The Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Map was made to help Diners, Drive Ins & Dives fans find nearby restaurants that have been featured on the show. Its creation was inspired by a recent road trip in which I was not familiar with the area and had a difficult time finding nearby restaurants visited by Guy Fieri and his DDD crew.

Data for the map was created by first using Python and Beautiful Soup, a Python package for parsing HTML and XML documents to read locations from other DDD fan websites and place the data into a database. I then used Google Places and Geocoding APIs to enhance the data by adding information such as coordinates, website and most importantly the status of the business (operational, closed temporarily or closed permanently). The python scripts are run periodically to add new locations from new shows and update existing locations with latest information using the Google APIs. The data is then used to build GeoJSON file which displays the locations on the map.

The map itself was created using Google Map API. To avoid overcrowding the map and to enhance the restaurant locations themselves, the map was configured to minimize Google's points of interest layer and the map coloring was muted. It utilizes marker clustering functionality to prevent the map looking like a "forest" when zoomed out. The map initially loads with just the active (operational) locations but users can load all locations by clicking on the filter icon. When the page loads users will be prompted to allow the website to "know your location" so it can zoom to your location so the user can immediately find a DDD restaurant nearby. Users can click on a marker to get information about the restaurant including business name, website, google info and get directions.