This article is coming soon. The preview below outlines what will be covered when complete.
What to expect
Google Maps saved places is fine. It’s also a black hole – flat, unsortable, and owned by someone else. The Places collection is a personal travel guide you build over a lifetime: every restaurant worth returning to, every hike worth recommending, every neighborhood worth exploring, organized by region and activity type and queryable in seconds.What will be covered
A personal stamp of approval. The distinction between “want to try,” “visited and would return,” and “wishlist” is what makes this more than a bookmark list. Every entry carries an honest assessment, which means the collection gets more useful the more you use it. Activity taxonomy. Places are tagged by activity type: Dine, Drink, Do, Hike, Shop, Sleep, Relax, Resort, Transport, Fuel Up, Medical, Neighborhood, Live. TheLive and Neighborhood tags are worth noting – this database tracks more than travel. It also captures places considered for living, making it a genuine location reference across life, not just vacation planning.
Region tags as personal geography. Locations use specific region tags (Northwest Florida, Texas Hill Country, Western North Carolina, DC) rather than generic states or countries. These reflect how people actually think about places – not by political boundary, but by character and experience.
The map view. Notion’s map view plots all entries geographically using the geocoded address property. Filter by region and activity type and you have a visual trip planner. This is one of Notion’s newest view types, and it earns its keep here.
Sharing recommendations. When someone asks for a restaurant recommendation in Austin, filter the list by region and activity type and send them the subset. The collection turns years of accumulated knowledge into something you can actually share in under a minute.
Notion implementation. Database setup, properties, views (specifically map view).
Obsidian implementation. How to replicate the collection using Bases, including property setup and view configuration.
Last update: 2026.02.25 (PLACEHOLDER)