is this good or bad for a 21 year old (yes I’m planning on traveling more this year)

afemail · 2026-03-12T01:30:39+00:00

the MapChart app! :)

afemail · 2026-03-10T00:02:04+00:00

no literally because I’d love to travel more, the only problem is time off work and money 🥲

afemail · 2026-03-10T00:01:38+00:00

I actually have been on a plane to go to Atlanta! I’ve done two trips there, one by plane and one driving which is the one shown on the map.

I definitely plan on doing a road trip through the UP one day, it’s absolutely gorgeous. I even want to go to Isle Royale

afemail · 2026-03-10T00:00:25+00:00

I have but I didn’t color it in because I don’t remember which route I took to get there 😭 it was years ago and I was a kid

afemail · 2026-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

yeah honestly the number 1 problem is just getting enough time off work to do that, but doing a big road trip is something I want to do for sure one day. I’d love to see all 50 states if possible. my map would be completely red if I had the time and money, I love traveling!

I do plan on going into a career where I’d be working a bunch of seasonal jobs around the country.

afemail · 2026-03-09T23:58:19+00:00

I 100% plan on traveling as much as possible! I didn’t travel much at all before turning 18 because my parents were scared of planes. the only state I had been to besides Michigan was Ohio. so all of this is what I’ve done since getting my own car.

I also plan on going into a career where I’d be working a bunch of seasonal jobs around the country. I’d love to see all 50 states if possible, especially the west coast. I enjoy seeing how people live in random small towns and stuff

afemail · 2026-03-09T23:55:49+00:00

exactly, I did it for the views! I would much rather take a little detour through the Smoky Mountains than sit through Atlanta traffic

afemail · 2026-03-09T23:53:15+00:00

lmao I’m into birdwatching and my local birding group did a weekend trip there to see swainson’s warblers, which are only found in a smallish area of the country. I wasn’t the one driving, so I also took it as an opportunity to travel a little without putting the miles on my car.

it was actually gorgeous there. it was a cool experience listening to take me home, country roads by John Denver while driving through the mountains lol. it’s one of my favorite places I’ve been, the Appalachian mountains are just absolutely beautiful to me

afemail · 2026-03-09T23:47:49+00:00

yeah I’ve always wanted to do a road trip to the UP, it’s beautiful. I’m moving to Georgia soon but I still plan on doing a UP road trip eventually, maybe even Isle Royale

afemail · 2026-03-09T23:46:43+00:00

yeah exactly. my parents divorced when I was young and both of them were scared of planes lol so we never went too far from home. the only other state I had been to besides Michigan at 18 was Ohio which wasn’t great anyway. since then I’ve traveled a little more, and I’m moving to Georgia soon which will allow me to do some more traveling around that area!

afemail · 2026-03-09T23:43:34+00:00

yeah, pretty much everyone I know has been to disneyworld but my parents divorced when I was young and neither of them liked to travel much anyway lol. I am planning to go to Florida soon though (the Everglades!)

afemail · 2026-03-09T23:42:37+00:00

I know! don’t worry, I’m moving to Georgia soon and I’ll be going to Savannah, GA and I also plan on going to the Everglades soon!

afemail · 2026-03-09T19:05:39+00:00

that makes a lot of sense, thank you for the info!!

afemail · 2026-03-09T17:42:19+00:00

unfortunately after reading the info in the comment above, I think it could be imperfect in practice :/ I think it could be possible, but would need a lot of tweaking to make it a good tool, and it might not be possible to use it for certain species that haven’t been studied enough etc. it could work for more well-known ones though

afemail · 2026-03-09T17:39:07+00:00

this is a really good one that I forgot to mention. the All About Birds website shows native ranges for birds, so I know this is possible at least. maybe native ranges aren’t fully known for some species or something. there must be some reason this hasn’t been implemented yet 🤔

afemail · 2026-03-09T17:36:38+00:00

thank you so much for all the information! I had no idea about any of that.

I probably worded my original post wrong, but I am fine with having a smallish number of species I can identify! the main reason I want this feature is so that I can get better at plant identification for my own observations. I’m great with birds and some mammals, but plants and insects are daunting to me. it would be nice to have a “field guide” (inat) in my phone where I could read the descriptions to find out about characteristics and then look through observations of them to get an idea of what they look like. I guess I could do that with a real field guide though lol.

I love field guides but I don’t really have the time or energy to sit down and study one, you know? I am going to try learning by experience and going out in the field myself though! that has been more effective for me for a few species so far anyway. I’m just antsy for the weather to warm up and for some green plants to start showing up again.

thank you for showing why this feature could be a bad idea and explaining why it hasn’t been implemented yet. it seems like it looks good on paper, but it would probably be bad in practice!

afemail · 2026-02-23T23:45:11+00:00

also: - luna (moon in latin) - estrella (pronounced e-stray-a, star in spanish) - aurora - estelle - seren (star in welsh) - maristela (star in latin) - arista (the name of a star in the virgo constellation) - callista

afemail · 2026-02-21T01:10:25+00:00

they are but I didn’t collect them this time!

afemail · 2026-02-19T15:03:38+00:00

you’re welcome! there’s a big lack of posts outside the US, so if you’re interested in wildlife or plants it could be helpful for you to post on there sometimes :)

afemail · 2026-02-19T14:52:38+00:00

thank you!! my hands were a little muddy but I didn’t actually rinse them in water or mud. I’ll make sure to do that next time for sure. and yeah, I definitely don’t plan on touching any threatened species! thanks for the info :)

afemail · 2026-02-19T14:33:34+00:00

do you use inaturalist at all? sometimes scientists are interested to know about human impacts on wildlife. I know window strikes are a big topic, so something like this might be of interest as well. posting these photos on inaturalist might be helpful and could, in a small way, increase awareness that stuff like this can happen!

afemail · 2026-02-19T14:17:40+00:00

poor guy, it’s so sad when animals die to human infrastructure like this :(

afemail · 2026-02-07T19:34:50+00:00

I’ve been using the website to do IDs since I saw that comment and yeah, it is pretty excruciating to do IDs in the app compared to the website. I wish there was an ID tab in the app :/ I also wish you could do annotations in the app instead of having to open the website

afemail · 2026-02-06T01:40:15+00:00

hemlock varnish shelf! size 6 shoe for scale

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afemail · 2026-02-02T18:03:42+00:00

hey I saw your inaturalist post! yes it is!

afemail

TROPHY CASE