Blogs on Nerdy Day Trips²

A Fortnight of Surprisingly Productive Chaos

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 17:00:00 +0100

Blimey, what a couple of weeks it’s been! I honestly wasn’t expecting quite this level of activity on nerdydaytrips.org when I last posted on earlier in the month. Turns out when you give nerds a map and ask them to add their favourite geeky destinations, they really go for it. Who knew?

The Numbers Game

Let’s dive into the stats, because I know at least three of you reading this will appreciate them:

Since June 11th:

185 new places added
25 locations removed (mostly because someone’s idea of “nerdy” was a bit… loose)
250 edits to existing locations - people actually care about getting the details right
Around 20 code tweaks to keep the site from falling over
25 new issues raised, with 20 already sorted

Not bad for a side project that started as “wouldn’t it be nice if…”

Heroes of the Spreadsheet

I need to properly thank some folks who’ve been putting in serious work while I’ve been tinkering with other things.

Hugo Mills (darkling) has been an absolute legend. He’s methodically working through all the pre-2016 entries - you know, the ones I hastily imported without much quality control - and actually checking they’re still relevant and accurate. It’s the kind of tedious but essential work that makes the difference between a useful resource and a digital graveyard. Cheers, Hugo!

Stuart Langridge has been fixing my dodgy code and adding genuinely useful features. The latest one makes sure the “Add a Place” page remembers where you were looking on the main map, which is one of those obvious-in-retrospect improvements that I should have thought of ages ago.

Big thanks too to andibing, mcphail, and debb1046 for their steady stream of contributions, and to all those on GitHub for actually bothering to report bugs instead of just tutting and moving on.

What’s Actually New

We’ve got some properly interesting additions to the map now. The Blender Institute in Amsterdam, the Great Lakes Science Center, and the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force are just a few of the gems people have shared. It’s fascinating to see what different folks consider worth a nerdy pilgrimage. It’s also wonderful to see the names and locations of museums, heritage sites, and good old steam trains, all over the world!

On the technical side, we’ve squashed some encoding bugs that were making markers vanish (always embarrassing when your map loses bits of itself), and made the mobile experience less of a finger-gymnastics exercise.

It’s been a genuinely encouraging couple of weeks. The site feels like it’s finding its feet, and having actual humans contribute makes it infinitely better than anything I could cobble together on my own.

Keep those submissions coming!

Nerdy Day Trips Podcast Appearance

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 05:00:00 +0100

Hello Day Trippers!

Just a quick note to mention that popey (one of the maintainers of this website) briefly talked about the site origin story and setup on Linux Matters Podcast, episode 57.

The segment is in the middle, from 13m12s to 24m26s, sandwiched between Martin’s GitHub topic, and Mark’s bit about playing Avowed on the Steam Deck. It’s not too Linuxy, honest!

Venues added: Over 300...

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 06:00:00 +0100

… but none so far in Sparta.

This NerdyDayTrips ‘reboot’ has only been live for a couple of weeks, without too much fanfare. However, we’ve seen plenty of activity in that time. As mentioned above, we’ve had over 300 new venues added, over 100 edits, 30 deletions and a bunch of minor code edits. Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far.

Looking at the summary of activity (below) so far, clearly 29th May was the busiest day (for additions) we have had. There’s also been quite a bit of venue data clean-up across both the mass-imported, and new venue submissions. Thanks to Hugo for leading that charge!

Here’s some numbers:

Summary of activity

The NerdyDayTrips website GitHub repo was started on 23rd May, and lightly shared on social media on the 29th.

Analysis Period: 2025-05-23 to 2025-06-09 (17 days)
Total Venue Additions: 319
Total Venue Removals: 39
Total Venue Edits: 107
Total Code Changes: 126
Most Additions in Single Day: 124 on 2025-05-29
Most Edits in Single Day: 24 on 2025-05-29
Average Venue Changes per Day: 27.4

Table of changes

This table shows the number of venue additions, removals and edits on each day.

I’m delighted to see there have been zero days since ’launch’ where venues have not been added, edited, or deleted!

Date	Venue Add	Venue Remove	Venue Edit	Code Change
2025-05-23	3	0	2	10
2025-05-24	1	0	3	17
2025-05-25	3	0	5	7
2025-05-27	0	2	0	16
2025-05-28	1	0	0	0
2025-05-29	124	8	24	36
2025-05-30	41	3	11	14
2025-05-31	12	9	14	9
2025-06-01	14	1	10	1
2025-06-02	34	3	6	8
2025-06-03	6	4	5	1
2025-06-04	16	1	8	2
2025-06-05	17	3	3	2
2025-06-06	13	2	9	2
2025-06-07	6	2	2	0
2025-06-08	17	1	5	1
2025-06-09	11	0	0	0
Total	319	39	107	126

If there’s somewhere nerdy you like to go, and think others might also, do please consider adding to NerdyDayTrips!

If you find any bugs, please file an issue, start a discussion jump on our Discord.

Thanks again to everyone for their feedback, support, and of course, their contributions to the NerdyDayTrips.

