New Hiking and hillwalking website

Theinsideman

Hi All,

I'm a keen hillwalker but I've been very frustrated with a lack of hill walking web sites that provide detailed trail routes. Few of the web sites allow members to submit their own trails.

So anyway I've gone ahead and created http://www.walkingroutes.ie and wanted to know what people thought. Its still in the early stages but if you take a look you should be able to see how it differs to existing Irish trail sites.

I'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions. Not many trails on the site at the moment but the idea would be that a community of users would submit new trails.

Procasinator

I was looking at this site a couple days ago (was looking for loop walks), you must have had link somewhere on this forum.

I like the design. The font on the links is a tiny bit unclear, but overall it's a good design.

What I would like to see though, is more advanced searching/filter. I was looking for:

- Type of walk: Loop
- Difficulty: Hard
- Distance > 12 km

On top of the location. It would be great to filter and/or sort by these kind of characteristics of a walk.

It might also be a good idea to mark walks if they are maintained and signed by a particular group (such as Coillte) or if just user added.

It would be great if people used a site like this, as it would be great to see photos and comments/reviews on trails before taking them.

Theinsideman

Procasinator wrote: »

I was looking at this site a couple days ago (was looking for loop walks), you must have had link somewhere on this forum.

I like the design. The font on the links is a tiny bit unclear, but overall it's a good design.

What I would like to see though, is more advanced searching/filter. I was looking for:

- Type of walk: Loop
- Difficulty: Hard
- Distance > 12 km

On top of the location. It would be great to filter and/or sort by these kind of characteristics of a walk.

It might also be a good idea to mark walks if they are maintained and signed by a particular group (such as Coillte) or if just user added.

It would be great if people used a site like this, as it would be great to see photos and comments/reviews on trails before taking them.

Thank you Procasinator, all very good points especially the advanced search. DOnt know how I didn't think of that. Also like the Coillte option.

p

Overall it's pretty good. I think the design is nice & friendly, though it could also do with improve typography and some more tweaks.

Is there some mobile apps. You have pictures on the homepage, but they don't link anywhere. I think most of the details you have on the homepage, other than the map aren't that interesting to people. I don't care much about who's using the site, or updating it. Even new routes & comments are a bit unnecessary.

Why not handle Northern Ireland? Seems silly not to make use of that additional market, for very little extra work.

I think your sign up process could do with a bit more work:
http://thinkvitamin.com/design/turning-visitors-into-users/

Why can't you browse a map of routes? For me, i'm more likely to think I want to go for a walk in a particular area, or start point.

Have you seen websites like mapmyride and others for inspiration.

The print view needs a bit more work. I think you should provide a zoomed up version of start & end points.

On the route detail page, photos are pretty important factor in choosing a walk, so you should find a way to show them by default somewhere.

Is it possible to see the elevation of a walk?

Overall though, nice work. What's your plan for it?


Also, out of interest, what's the site built on? Custom, or using a CMS?

yourpics

great idea!!

Theinsideman

p wrote: »

Overall it's pretty good. I think the design is nice & friendly, though it could also do with improve typography and some more tweaks.

Is there some mobile apps.

Hello,

for the mobile maps simply point your browser to the site and a mobile version will be displayed. The mobile site does have some additional functionality.

You have pictures on the homepage, but they don't link anywhere. I think most of the details you have on the homepage, other than the map aren't that interesting to people.

I don't care much about who's using the site, or updating it. Even new routes & comments are a bit unnecessary.

Funny initially I would have agreed on this but members really wanted this info.

Why not handle Northern Ireland? Seems silly not to make use of that additional market, for very little extra work.

I might look into this for the future.

Why can't you browse a map of routes? For me, i'm more likely to think I want to go for a walk in a particular area, or start point.

Have you seen websites like mapmyride and others for inspiration.

There is a map of ireland on the home page where the counties are linked. If you mean a google maps with starting points overlayed then agreed this is on my to-do.

The print view needs a bit more work. I think you should provide a zoomed up version of start & end points.

Agreed

Is it possible to see the elevation of a walk?

Google maps terrain view shows elevation.

Overall though, nice work. What's your plan for it?

My plan is to try make it as good a services as possible so people will find it useful. Its more a hobby and I dont have any ambitions to use it for generating revenue.

Also, out of interest, what's the site built on? Custom, or using a CMS?

No its not a CMS all custom code.

Many thanks for the comments very helpful.

waken

Great idea and badly needed in Ireland. Walking is a very under developed passtime in this country. Trails badly marked if marked at all, access issues not resolved, very little maintenance on trails. Compare this to walking in other European countries and we dont stack up. I suppose there are no votes in it for the politicians so they dont give a fiddlers.
Waken