This story on the Roaming Pint's website inspired me to pull down my travel diaries and beer notebooks, open up Untappd and map my personal beer travels. As the Roaming Pint points out, mapmaking is essential to our understanding of the world and our place in it. Once the realm of cartographers and geographers, technology has created the tools for every one to map their own experiences in the world and to lay claim to their own personal territories. Rather than allowing us just to see where we've been or where we're going, maps offer a means of visualizing important datasets from our lives giving visual meaning to our personal geographies. To many the map below is just a chart of where I've been and the breweries whose beers I've tasted. To me the map is rife with meaning; placing each pin on the map conjured memories of trips taken, allowed me to relive important moments in my life, and awakened forgotten instances of pleasure and memories of meals and drinks shared with family and friends new and old.

As my beer adventures continue I'll update this map. I hope to turn many of the blue pins green and if I can find the time add my tasting notes from each of breweries. Stay tuned...