Many of you will have noticed the "new" items on the menu, and hopefully you've had a look. If not, here's a little of what we've been working on.
First off, we have completed a massive infrastructure upgrade
and are migrating content to it over the (northern) winter.
Features of the new website that flows to everything:
Everything works on tablets & mobile phones as well as desktop, automatically resizing and adjusting everything as appropriate for a great user experience and ease of use on anything anywhere.
Embedding Youtube, Vimeo etc video, Twitter, and any other media is a single click.
Maps are a central point, with everything possible having map coordinates and plotted on the map.
It's also all https as well so great for security. The old site (you can tell what's new by the url being
www.horizons instead of
new.horizons... is NOT all https unfortunately, we're struggling with issues there.
Have a look at our brand new Travel Stories and Destinations sections on HU. We are working hard to making them a central resource that's free and easy to use, and while it already contains a tremendous amount of information with over 300 travel stories and 650 Destinations of interest to travellers, with your help it will grow to become THE central resource for moto travellers.
See:
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories
and
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/destinations
Following is a detailed explanation of all the new goodies. Any comments much appreciated.
Destinations:
Every Horizons Unlimited user can add their own Points of Interest to the map (already over 650 POI's) and then add their own experiences of them, giving readers not just the facts, but also a travellers thoughts and opinions.
These POI's are of interest to overland / motorcycle travellers, not necessarily the bus tourist!
Broad categories to cover everything possible:
- Places to stay, be they swanky hotels, guest houses, camping sites or places in the wild!
- Things to see, not to miss!
- Things that happen at certain times of year - make sure to be there at the right time!
- Places to buy food to go or places to sit down and eat
- Fuel stops in remote locations,
- Repair shops for both you and your vehicle,
- places to do paperwork etc.
All POI's can also be tagged for more detailed categories to make them easier to find.
Hundreds of key “HU relevant” Points of Interest so far, each one with GPS coordinates
Thousands of Border Crossings, with GPS coordinates, based on Open Street Map data
Split between the “objective” data like the GPS coordinates and the “subjective” data - people’s personal experiences of being there
You can record just the right, useful info about each type of Point of Interest.
You can reference a POI anywhere else in the website, such as on a Blog post, or in a comment on the (to come) new HUBB and it will be displayed right there.
You can add any HU POI to your own personal "Bookmarks " on HU, and output as a GPX file to download to your GPS, and go travelling! It's your own "Bucket List"!
We want everyone to add as they go, so we've made it as easy as possible to add to this "Travellers Treasure Trove".
Travellers Stories:
A blog on HU gets you an instant audience as thousands of travellers visit HU looking for information on anywhere and everywhere. When you write your story, you tag it with the country and any other relevant tags. When someone searches for information on a country you've been to, YOUR story will come up in the list, bringing readers to your blog to learn about where you've been and maybe read more!
When entering your story, you can reference any of the HU Destinations right in your blog with a single click and a few letters, and all the Destination info will be right there for those who want more on it. You can create a NEW Destination easily too, and add your experience of it right from your blog.
- Friends and Family can sign up without an account to get an email when you've made an update to your blog. You choose whether or not to send updates.
- Others can be added as authors, perhaps a travel partner or friend at home who maintains it for you.
- You can have as many blogs / travel stories as you want, and YOUR url stays the same, with an index of all your stories.
- Embedding video, images, Tweets etc is a single click - it doesn't get easier!
- You can also upload a GPX file to show your planned route on a map. Again, just one click.
- And when you're done, your blog goes right to the top of the blogs listing on HU - so post often!
There's lots more to come, but it takes time and money.
We ARE getting there though!
Let us know what you think!
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NEW Features on HU!
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