Implemented Map of locations

[Beach-Bum]

Hi-
One of the things I find most frustrating about blogs or info sites, is the info is not broken up by location.
To clarify:
Often, points of interest, cafes, shopping, etc. will be divided by category (which is great!) but it provides all of the beaches, cafes, etc. all over the island.
When people are looking for things to do, it's usually on the fly (coming back from a day trip & family is hungry, heading to Okuma & want to look for something else to do besides Hiji falls). Or they have 2 hours to kill (driving time round trip plus adventure) but the cool new beach they just read about is 1 hour away with just driving ... which means they now have to spend more time looking for something to do (boo) & they either settle or just resort to Netflix before they have to be at the next location.
It would be super helpful if along with categories, things could be broken up by regions (say South: Naha, Itoman, Nanjo areas...then Central: Urasoe, Ginowan, Chatan, Sunabe...East: Awase/ Katsuren, Uruma, Ishikawa, Ginoza....West: Yomitan, Maeda, Onna...North: Nago, Motobu, Schawab, Hedo). This way, people can select the area they are interested in, how far the can/ will drive, AND help the site members identity the areas that are lacking in information!
I've suggested to other groups in the past, but generally get the "thanks, we'll look into it response" & nothing happens.
I'm more than willing to help

attached pics for examples

 

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[Okinawa]

Thanks for the suggestion!

Right now, we are developing something that I hope suits everyone's needs with as limiting is this software is, in let's say, comparison to WordPress where you can have 1 post under 2 categories. Unfortunately, you can't on here, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to achieve another way.

To reach middle-ground, we're developing a map that'll have all the "pins" to each location in each category. For example, this will show you all the movie theaters over an entire map of Okinawa. This will give the best visual representation of where things are, but will still leave it up to you to decide what you want to do.

As categories are limited, we're looking into separating either by area (as seen in your North/Central pic) and by city in tags instead of a second category.

As more people are familiar with a larger territory such as the area, I think we'll end up using that over cities, but will also tag it in its respective city/district, i.e. [Central] [Mihama] Bollywood Jewel, to cover it all.

However, to see Bollywood on a map, you'd need to know at least the minimum of whether you want to see restaurants or bars, then be provided a list as there is now except it'd be accompanied with a map.

I hope this is easier to use and plan with. Be on the lookout for it!

 

[Okinawa]

We've implemented maps above all of our listing categories in Places.

As far as dividing Places up by specific areas—north, central, and south—we believe that the best method to do this would be to tag each item with "places: area".

An example of this would be Bollywood Dreams which has already been tagged places: central. And as such, can be searched for by tag with places: central. While this doesn't show you where it is on a map, it will identify where it is if being searched, wherein you can find a map to it on its specific listing by going through various places in that tagged area.

Over the next couple of days, we will continue to tag the remaining places in our directory with not only their locations but other descriptors as well so that they are easy to find for various terms.

We believe that this is an optimal way of presenting places and can't wait to continue adding more in order to diversify our directory. We also hope that it aligns with your vision on how maps should be handled, where others lacked to present this crucial information.

Please let us know how we can make your experience at Okinawa.Org better or if we've done it to your expectations.

Thanks!

 

[Okinawa]

Thank you for your valuable feedback!

You have been awarded the "My Idea" medal for improving Okinawa.Org through your suggestion.