As I was geo-tagging photos from this trip on Flickr, I came to the realization that the mapping data points (well, really the locations of the towns) for this area of Mexico were frequently wrong. I'm not talking mere misspellings. I'm talking towns being put in the wrong locations, and the roads....don't even get me started. I actually sat there with my trusty hard copy map as I tried to find towns on Google Maps. It was challenging and makes me, a former employee of a GIS data company, sad. So, to the right is a scanned copy of a map of the Copper Canyon area, and below is an interactive Google Map.Since returning from this trip, I have become obsessed with sustainable tourism development. I've been mulling over some issues related to the Copper Canyon area as they apply to tourism (and really, they're pretty broad issues). Among other things, I've been playing in my head other routes that I could have taken while out there earlier this month (okay, fine, that has less to do with sustainable development than just plain old tourism), which in the Google Map are identified by a stop number and yellow push pin. Contain yourself, to quote the immortal Container Store.
View Larger Map
(by the way, our trip was mostly the REI trip, backwards)
