@numericcitizen Hope it works for you - it's almost certainly not the most elegant solution!

Of course the check in relies on you naming (or typing a message about) the location you are checking into, unlike something like FourSquare which has its own database of places.

But I quite like the results on my blog - e.g. this post. I have modified my post templates to show a map if the location data is present. Idea taken from @manton where he did a similar thing at manton.coffee. I'm using the Google Maps service but other mapping services are available!