Author: Adam DuVander

As the longest hiking-only trail in the world, the Appalachian Trail follows along the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains and traverses 2,200 miles, 14 states, and five national parks. Each year thousands of people attempt to hike those 2,200 miles, but only one in four hikers make it all the way from Georgia to Maine. While can take between five to seven months to hike the entirety of the trail, more than two million people each year hike at least some part of the Appalachian Trail. Those two million people sure find hiking the Appalachian Trail enjoyable, and with over 200 landmarks and milestones along the trail, there is little reason to wonder why. There nothing boring about hiking – or mapping – the Appalachian Trail.

View Appalachian Trail Map in a full screen map

Experience the landmarks and milestones of the trail for yourself on the map above, or read on for insights we found here on hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Peaks

You can sort the map by the types of landmarks or milestones you may encounter along the trail. Peaks are hard to miss milestones, and the Appalachian Trail boasts some tall ones. Luckily, or maybe not so much for thru-hikers, the two trailheads at the start and finish of the Appalachian Trail are peaks, and they are pretty tall.

Trailhead: Springer Mountain

Photo Courtesy of Atlanta Trails

At 3,782 feet, Springer Mountain in Georgia is the most popular place to begin the thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail. However, because Springer Mountain is the most popular place to start, it also means that between March 1 and April 15th, the recommended starting season for the hike, the trailhead is usually packed with other hikers also beginning their trek.

Trailhead: Mount Katahdin

Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia

Located at the other end of the Appalachian Trail in Maine is Mount Katahdin. At 5,268 feet, this mountain is even taller than Springer Mountain. The peak marks the end of the Appalachian Trail for most hikers. Fittingly, Mount Katahdin is regarded as the most difficult mountain to hike throughout the Appalachian Trail. Most hikers prefer to save it for last rather than begin the trail here.

Highest Peak

Photo Courtesy of Kristina Plaas on National Park Service

The highest peak on the Appalachian Trail is Clingmans Dome. This peak is about 200 miles into the thru-hike starting in Georgia, or about 2,000 miles from the end of the trail in Maine. The peak is located in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina and is 6,643 feet. It is the highest mountain in the Smokies and the highest point in Tennessee. Clingmans Dome is also the third highest point in Eastern North America!

Lowest Peak

Photo Courtesy of the New York State Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation

On the other hand, the lowest peak on the Appalachian Trail is Bear Mountain Zoo. Closer to the end of the trail in New York, this landmark is only 124 feet above sea level. More than just a zoo, Bear Mountain State Park has many amenities for those hiking the Appalachian Trail or for those just visiting the State Park. Things to do while here include picnicking, fishing, swimming in the swimming pool, visiting the museum or zoo, hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, and ice-skating from late October to mid-March. There is also a Memorial Tower which rests atop Bear Mountain that gives you views of the entire State Park.

Lodging

While many hikers make their way along the Appalachian Trail with only tents to stay in, the trail also has over 35 comfortable lodging accommodations for those who want a more luxurious hiking experience. There are six different types of lodging accommodations along the Appalachian trail: donation-based hostels, churches, shared bathrooms, private rooms, guest houses, and hotels. More than just a place to stay, these lodgings also provide a variety of services that range from shuttles, laundry, kitchen facilities, and showers, to grocery items, supplies, and provided meals.

• Donation-based hostels – Donation-based hostels are just that: donation-based. There are eight of these along the Appalachian Trail, and there is no obligation to pay for your stay, although donations are happily accepted and can be anonymous.
• Churches – There are three hostels housed and operated out of churches along the Appalachian Trail.
• Shared Bathrooms – In the one hostel with shared bathrooms along the trail, you’ll get a room to yourself, but you may run into other hikers in the hall on your way to the shared bathrooms. However, after a solo day of thru-hiking, some small talk in the hall might be just the thing you need.
• Private Rooms – Hostels that have private rooms provide some R&R you may miss out on if you find yourself staying in another type of hostel. They are in no short supply, as there are 20 hostels along the Appalachian Trail that have private rooms.
• Guest Houses – The two guest houses on our list sound pretty accommodating. Sutton’s Place, located in Manchester, Vermont, has been hosted by Frank Sutton for over 30 years. Sutton’s Place actually has 4 guest rooms available in the guest house, ranging from a price of $75-$99. The second guest house option, the North Woodstock Guesthouse, is located in North Woodstock, New Hampshire, and is hosted by Christine for $40 per night.
• Hotels – There are two non-hostel hotels located along the Appalachian Trail if you’re hoping for more of a deluxe accommodation. Both the Fontanna Village Resort and The Doyle Hotel have cozy rooms available for hikers.

