Hover and/or Animation Design help for Travel Blog

I am trying to build a travel blog that has a map on the main page, highlighting areas with travel tips available. I would like visitors to be able to hover over the highlighted areas, see the name of what city or country they've highlighted, and click the link to the relevant place's post. Depending on the time commitment involved for this map, I'd like to add a map for each of the continents on its own page that shows a higher level of detail. My main project request would be the world and continent maps, as well as the connected links. Depending on bids, I would request the addition of slide show design. Right now, the blog is just a template for ideas, but I can see it playing out with different levels: 1. Main page: main focus is world map, linking to the continent subpages Under the map, a slide show of random travel pictures from my library. 2. Continent Subpages: Map for each continent with the ability to link to the countries within each continent on their own page 3. Country Subpages: Slide show of random relevant travel pictures