It’s summertime where I live, in Austin, Texas, and my girls are on school break. With temperatures routinely in the triple digits (around 40° Celsius), we decided that it was time for the family to get away to cooler weather. So last week, after two years of postponements, we finally took our long-awaited California road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles. On our adventure, we had an amazing time exploring giant redwoods, seeing beautiful coastal views, visiting with friends, and spending time together as a family.

I was curious if our 500+ mile road trip from the Bay Area to Southern California impacted my activity level, so I chose to visualize my daily vacation steps against my average ones. Despite all the time spent in the car, I was more active than usual!

The challenge

This month, we encourage you to find some data related to vacation—about a trip you took, travels you hope to do in the future, or even general tourism data you are interested in visualizing. Regardless of the dataset you find or create, this challenge is an opportunity to practice your data storytelling skills. Find or create some data related in some way to the theme of “vacations,” analyze it, and create a visual that makes the “so-what?” stand out.

Share your creation in the community by Wednesday, August 31 at 5 PM EST. If there is any specific feedback or input that you would find helpful, include that detail in your commentary. Take some time to browse others’ submissions, too, and share your input via comments and data points over the course of the month.

Related resources

Here are a few related resources (not a comprehensive list). If you know other good ones, please share them in your submission commentary.

Explore 5 questions for better data visualization
Practice thoughtful use of words & color
Consider how someone else might process your graph
If you need help finding a source, check out this list of publicly available data for inspiration

We are excited to see your creations!