Feature Request: Wikimedia Commons / Google Places API Integration for Auto-populating Locations and Recommendations

[UncleDoomVSSP]

Feature Request: Wikimedia Commons / Google Places API Integration for Auto-populating Locations and Recommendations

First, a genuine thank you to Sean and everyone contributing to AdventureLog. It's a beautifully built project and the effort that goes into it is clear, and it's very much appreciated.

The Idea

It would be fantastic if AdventureLog could integrate with an external places or media API to auto-populate content when adding or browsing locations. The two most natural candidates seem to be:

Wikimedia Commons / Wikipedia

• Free, open, no API key required for basic use
• Rich descriptions, photos, and geographic data for millions of places worldwide
• Well-documented REST API
• Aligns with the open-source ethos of the project

Google Places API

• Already partially integrated (Google Maps support exists)
• Extremely comprehensive, especially for points of interest, restaurants, attractions
• Includes photos, ratings, opening hours, and descriptions
• Would require users to supply their own API key, similar to the existing Google Maps integration

Where This Could Add Value

• New location form — when a user types a place name or drops a pin, pull in a description, category, and photo automatically rather than requiring manual entry
• Recommendations — seed the recommendations panel with nearby points of interest from the API, giving users inspiration without needing to add everything manually
• Discover Places — could become significantly more powerful with real-world POI data, photos, and descriptions rather than relying solely on user-generated content
• Location images — auto-suggest a cover image from Wikimedia Commons or Google Photos when creating a new location

Suggested Approach

Given that Google Maps integration already exists as an opt-in feature via API key, a similar pattern would work well here. Wikimedia Commons could be the free default (no key needed), with Google Places as an optional enhancement for users who already have a Google API key configured.

This would keep the experience great for everyone while not adding any cost or dependency for those who prefer to keep things fully open.

Totally understand if this is out of scope for now given everything else on the roadmap. Just wanted to put it out there as something that I think would meaningfully improve the experience for both new and existing users. Happy to help with testing if a PR ever heads in this direction.

Thanks again for everything you do. 🙏