Note: I just started to make good use of the Hospitality Club blog feature so you find updates, info and notes about Hospitality Club map on my blog. I will try to keep you up to date with the Hospitality Club map evolution from time to time. Stay tuned!

You are more than welcome to surf the map with your favourite browser and send us any feedback - criticism, suggestions, bugfixes, etc. by e-mail at inquis(at)hospitalityclub.org.
Your city or town is not yet on the map or you found some wrong coordinates? - Please help us get everything right. Go to MultiMap.com, type in the country and city, copy the information below the map: latitude and longitude in decimal format, XX.XXXX, and send it by e-mail at geography(at)hospitalityclub.org with the exact HC city name, details here. It will be fixed then by the geography team volunteers as soon as possible.

We chose Google Maps API to develop our map platform for several technical reasons even though we are aware it might slow down some older computers in some cases.

How to surf the map?

The map interface is easy to use once you know all the things you can do with it:

• Each marker on the map can represent:
  • A country at world overview.
  • A city where there is at least one Club member at country overview (example) and at city overview (example).
  • A Club member at member overview (example) and at advanced search overview.
  • An online Club member at who is online overview.
  • A World cup 2006 official stadium at world cup 2006 overview. Zoom in to see cities close to stadiums and easily find accomodation only some kilometers far from the match you are going to assist.
  
   
• Click and drag the map with your mouse to move around.
   
• At city overview, click anywhere on the map and drag the pointer around to load new locations.
   
• Click on a marker to get some information. The information depends on the map overview.
   
  At world overview the marker infowindow shows:
  • Country name: Link to the country page to access it's members.
  • Travel info: Link to the country page travel information paragraph.
  • Capital: Link to the country capital page. If a country has no capital (Western Sahara for example) this information is hidden.
  • Members: Number of members in the country.
  • Zoom In: Link to zoom in the map to city overview.
  
  At country and city overviews the marker infowindow shows:
  • City name: Link to the city page to access it's members.
  • Travel info: Link to the city page travel information paragraph.
  • Members: Number of members in the city.
  • Zoom In: Link to zoom in the map on the city area.
  • Zoom Out: Link to zoom out the map on the area.
  
  At member, who is online and advanced search overviews the marker infowindow shows:
  • Username: Link to the member profile.
  • Member city: Link to the member city page.
  • Member region: Link to the member region page.
  • Member country: Link to the member country page.
  • Picture: Link to the member profile.
  • Gender: Male, Female or None.
  • Date of birth: Format dd.mm.yyyy.
  • Comments: Link to the member comments page.
  • Profile summary: A shortening of member profile summary.
  • Coordinates:
    
    • City coordinates: By default Club members are plotted on their city coordinates.
    • Member coordinates: If the Club member provided his exact coordinates he is not plotted on his city anymore, he is then plotted exactly where he wants! How to fill in your exact coordinates? Read here.
  • Zoom In: Link to zoom in the map on the member area.
  • Zoom Out: Link to zoom out the map on the area.
  
   
• Left double-click anywhere on the map to zoom in one level and recenter the map at that point.
   
• Right double-click anywhere on the map to zoom out one level and recenter the map at that point.
   
• Use the map top right three buttons to change the map type from Map (example one, example two) to Satellite (example one, example two) or Hybrid (example one, example two).
  Tip: If the Map view is not available change to Hybrid and viceversa.
   
• On the page left there are three map menus.
   
  Map control menu:
  • Distance: Select two markers from the dropdown menus and the unit from the third dropdown menu, then press Go to calculate the distance in km or miles between the two markers and plot an opaque red line between them on the map.
  • Move and zoom: The first dropdown menu lists all markers loaded on the map. The second dropdown menu is the level of zoom to increase or decrease. Select values, then press Go.
  • Number of markers: Select the number of markers to load from the dropdown menu, then press Go.
    Tip: Choosing a low number reduces loading time!
  
  Map overviews menu:
  • Search and radius: Type the name of the member, city or country you want to find, select which of these marker groups you want to look into; in case of city select eventually from the dropdown menu the radius value, then press Go.
    Note: Radius value 0 will plot all markers within the bound and up to markers limit.
  • Advanced search: Go to site advanced search page, perform a search based on your criteria and if you want to see on the map the results click on See on the map link from the search results page.
  • Who is online: See online Club members on the map.
  • World cup 2006: See World cup 2006 overview.
  • World overview: Reset and go back to the world overview.
  
  Markers legend menu:
  • At world, country and city overviews the markers legend shows the range of members of each color.
    At member, who is online and advanced search overviews the markers legend represent city or member exact coordinates.
    By default all boxes are checked, you can click to filter in/out one or more marker colors from the map.
  
   
• There is a direct link, also known as Permalink below the map which is updated in real-time while surfing the map.
   
• You can surf the map even while the markers are loading.
   

Plans for the future

We have plans to integrate maps on most of the site's pages, for example in countries, cities, comments and many others.
Once ready it will be possible, among other already implemented features, to use the map as a route planner to organize your trips and easily find friends you do not know yet across your paths.

Members privacy

To preserve members privacy member (example), who is online and advanced search overviews are browsable only by logged in Club members. Other overviews, without members sensible data, are open to the Net so everyone can freely surf the map.

Happy mapping!
Bernardo (username: inquis)
Hospitality Club servers administrator and map team coordinator