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

hike.io

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

#11

Post by zakn »

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.

Funny thing. I actually have a scraper for wta - https://github.com/zaknelson/hike.io/blob/master/scripts/scr...

I haven't seeded production with it yet because I was a bit unsure on whether that was ok to do. Maybe I should send them an email...

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

#12

Post by zakn »

quaunaut wrote: post #10
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.

That's a problem I'd love to have. I think the best way to keep a site like this going is through donations, but honestly have no idea whether that is feasible or not.

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

#13

Post by zakn »

prawn wrote: post #7

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 fi…

If I would have known I'd hit the front page of HN, I would have added more content :) But I agree, there is plenty of good information already out there. For photos, I can probably find Creative Commons versions on flickr. I've already asked about a few and people are surprisingly generous.

And good point about The Narrows. I should have that info on there.

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

#14

Post by xerophtye »

chany2 wrote: post #3

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

As pretty the site is, i'd love for some info on the landing page. Maybe have a few blocks of text when u scroll down? A few FAQs maybe, like how can i find a hike? Who can contribute? etc etc. The single "Name of a Hike" search bar is a bit daunting. It expects me to know something (which i obviously don't). Maybe consider making the "Discover" Page part of the Front page? Or maybe make it THE front page?

But, still a pretty cool site

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

#15

Post by potash »

zakn wrote: post #9
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…

Cool. Not a lawyer but I think that if you are not copying the main content (just the metadata) AND putting the source in your bibliography you should be okay.

Also one simple way to try to raise money for the site is to use affiliate links to Amazon for any [e]books in the bibliography.

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

#16

Post by ejain »

This site looks great for inspiration, but for me the most important thing when planning a hike is being able to see updates on current conditions (e.g. is the trailhead accessible? Is there snow on the trail?).

One of the best-implemented hiking sites in my opinion is hikr.org, though the information I need tends to be on local sites like wta.org or nwhikers.net.

In addition to submitting trip reports to wta.org, I keep a record of my hikes at https://zenobase.com/#/buckets/u07qih0a27/. It's a more general-purpose service, but I can filter by any combination of region, hiking distance, duration, season etc.

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

#17

Post by zakn »

xerophtye wrote: post #14
chany2 wrote: post #3

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

As pretty the site is, i'd love for some info on the landing page. Maybe have a few blocks of text when u scroll down? A few FAQs maybe, like how can i find a hike? Who can contribute? etc etc. The single "Name of a Hike" search bar is a bit daunting. It expects me to know something (which i obviously don't). Maybe consider making the "Discover" Page part of the Front page? Or maybe make it THE front page? But, still…

That's some feedback I've heard a couple times now. I was going for simple, but just having the search box only addresses the case where the user already knows what hike they want to find (and actually is pretty useless at the moment, since there are only a handful of hikes on the site).

Putting some more info on the homepage is a good idea, whether that ends up being the Discover page... I'm going to mull on it for a bit. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

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

#18

Post by prawn »

zakn wrote: post #13
prawn wrote: post #7

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 fi…

If I would have known I'd hit the front page of HN, I would have added more content :) But I agree, there is plenty of good information already out there. For photos, I can probably find Creative Commons versions on flickr. I've already asked about a few and people are surprisingly generous. And good point about The Narrows. I should have that info on there.

"If I would have known I'd hit the front page of HN, I would have added more content"

You did submit it, so not much of an excuse! ;)

No downside to adding loads more content, whether for a Show HN or for the general well-being of the site regardless of HN. Go for it. Would be great to have more photo-oriented hiking sites out there.

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

#19

Post by zakn »

ejain wrote: post #16

This site looks great for inspiration, but for me the most important thing when planning a hike is being able to see updates on current conditions (e.g. is the trailhead accessible? Is there snow on the trail?). One of the best-implemented hiking sites in my opinion is hikr.org, though the information I need tends to be on local sites like wta.org or nwhikers.net. In addition to submitting trip reports to wta.org, I…

Trip reports are something I've been thinking about adding for a while. The problem I face at the moment is that they're only useful is you have a very active community. I'm still trying to figure out where hike.io fits into the hiking website ecosystem. Maybe it makes sense to keep it limited to just "wikipedia for hikes" and leaving trip reports to the location specific hikes. I think I'll add support and see what kind of traction I get.

Thanks for the hikr.org link, I haven't come across that one before. And very cool trip tracker of your hikes.

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

#20

Post by jamra »

ejain wrote: post #16

This site looks great for inspiration, but for me the most important thing when planning a hike is being able to see updates on current conditions (e.g. is the trailhead accessible? Is there snow on the trail?). One of the best-implemented hiking sites in my opinion is hikr.org, though the information I need tends to be on local sites like wta.org or nwhikers.net. In addition to submitting trip reports to wta.org, I…

The only way to get this done correctly is to have a mobile app. You can take advantage of the mobile GPS and the fact that hikers would love to update their phones with their trip info.

The only downside would be connectivity issues while on the trail.

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