An Amazing Start

Sat, 31 May 2025 12:00:00 +0100

What a week!

First, thank you to everyone who has added new venues, filed bugs, reviewed & edited locations, and provided feedback and support. Thank you so much. I had no idea whether people would actually want to contribute to something like this. I’m delighted you all have.

We have had contributions from around the globe, including from the USA, UK, Japan, Croatia, Germany, Canada, and no doubt more I missed.

We’ve also had conversations with other people who were also enthusiastic to revive this type of resource. I had no idea other people were so passionate about this too! That’s so validating to hear.

We’ve made a bunch of changes over the last week, mostly around the look of the site, the logo, and the process for adding new venues. There’s more to do there, though. If you know a nearby friendly web developer with CSS smarts, I’d appreciate their input/help to make a good looking, robust and responsive website.

The site was somewhat thrown together (as you can probably tell), so I’m sure there are bugs on mobile devices and desktop browsers.

Adding sites with copy & paste

I wanted to make adding new venues straightforward, but not too easy that we get flooded with spam submissions. It’s important to me (and I’m sure to you too) that non-nerds and nerds alike are able to share their favourite or recently discovered locations as easily as possible.

So, with that in mind, today, I added the ability on the add a venue page to just paste an Open Street Map (OSM) URL in, and have our site pick out the lat/long and other details, directly from OSM.

It does require an OSM way style URL, which often isn’t just the link your browser shows. However, they’re easy to discover on the OSM site.

When on OSM, click the little arrow-with-question-mark icon in the toolbar, then point at the venue you wish to add. On the left will be a pop-out panel with “Nearby features”, and “Enclosing features”. Pick the most appropriate “way”, and your URL will update. That’s the one to paste into add a venue page.

If there are problems with this new feature, do let us know with an issue report, or jump on our Discord server to chat directly with us.

Managing duplicates

One other thing I haven’t quite figured out yet, but plan to, is dealing with duplicate submissions. For example, we had three submissions for Bletchley Park in one day.

Ideally the page where you add new venues should have the smarts to do that duplicate search for you and respond with “We already have venue x (with a link)”, with options to edit it in GitHub, or add the new site anyway, in case the search is wrong, or the new addition compliments or supplements the existing ones nearby.

Rejection feedback

I am also aware that the site doesn’t provide any feedback to submitters whose venues were not accepted. This is unfortunately a by-product of not really wanting to know and store all your personal details, such as an email address, to tell you about the rejection. I don’t want to have the burden of carrying everyone’s personal data, and emailing people.

I’ll start a topic over on GitHub Discussions if anyone has any bright ideas!

Thanks again

Once more, massive thanks to everyone who has helped this week.

If you’d like to discuss anything in this blog, join our Discord or start a topic in our GitHub Discussions

Oh, and keep on adding venues!

Bringing Back Nerdy Day Trips

Thu, 22 May 2025 23:00:00 +0100

Back online

After years of “we should really bring back Nerdy Day Trips” conversations, we’ve actually done it. The beloved crowd-sourced map of fascinating places to visit is back, rebuilt from the ground up.

For those who remember the original site, this should feel familiar. For newcomers, you’re looking at a global map of intellectually interesting destinations - science museums, observatories, maker spaces, research facilities, and other places worth visiting if you’re curious about the world.

What we’ve built

The new site runs on Hugo, a static site generator, which means it’s fast, reliable, and won’t disappear overnight like the original did. We’ve designed everything to be open-source and community-owned, learning from what happened before.

Stuart’s work recovering data from the Internet Archive gave us a foundation to build on, and we’ve made sure all the code and data is openly available.

Where we are

Here’s what works:

The concept is rescued: The original went offline in 2016, but the idea was too good to leave dead
Data recovery: We’ve salvaged what we could from archives and are rebuilding the database
Modern foundation: Everything is version-controlled, open-source, and built to last
Community focus: Every decision prioritizes sustainability and community ownership
Open data: All location information remains freely accessible

What’s next

The core functionality works well, but there’s more to build:

Easier submissions: Adding locations currently requires GitHub knowledge, but we’re planning web forms
Design improvements: The site works but could look better
Mobile optimization: Making it work smoothly on phones
Community features: Ways for people to connect and share experiences

How to help

This succeeds through community contributions:

Add places: Know an interesting observatory, quirky museum, or hidden scientific gem? Add it to the map.

Spread the word: Tell other curious people about the site.

Contribute skills: Whether you’re a developer, designer, writer, or just have good ideas, there’s probably something you can help with.

Join the conversation: Connect with us on social media and help shape what we build next.

Why we’re doing this

We believe in curiosity and community. Every location on the map represents someone’s enthusiasm for sharing interesting places with others. We’re building something that celebrates the joy of discovery and makes it easier for curious people to find their next adventure.

The original Nerdy Day Trips inspired countless visits and learning experiences. This reboot continues that legacy while ensuring it can survive long-term.

Ready to explore? Check out the map and see what’s near you. Better yet, add somewhere you think others should know about.

Welcome to the community.