The 2007 Road Trip Map

In late 2007, Pinar and I undertook a massive road trip from California to Texas and lots of places in between. Along the way, I made a pretty extensive map of our travels that turned out pretty damn cool. The online version of this map had gotten lost in the great server database meltdown of early 2008 that hit my site, but I finally dug up the original Illustrator file. Here’s a copy of the entire map:

Looking back at this trip, it’s hard to believe that we were able to take the time to go on such a big trip. On the other hand, having just gone on a quick road trip through Southern Utah, I’m kind of itching to get back out on the road and see more of the United States.

At this size, it’s kind of hard to see the details, so be sure to punch through to the full sized map that shows all of the details.

Note for the curious: I didn’t use an automated tool to make this map. Instead, I stitched together a base map using Google map image tiles, loaded that into Illustrator, and then used the good ol’ pen tool to outline the states, national parks, and roads. Then, I added in city names and road labels. Quite low tech actually, and I wasn’t careful enough to lock layers as you can tell in the shift of the National Park blocks that seems to have slipped in, but I do like the result. I should do these more often.