besthike.com - the blog

On The Adventure Blog, Kraig linked through to a terrific hiking site:

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Click through to the interactive map on Adventure Zone. You will be impressed with the amount and detail of information on hiking in Namibia, Swaziland and South Africa available.
My #1 destination in South Africa is the Drakensberg. But clearly there are many, many […]

The only person more excited than me about the new North Coast Trail on Vancouver Island, Canada, is BluePeak editor Rogier Gruys.
Rogier linked to an article in Wild Coast Magazine in which the authors claim the NCT is even better than the famed WCT, our #1 hike in the world.
High praise!
We’ll need to hike […]

I’ve been section hiking it for the past three years. Can I get there once again?
And I’ve got friends planning to honeymoon hike this coming summer.
If you are considering it yourself, check out this great new resource. It’s a virtual JMT hike via photo pages.

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Click through to the start page. And follow […]

If I was flying there today, I’d head for the Island of Gran Canaria.
The Canary Islands are an African archipelago which are part of Spain and consist of seven islands of volcanic origin in the Atlantic Ocean. They are located off the north-western coast of mainland Africa (Morocco and the Western Sahara).

Wikipedia
That’s […]

Obviously our best hikes map of the world should be interactive in the way used by Modern Hiker in California:

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This is a home-grown Google Map with hiking information in Los Angeles and Southern California. Every trail I’ve written up for the site is accompanied by a pin, color-coded by difficulty. Clicking on a pin will […]

This is elegant simplicity. Exactly the way the internet should work.
Clean. Succinct. But dense with the information you most need: maps, guidebooks, etc.
Check a sample hike for format: San Bruno Mountain Summit Loop, California.
Here’s a sample of the Google Maps integration:

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I am inspired.
Well done, Trailspotting.

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It’s been 2yrs since we added the blog to besthike.com.
The first post was called: Introducing Rick McCharles. (Our site editor hasn’t matured much since. But at least he’s still a glutton for hiking.)
Over 840 posts, some of the most popular are surprising:
want to hike South America?
Best hikes, treks & tramps in the world
Cirque of […]

#1 New Zealand - info page
#2 Southwest USA - info page
#3 The Rockies - info page
#4 USA Sierra Nevada - info page
#5 Central Andes - info page
#6 Patagonian Andes - info page
#7 Nepal - info page
#8 Australia - info page
#9 The Alps - info page
10 Indian Himalaya - info page

New Zealand is […]

A 63-year-old American hikes “end-to-end” — from Land’s End to John o’Groats — and reflects on Britain now and in his youth.
A “typical” thru hike:
928 miles, in 56 days
Average of 16.6 miles per day
March 20 to May 16, 2007
Alone, carrying 23 lb backpack and bellypack
Stayed at B&Bs, inns, and youth hostels
[…]

There are a number of good Hawaii hiking sites. But I like best the map interface used by Na Ala Hele - Hawaii Trail System & Access. (It’s far better than the one we use on besthike.)

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If you click Kauai:

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Click on one of the numbers and you get quite a good information page on […]