About Dot On The Map

So, What’s The Idea Behind This Site?

Being a Web designer, my friends all know that I pretty much spend all day, every day on the computer - either doing my Web design work, or surfing the Net. Lately I’d been getting a lot of calls from friends to look up things - usually addresses, hours or phone numbers of businesses in far away towns where my friends happened to be traveling at the time.

For instance, recently, a friend had pulled into West Yellowstone, WY at 10pm on a weekday looking for anything but fast food, and a drugstore for sun screen. Small town, off-season - not really a 24-hour town in any season. So I Googled it. Sometimes information is easy to find, sometimes it takes a bit more digging. I found him a nice steakhouse with the kitchen still open that late, but the drugstore closed at 10.

I had been getting enough of these calls that the idea occured to me, why not just do a site that has all this information? Next time I could look up this information there, and so could others.

In larger cities we just take it for granted that there is a gas station or convenience store every 5 or 10 blocks, a restaurant or grocery every 20 blocks, and so on. And many of these are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not so in rural America.

Millions of Americans take to the roads every year - traveling for business, for pleasure, vacationing, moving, visiting friends or family, or simply to get from point A to point B. Why not have information about what businesses are where, the entire route, not just the major cities? For safety. For convenience. For peace of mind.

That is the point of this site!

Ain’t Technology Great?!

A few years ago this sort of technology just wasn’t available. Now it is. Cell phone networks have linked nearly the entire US. Some areas are Web-enabled, meaning that you can actually surf the Internet from your phone - some are voice-only. Long-distance calls are usually free from cell phones, so calling from anywhere to anywhere is the same as a local call.

Not only that, but on my own trips across the US, I have noticed that more and more motels and hotels offer Internet access - even many highway rest areas offer free wireless access! Add to that, coffee shops, restaurants and other stores offering Internet access.

The country has become wired! The ability to use a handy site like this, from pretty much anywhere in the US, even while on the road, is now “there”.

So how do I use this site? Click here to find out!

DotOnTheMap.com^TM