Post Offices

Hiking 2,200 miles over the course of 5 to 7 months can be hard, to say the least. While the Appalachian Trail touts hiker hospitality, planning mail drops or bounce boxes may come in handy in case of sickness, really sore feet, or a craving for gummy worms. Whether you pre-send yourself packages filled with essentials before you begin the trail or you’re writing to someone and telling them the next post office destination, the Appalachian Trail is home to over 100 post offices for your use. An important note: the first post office is located 20 miles from the start of the trail, so bring enough essentials to get you through those first 20 miles.

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If you’re not ready to hike the trail yet, we understand. You can always make your own trail map today! Also, keep an eye out for our post on hiking highlights of the Pacific Crest Trail, which is 500 miles longer than the Appalachian Trail.

Give your website, event, or blog post the impact it deserves with an interactive location map. Readers can make much more sense of geography when it’s plotted visually. Think through your own experiences navigating a festival, a tour, or just across town. It’s just easier to understand how places relate to one another when you can see them spatially.

View Santa Monica Mechanics (Location Names) in a full screen map

The good news is it’s easier than ever to be able to create these maps. In this tutorial we’ll create one like above, complete with clickable markers that show infowindow boxes and even have custom images inside.

Include a Description and Other Text in Your Pop-up

The easiest way to get started is to use an Excel spreadsheet (Numbers, Google Sheets, and others work, too) containing all of your locations. You can use separate columns for parts of the address, or include everything in one. The geocoding technology will figure out what you mean.

Let’s say you operate a website about Santa Monica mechanics. You might have them listed in your spreadsheet like this:

Name	Address	City	State	Zip
Fleece’s Greases	219 W Channel Rd	Santa Monica	CA	90402
Roseland Automotive	445 Palisades Beach Rd	Santa Monica	CA	90402
Adali Cata Car Care	250 Santa Monica Pier	Santa Monica	CA	90401
Callat the Mechanic	1517 Lincoln Blvd	Santa Monica	CA	90401

If you copy and paste that into our mapping tool, you’ll have a custom map without any other input. It’s almost magic.

View Santa Monica Mechanics (Location Names) in a full screen map

What if you want more information besides the shop’s name in the infowindow? Easy! Just add more columns to your spreadsheet. For example, let’s say you had written a short review and gave a rating to each mechanic. So far you’ve kept your genius in a spreadsheet. Let’s share it with the world!

Name	Address	City	State	Zip	Review	Rating
Fleece’s Greases	219 W Channel Rd	Santa Monica	CA	90402	Fleece tries hard and does passable work, but in the end, the coffee is just really bad.	⭐⭐
Roseland Automotive	445 Palisades Beach Rd	Santa Monica	CA	90402	Keeps a clean shop, but the waiting room has magazines that haven’t been published in 20 years.	⭐⭐
Adali Cata Car Care	250 Santa Monica Pier	Santa Monica	CA	90401	Fantastic work! Free WiFi and a barista on staff!	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Callat the Mechanic	1517 Lincoln Blvd	Santa Monica	CA	90401	Cheap, good, or fast. They always make me choose two.	⭐⭐⭐

Copy and paste that data here and then choose “Validate and Set Options.” This gives you a list of settings that you can change.

You also can preview how the infowindow will look. Advanced Options show even more ways to determine how your map and locations work. In this example, I’ve stuck with what was pre-chosen, except that I want to group by ratings. I got fancy and made the ratings actual stars using emoji, but this could be a letter grade, a decimal number, or anything you want. The map will adjust its grouping settings accordingly.

View Santa Monica Mechanics (with Ratings) in a full screen map

Now readers can click the markers as they browse the map, or use the legend at the bottom to filter what they see. The colors of the markers are also determined by what group they’re part of, which allows for a quick visual indicator of data within the map. This becomes more apparent when there are hundreds or even thousands of markers.

Go ahead and play around with this to get your custom interactive map working the way you want. When you add additional columns to your spreadsheet, they become part of the info window description. Many of these will also be added as grouping options, if you’ve enabled the feature.

