2022
Hi Tonik thanks for a lot of information
@tonik wrote:You've likely heard of Croatia, a beautiful country near Italy. Croatia is famous for its amazing beaches, islands, food, wine, culture, and history. Here is one popular destination in Croatia so you get a sense of the beauty of this country: Brijuni National Park.
Brijuni Islands, Istria, Croatia
In this post, I'd like to share with you the Best of Croatia Google Map so you can plan your trip to Croatia, and also provide some insight, from an author's perspective, into how I decided to make this map and how I helped promote the map to reach over 10,000 views.
Best of Croatia My Map
Note that the map also contains the best of Slovenia, Montenegro, and Albania which neighbor Croatia along the Adriatic Sea. Map contains places that visitors most frequently ask about, including:
- Popular towns
- Accommodations
- Restaurants, bars, and cafes (note: I kept these together because there's a lot of overlap)
- Attractions and activities (note: I also kept attractions and activities together because of overlap)
- Camps (camps are particularly popular in Croatia)
- Wineries (Croatian wine is amazing!)
Few notes regarding the map:
- I initially started this map to complement my first book on Croatia, the Adriatic Road Trip. This was the first book ever published anywhere with a Google Map companion to all places mentioned in the travel book.
- The map morphed over time to also include Slovenia, Montenegro, and Albania, countries which I have visited many times and are frequently visited by tourists visiting Croatia.
The map initially also contained recommendations for Istria, the NW past of Croatia, which I then moved to a new Google Map, Best of Istria Google Map.
Best of Istria My Map
The Best of Istria map is structured similarly to the Best of Croatia map, and both maps links to each other. This map is about a year old and already has nearly 7,000 views.
I created the Best of Istria map to support the new book that I just published: Best of Istria. This book is unlike any other travel book currently published in that every place mentioned in the book has a place url in the book linking to Google Maps. So, for example, every mention of Brijuni National Park in the book links to Brijuni in Google Maps. In addition, readers can copy places from these Google Maps to their Google Trips.
Pula Arena in Google Trips
Readers of the book have been loving this novel approach of travel book integration with Google Maps. I'm expecting other travel books to soon copy this approach.
Regardless of useful your map is, it doesn't help anyone if it doesn't get discovered. Here are some tips on how to promote your maps:
- Start with your favorite places first. The beginning is always the toughest.
- Pick the region and categories you want to focus on, and don't forget to make the map public.
- Invite others to contribute to the map, especially Local Guides, by posting in a relevant Local Guides Community.
- Hold local meet-ups (example: Rovinj Meet-Up).
- Add new places to the map as you discover them first-hand, read about them, or hear about them from others.
- Embed the map on your website so it can get discovered in Google searches.
- Share on social media.
- Share links to the maps on your social media profiles, including TripAdvisor.
Hope you find this post useful in creating and promoting your maps. I look forward to reading your feedback and tips, and meeting you in Croatia!
