Sharing location / pictures

[rjhouser]

What's the best way to share photos and your location with friends and family while on the trail? I want to be able to share both simultaneously. I like the Spot gps for its safety capabilities and great tracking methods but I want to share photos as well.

A smartphone such as a BlackBerry seems like it would work great for uploading pictures but what app would be best to use for location? Does an app like that work with just any hosting website for tracking? Basically I don't want to worry about trying to find somewhere to get online in towns.

Also if anybody knows a simple website to use to upload pics and map locations for friends to follow I would like to know. Just something with an easy link.

Thanks!

[halftime]

If you don't know about it already....check out Trail Journals.

[rjhouser]

Yeah, that site seems great for giving updates and sharing pictures at random.

What I'm looking for though is sort of like an interactive map, where I can ping all my past locations and can upload pictures associated with that location. Also having the capability to add comments to those pings would be great. I'm sure this is possible somehow with a smartphone I'm just not sure how...

[leaftye]

My Garmin Oregon 550 geoencodes the pictures it takes. All I have to do is upload those pictures to a Google Picassa photo album and it shows a map alongside the picture that shows where the picture was shot.

[Ladytrekker]

http://mytracks.appspot.com/

[BigHodag]

For an inexpensive means of keeping family & friends updated on your location, consider TrailPhone.net. You enter the nearest mileage and then record an audio message. TrailPhone puts an icon on a map showing your approximate position on the trail. Currently, there's no photo option.

For photos, you might consider uploading them to Picassa. Google enables you to set a lat/long for each picture. Then the photos can be displayed on a larger Google Map in sequence. You can upload to Picasa via email I believe. FYI - Many hikers update blogs & albums when in town or at hostels.