Add Images to Your Pop-up

An image is worth 1,000 words—and now you can get your maps there in a single click. Include logos, icons, photos, or other imagery in your infowindow box. Adding additional visuals to your maps can make them appear even more customized and useful.

Let’s go with one more example spreadsheet:

Name	Address	City	State	Zip	Image
Fleece’s Greases	219 W Channel Rd	Santa Monica	CA	90402
Roseland Automotive	445 Palisades Beach Rd	Santa Monica	CA	90402
Adali Cata Car Care	250 Santa Monica Pier	Santa Monica	CA	90401
Callat the Mechanic	1517 Lincoln Blvd	Santa Monica	CA	90401

Copy and paste that into the map generator and you’ll see that each marker’s infowindow now includes an icon!

View Santa Monica Mechanics (With Images) in a full screen map

You can include a single small image with every location on your map. Two important things to keep in mind here are:

1. Size: you want to keep it small, not more than 150 pixels in either direction.
2. Hosting: you need to upload your image somewhere, such as a blog or image provider.

Find the URL for every image and include that in your data, as I did with the mechanic icons above. Then you can select the spreadsheet column in the advanced settings, or BatchGeo will discover it automatically with a name like “Image."

Add StreetView to Your Pop-up

One final type of imagery you can use is StreetView. These are pictures gathered by Google’s many 360 degree cameras driving all over the world. If there is a StreetView image available, we can include a thumbnail in the marker’s infowindow. Need a bigger view? Just click the image and you don’t even need to leave the map to see the location expanded.

StreetView is only available with BatchGeo Pro. Make maps with more locations, faster geocoding, and advanced features. Find out more today.

Ever wondered what has become of those celebrities born nearly 100 years ago? We’re here to help you find out with details about 100 of the most famous people born in 1918. Who is still living today, and what have they accomplished in their lives? Which professions tend to live longer? Which professions have the most on-the-job casualties? Read on to learn about the trends pulled from the data about the famous people born 100 years ago.

View Celebrities Born 100 Years Ago Map in a full screen map

Professions with the longest lifespan

A total of 13 celebrities born in 1918 lived to be 95 or older, and of those 13 folks, five are still alive today. Interestingly enough, all of the 13 folks who lived to be 95 years old or older held one of the same four jobs: Actors and Actresses, Artists, Politicians, and Professional Sports Players. There must be something about these four jobs that make those working in lead long and healthy lives.

• Actors and Actresses

  • Diana Serra Cary (living)
  • Billy Graham (living)
  • Allan Arbus
  • Don Pardo
  • Ellen Dow

• Artists

  • Frank Popper (living)
  • Artur Brauner (living)
  • Hutton Gibson (living)
  • Gerald Wilson
  • Bernard Redmont

• Politicians

  • Konstantinos Mitsotakis
  • Helmut Schmidt

• Professional Sports Players

  • Bobby Doerr

Professions with the shortest lifespan

On the other hand, there is one job that results in multiple deaths at young ages in comparison to our oldest surviving professions. In fact, both Alberto Ascari and Bill Vukovich died at age 37, the second youngest age of death on our 1918 celebrities list. Their job? Professional race car drivers. Both Ascari and Vukovich died during a race.

• Race Car Drivers

  • Alberto Ascari
  • Bill Vukovich

Alberto Ascari died in a 1000 km Monza race testing a Ferrari. Ascari, who was not supposed to drive that day, flipped the Ferrari on the third lap. The crash happened on one of the most challenging high-speed corners of all time, the Curva del Vialone. The corner was renamed after Ascari’s passing in his honor.

Bill Vukovich died in a chain-reaction crash during the 1955 Indianapolis 500. Vukovich was following three other cars, the first of which swerved due to a gust of wind. Vukovich’s car burst into flames. Fellow race car driver Ed Alisaian stopped his car, which had not been affected by the pileup, in an attempt to save Vukovich, however, he was unable to do so. Vukovich was the second defending Indy 500 champion to die during the race.

Youngest death

The youngest death on the list of celebrities born in 1918 is that of George Welch. A World War II Flying Ace and a Medal of Honor nominee, Welch was also the first man to break the sound barrier in level flight with the F-100 Super Sabre. In continuing his tests on this plane, one test failed and the plane disintegrated. Welch was 36 years old when he passed away, making him the youngest on the list. He is mentioned in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!

