Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#1

Post by zakn » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 6:35 AM UTC

Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes
hike.io

Re: Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#2

Post by zakn » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 6:36 AM UTC

There are already tons of sites devoted to hikes. Here's why I made hike.io:

- It's all about hikes. Detailed trail information, beautiful photos, full screen maps, and not much else.

- It's editable. Anyone can add new hikes or modify existing ones, without having to sign in. (It's contenteditable and goes through a review process, try it out!)

- It's free. No paywalls or ads. Ever.

- It's open. The site's data is available under Creative Commons. The code is open source (I used AngularJS and Sinatra: http://git.io/hike.io)

There are still things I want to do. For example, GPX support, trip reports, and obviously I need more hikes on the site, but I thought I'd get it out there anyway in order to get some feedback. Any thoughts?

Re: Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#3

Post by chany2 » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:10 AM UTC

Awesome!

Dead simple, clean UI, and just great picks of landscape photos as well.

Good job man.

Re: Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#4

Post by zakn » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:10 AM UTC

chany2 wrote: post #3

Awesome! Dead simple, clean UI, and just great picks of landscape photos as well. Good job man.

Wow. You made my day, thanks so much.

Re: Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#5

Post by potash » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:10 AM UTC

Great site design. A couple ideas off the top of my head:

- Let hikes to include GPS route(s) to display on the map.

- Link to the USGS topo map that covers a given hike: http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/usgs/maplocator/(xcm=r3standa...

- Add a bibliography to each hike.

- Scrape some websites to create "stubs" for new hikes and encourage users to develop these.

- Speaking of stubs, if you are going to have collaboratively edited content why not just build on MediaWiki or similar?

- Use OpenStreetMaps instead of GMaps and encourage users to add trails to OSM.

Re: Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#6

Post by sytelus » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:14 AM UTC

Tried out several popular hikes in Washington and didn't find any. Almost every state has outdoor organization which maintains trail list. You should consider scrapping them and seeding your site (I believe most sites are open & nonprofit). For Washington, it's wts.org.

Re: Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#7

Post by prawn » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:16 AM UTC

Put some info on that front page photo so people know what it is. If there's info there, it didn't show in my browser. (The hike for anyone unfamiliar is The Narrows in Zion National Park, Utah.)

Maybe also suggestions or random features on the front page? That could lead in to the discover page.

Run through "top hikes" sites for ideas on what to add yourself and build up your content. I was a bit surprised not to find more; you could build a starting list and then knock off adding 10-20 each night for a week and get your numbers up.

I've also found some arbitrary rankings or suggestions can be a good way to find the most special experiences. If photos are the only method of discovery, everyone ends up in Monument Valley and miss Arches when it should be the other way around.

This site (http://besthike.com/) is ugly but isn't a terrible way to get ideas of new hikes to research. I've found a few through that site which I've really enjoyed (TMB, Huashan, TLG, etc).

Re: Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#8

Post by ejain » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:17 AM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #6

Tried out several popular hikes in Washington and didn't find any. Almost every state has outdoor organization which maintains trail list. You should consider scrapping them and seeding your site (I believe most sites are open & nonprofit). For Washington, it's wts.org.

Typo? wta.org

Re: Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#9

Post by zakn » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:22 AM UTC

potash wrote: post #5

Great site design. A couple ideas off the top of my head: - Let hikes to include GPS route(s) to display on the map. - Link to the USGS topo map that covers a given hike: http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/usgs/maplocator/(xcm=r3standa... - Add a bibliography to each hike. - Scrape some websites to create "stubs" for new hikes and encourage users to develop these. - Speaking of stubs, if you are going to have collaborati…

Great feedback.

-GPX support is top of my list of TODOs.

-I like the USGS topo / OSM idea. I'll have to do some investigation to see how it compares with Google Maps.

- I agree that a bibliography is a must. This is also something I would have gotten for free with MediaWiki. The reason I didn't build on top of that was, basically because I wanted to have complete control over the end result. Writing the code was the fun part for me. That being said, I wouldn't completely write it off.

- And I did write one scraper already for wta.org, but was unsure about whether that was ok to do or not...

Re: Show HN: Free, open-source site for finding beautiful hikes

#10

Post by quaunaut » Mon, Jan 20, 2014, 7:22 AM UTC

zakn wrote: post #2

There are already tons of sites devoted to hikes. Here's why I made hike.io: - It's all about hikes. Detailed trail information, beautiful photos, full screen maps, and not much else. - It's editable. Anyone can add new hikes or modify existing ones, without having to sign in. (It's contenteditable and goes through a review process, try it out!) - It's free. No paywalls or ads. Ever. - It's open. The site's data is a…

I like it a lot. No hikes in my area(Minneapolis), and I'm not enough of a hiking buff to know anything(though I would like to be). However, beautiful design and good functionality to it.

You say no paywalls or ads- what if this takes off? Just curious what you'd resort to.