Visualizing Outdoor Activities with Python Folium

Embark on an expedition of exploration and mapping! Learn how to breathe life into your GPX files and create interactive maps using Python and Folium.

Introduction

I dream of hiking from Munich to Venice, trekking across the beautiful Alps. But as I still have to live my everyday life, my journey has to consist of multiple stages, with weeks, months, or even years between each adventure. That is ok, as it’s more about the journey than the destination. However, I always wanted a way to visually retrace these paths, to see how far I’ve come and how close I am to my goal. I wanted a way to celebrate the progress I’ve made and to motivate myself to take the journey further.

Fortunately, many outdoor and sports apps, like Adidas Running, Komoot, Strava, and others, graciously allow us to export our activities as GPX files. However, there’s nowhere to go with those GPX files.

That is where Python and Folium come into play. I recently stumbled upon Folium, a powerful Python library for creating interactive maps. It can easily incorporate geographic data, such as the GPX files, and allows for customization and exploration. Drawing upon the wealth of GPS data I’ve gathered, I started experimenting with Folium to craft a map that brings my outdoor excursions to life.

After some research and a lot of testing, I came up with a map that allows me to revisit my past outdoor activities:

So, if you are anything like me and have a treasure trove of GPS data without any purpose, you may wonder how I got there. So in this story, I will explain how to breathe life into your GPX files. Let’s embark on an expedition of exploration and mapping!

Getting Started with Jupyter Notebook

To begin this adventure, we’ll be using Jupyter Notebook. Why Jupyter Notebook? It’s a fantastic interactive computing environment that allows us to combine code, visualizations, and text, making it perfect for experimenting with our data and the Folium library.

If you haven’t installed Jupyter Notebook yet, follow the instructions on their official…