Travel Data API

Travel Data API

Overview

This Jekyll site automatically generates a structured JSON API of all travel blog posts at /api/travel-data.json. This allows LLMs and other tools to query your travel history with structured questions like:

  • “List all cities Brian visited in Switzerland”
  • “What activities did Brian do in Japan?”
  • “Show me all the accommodations from the 2023 Iceland trip”

How It Works

1. Jekyll Plugin (_plugins/travel_data_generator.rb)

The Ruby plugin runs automatically during every Jekyll build:

  • Parses all markdown files in _posts/
  • Extracts YAML frontmatter metadata
  • Aggregates data into a structured JSON file
  • Outputs to /api/travel-data.json

2. Automatic Rebuild

Since your site uses GitHub Pages with GitHub Actions:

  • Every git push triggers a rebuild
  • Jekyll runs the plugin during build
  • The JSON file is regenerated with latest data
  • Published to https://bbhart.com/api/travel-data.json

No manual intervention required!

3. Rich Metadata Schema

The plugin looks for these frontmatter fields:

---
layout: post
title: Trip Day Title
date: 2023-06-11
categories: travel iceland
rollup_key: 2023iceland        # Groups posts by trip
trip_day: 1
location_start: City, Country
location_end: City, Country
locations_visited:
  - Location 1
  - Location 2
transport:
  - type: air
    route: Origin to Destination
    carrier: Airline Name
accommodation:
  name: Hotel/Cottage Name
  location: City
  amenities: [list, of, amenities]
activities:
  - Activity 1
  - Activity 2
dining:
  - location: Restaurant
    type: cuisine
notable_experiences:
  - Experience 1
weather: Description
---

JSON Structure

The generated file contains:

{
  "generated_at": "2025-11-07T13:53:57Z",
  "total_posts": 79,
  "trips": [
    {
      "rollup_key": "2023iceland",
      "posts": [ /* array of posts */ ]
    }
  ],
  "all_locations": [ /* unique locations across all trips */ ],
  "all_activities": [ /* unique activities across all trips */ ],
  "timeline": [ /* all posts sorted by date */ ]
}

Usage Examples

For LLMs (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.)

Users can share this URL with LLMs:

https://bbhart.com/api/travel-data.json

The LLM can fetch and query the structured data to answer questions like:

  • “Show me all locations Brian visited in Switzerland”
  • “What were Brian’s accommodations in Iceland?”
  • “List all activities from the Japan trip”

For Developers

# Fetch the data
curl https://bbhart.com/api/travel-data.json

# Query with jq
curl -s https://bbhart.com/api/travel-data.json | \
  jq '.trips[] | select(.rollup_key == "2023iceland")'

For Yourself (Local)

When adding metadata to posts, use the slash command:

/bh-add-jekyll-metadata 2023-06-*

This will analyze your posts and add rich metadata fields.

Adding Metadata to Existing Posts

Currently, most of your older posts don’t have the rich metadata (locations_visited, activities, etc.). To get the most value from this API, you should:

  1. Run /bh-add-jekyll-metadata on trip folders
  2. Or manually add metadata to key posts
  3. Commit and push
  4. GitHub Actions will rebuild and update the API

Testing Locally

To test the plugin without building the full site:

ruby test_travel_data.rb

This generates travel-data-test.json with a preview of what will be published.

Benefits

✅ Structured queries: LLMs can answer specific questions about your travels ✅ Automatic updates: New posts automatically appear in the API ✅ Zero maintenance: No server to manage, just static JSON ✅ Backward compatible: Old posts without metadata still work ✅ Flexible: Add new metadata fields anytime by updating the plugin

Future Enhancements

Potential additions:

  • Country-level grouping
  • Photo galleries per location
  • Map coordinates for locations
  • Cost/budget information
  • Travel companions metadata