Dataset of the Day: Maker! Plays Cupid

Valentine’s day is this Saturday so I thought I’d made a few maps in honor of this lovers holiday. Since one thing lovers do is travel, I made a map of the 50 most romantic places in the world…at least according to Travel + Leisure in 2005. Each icon on the map contains the name of a hotel recommended by the magazine for that place.

There may not be enough time to plan a trip to one of these places by Valentine’s day so you might want to leave that until next year and just pick up some artesian chocolate. The next map shows the locations of the chocolate shops in the Metro DC area.

Many holidays are exclusive… christmas is only for christians, mother’s day is only for mothers, and Valentine’s day is only for happily paired couples, sometimes the secretly admired and elementary school children who exchange little cut-out cards and candy to all their classmates. So I thought I would help those who won’t be celebrating this year and let Maker! have a chance at playing Cupid.

Italy has the reputation as the as being the most romantic country in the world, so I made some maps showing where in Italy one would have the best chances of meeting single men or women.

According to these maps, if you are planing a trip to il bel paese in the hopes of being moonstruck, head to the island of Sardinia or the very top of the boot to a region called Trentino-Alto Adige and avoid much of the middle of the peninsula where all those pesky couples live.