Maps!!!

Ready for a confession? I used to work for a mapping company, yet somehow, I never got around to creating maps for our Voyages. I know, I know, it's like being a dog trainer who has untrained dogs. But fear not, for enlightenment came in the form of a brilliant suggestion from one of our guests last season. Zoinks! She practically had to shake me out of my map-making slumber.

So, the grand decision was made: I was going to be the cartographer extraordinaire for Sun Fun You Voyages! But, of course, the real mystery was: HOW?

My first attempt involved the ancient art of hand-drawn maps. Armed with tracing paper and a printer spitting out maps of the Turkish Riviera and the Dodecanese Islands, I went to town with my pencils. Traced, erased, traced again, erased some more. I hit the pillow that night feeling like a map-making Picasso.

Alas, the next morning's light revealed my creations to be more of a Picasso gone wrong. In fact, the only being who appreciated my modern art was my dog Coco as she gleefully shredded my masterpiece to pieces. I needed a new game plan.

Online mapping programs were next on my quest for the perfect map. Unfortunately, they made everything look too GIS-y and not at all like the path of a wondrous vacation experience. And don't even get me started on the idea of using an API – that was as feasible as me captaining a ship (spoiler alert: not happening).

My third brilliant idea was to turn to AI. After all, if all the cool kids, adults, and computers are doing it, why not me too? Hours of research and a few calls to sales support teams later, I quickly realized that the AI route wasn't going to cut it. They weren't about to create the "accurate" maps aligned with my brand. Back to square one.

And then, the lightbulb moment hit me. Like everything else in Sun Fun You, I needed to find an expert. I didn't design our logos or graphics – that was the marvelous Boris Geissler. I didn't plot our routes and hikes – that's the fabulous Ali Yalcin. Heck, I didn't plan the swag – that's the creative Terri Lydon. The realization dawned on me: 1) What on earth do I actually do?

But more importantly 2) I needed a map-making wizard to join our squad.

The moral of the story: Stick to your knitting, or in my case, find someone who knows their way around a map!