Celebrities Still Alive Today

We’ve covered the longest and shortest-living professions and the youngest deaths, but now it’s time to dive into the lives of the five living celebrities born in 1918. One of these famous icons knew Martin Luther King Jr. and advised Barack Obama, one has won an Academy Award, one is a Jeopardy! grand champion and a couple even offer up advice on long-living. One thing is for certain, this is an amazing bunch of people who have had some pretty eventful lives.

Billy Graham, 99

When this post was originally published on Monday, February 19th, 2018, Billy Graham was alive. However, two days later on Wednesday, February 21st, Graham passed away in his home. Read on for a tribute to Graham and his impactful life.

Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, this well-known Evangelical Christian and ordained baptist rose to fame internationally after 1949, two years after the first annual Billy Graham Crusades television event which he started in 1947. Graham was the host of Hour of Decision, a popular radio show which began in 1950 that continued on for four years. Having preached to live audiences of 215 million people in more than 185 countries, Graham is widely regarded as the most influential preacher of the 20th century. He has even provided spiritual counsel to every president from Harry Truman to Barack Obama. Graham’s best friend was Lyndon B. Johnson.

Graham once bailed Martin Luther King out of jail in the 1960s when he was arrested for his protests. He has appeared 60 times since 1955 on Gallup’s list of most admired men and women, which is more than any other individual in the world. Graham retired in 2005. Perhaps his close relationship to God is the reason he’s still around today. He is by far the most famous person on our list.

Graham’s son shared his father’s secrets for long living in an interview back in 2015. Franklin Graham reported that he thinks his father is still alive to serve as a comfort for Christians. In the interview, Franklin said that “Especially now that we see Christians under attack in this country — and this is something, we’re going to see more and more of this — my father is still present. Even though he’s not able to speak as much as he used to, he’s still present, and I think that is a great encouragement to many people to know that Billy Graham is still with us.”

Artur Brauner, 99

Having produced over 300 films since 1946, Artur Brauner is a German film producer born in Łódź, Poland. When Brauner was a young man, he saw the film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse which reportedly was the film that inspired him to begin his career producing movies himself.

His latest film is the 2011 film Wunderkinder and his earliest film was the 1948 Morituri.

In his lifetime, his films have received two Golden Bear awards, one German Federal Film Award, one nomination for a Golden Globe, a Golden Globe, one Academy Award, was nominated two more times for an Academy Award.

Frank Popper, 99

Frank Popper, Professor of Aesthetics and Science of Art and the University of Paris VIII and historian of art and technology is still working to this day. Born in Prague, Czech Republic, Popper has written two books, both about art and technology.

Diana Serra Cary, 99

Born Peggy-Jean Montgomery and formerly known as Baby Peggy, Diana Serra Cary is a former child actress from Merced, California. She was also an author and historian. She is most notably the last living film star of the silent era.

The Hollywood silent movie era was home to three major American child stars: Jackie Coogan, Baby Marie, and Baby Peggy. Cary has been in over 150 short films between 1921 and 1923. With many adoring fans, she was nicknamed “The Million Dollar Baby” due to her $1.5 million a year salary.

However, fame proved to be fleeting in Cary’s case as by 1930, she was working as an extra in the film industry and received very little pay. From then on, with the name Diana Serra Cary, Cary switched gears and started up a career in writing and as a silent film historian. She is the author of several books and became an advocate for child stars’ rights.

In an interview with Tom Lamont, published in The Guardian in 2015 when Cary was 96, Cary said “I feel better now. I feel very, very liberated. I find you’re not surprised by unexpected things as you get older. You’ve had lots of experience, and that’s valuable. Priceless, really. Yes, I find that old age is much more pleasant than youth.”

Hutton Gibson, 99

Hutton Gibson has done a lot more with his life than birth the famous actor Mel Gibson. He is a writer, a World War II vet, and the 1968 Jeopardy! grand champion. Gibson is also the father of 10 more children other than actor Mel for a total of 11 kids. Gibson’s first wife, Anne Patricia Reilly and him married in 1944 and together they had 10 children and adopted one. As of 2003, Gibson had 48 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

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Curious about other trends? Plot your own map today to see trends and secrets that are near impossible to see any other way, including trends in history like 100 Years Later: Major 1918 Events Mapped Out.