bakery & Cafe (Bakery) Universal Studios Hollywood (Theme Park) IKEA (Furniture / Home)"

First page of results. LA to SF. Next page includes "IN THE MIDDLE OF F#%~*?¥! NOWHERE!!! (Farm)"

Re: A Better Way To Travel

#6

Post by joesunga » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 12:08 AM UTC

porfirio wrote: post #5

"Featured Stops Starbucks (Coffee Shop) In-N-Out Burger (Burgers) Chevron (Gas Station / Garage) McDonald's (Fast Food) Jack in the Box (Fast Food) Los Pinos Mexican Restaurant (Mexican) Six Flags Magic Mountain (Theme Park) Westfield Valencia Town Center (Mall) Chick-fil-A (Fast Food) Porto's Bakery & Cafe (Bakery) Universal Studios Hollywood (Theme Park) IKEA (Furniture / Home)" First page of results. LA to SF. Nex…

@porfirio: Thanks a lot for trying it out. We're currently pulling in data from various sources like Foursquare, Google Places, etc. -- but we do add unique stops as well. Currently we've filled out unique stops for the PNW (since we're based here), but CA is definitely one we'd like to tackle soon.

Re: A Better Way To Travel

#7

Post by madiator » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 12:11 AM UTC

Very nice project! And this is the kind of thing I always want to do: stop at weird little fun places on the way. I wish I had it when I did a cross-country trip. Looks like I had missed a few scenic drives and what not!

Re: A Better Way To Travel

#8

Post by zacharycohn » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 12:29 AM UTC

I'm getting an error when going from Seattle to Yakima, it says: "Your geographic boundary is too big. Please search a smaller area."

Re: A Better Way To Travel

#9

Post by zacharycohn » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 12:30 AM UTC

zacharycohn wrote: post #8

I'm getting an error when going from Seattle to Yakima, it says: "Your geographic boundary is too big. Please search a smaller area."

I'm actually getting that error 100% of the time. I tested Seattle to Redmond, and then I tested a specific address to another specific address, both in Belltown.

Re: A Better Way To Travel

#10

Post by Schultzy » Wed, Nov 16, 2011, 12:31 AM UTC

As a lover of road trips, I really dig what you're doing.

If I may offer two observations:

1) I would appreciate some sort of filter to hide multi-location stops like Sub-way, Exxon, etc. If you are going to have such data at all, I would appreciate the ability to hide it. I can find a gas station by reading the highway signs, but it's not as easy to find the super unique and interesting stops.

2) Scaling the page to see more of the map makes the text very difficult to read.

Anyways, pretty darn good for a week. Thanks for sharing!