Im trying to design a webpage to document my roadtrips. Something I can go back to and see where I have been, look over the pictures and share with to tell a story to those who were not there. Im trying to start out with my trip from last summer as a base to build the website off of (plus the 1400 photos I took while I was on the road, yes quite a few are doubles, it was 1700 photos originally and I still have more to delete) but ultimately want something I can go back to each night (or each night that I am able to) while on the road and update as I go. Then just clean it up at the end when that particular trip is over. I started out thinking just make it a traditional blog, and while I may still do that, or similar (I've already installed wordpress to my server) I want to be able to have it a bit more organized than your ordinary blog so you can go back to each individual trip as well as a gallery of photos integrated in with it somehow. Plus I was also playing with the idea of having a map with approximate locations of where each pic was taken (by next trip I should have a proper camera with GPS built in) as well as coordinate updates the whole time showing where Ive been. Last summers trip I had Google Latitude running for most of the trip so using the location history on that would be the easiest way I think... Anyway the point of my posting here is to ask if anyone has any example websites that they could please show me. Anything that they either did themselves or may fit what Im looking for. Im going by a mystical idea in my head for now that I can barely get out for myself and with my S.O., who has a lot more website design experience than me (I'm a true geek and can usually figure out how to get what I want to work, but don't have as much in the way of website design experience. Then again I do go way back to Geocities WYSIWYG design tool if anyone remembers that haha), helping it would be nice to have something to point at and say "Thats what Im looking for!" Thanks :)
Sorry, I can't help ya on the website stuff. But in the mean time, throw some pics and stories together and get 'em posted here on ADV under Daytrippin. Welcome to ADV.
What I did is create a blog, mine is on blogger and then I purchased a domain name and redirected the blog to the domain name. I have different pages at the top and someday I want to get a photo gallery set up as a page properly, I have seen some great ones but just haven't sat down to do it yet. As far as the mapping I have a Spot and plan on embedding spotwalla to a page so people can see where I have been or I currently am. It is a work in slow progress, one of these years I'll get it right. Here is what my site looks like.
It's not a website but I've used 'travelpod' for my blogs. You can put individual blogs on the same page, as many photos as you like, it plots your travelled route onto a map and has lots of statistics of your viewers etc. I also turned a blog into a book with them. Very easy to use.
If sharing with the world is important to you, I recommend posting your road trips right here on advrider as Ride Reports (or under Day Trippin if appropriate). You can also make a separate posting that is just a list of links to all your reports, and put a link to that in your sig. That way they are always easily found. I generally won't click on a link to a blog that I find here. Why? Various reasons such as having to deal with a new method of navigation to read what I'm interested in, not wanting to wade through unrelated fluff that may be there, no comments from other advriders, and generally disrupting the experience that I like and am used to here.
It you know your way around wordpress check out this theme: http://www.elegantthemes.com/demo/?theme=Explorable Once I get the time I'm going to convert my trip blog over to this. I think it meets a lot of your requirements.
I do mine on Microsoft Word, then save them as a web page and upload to my web host, 1&1.com I've learned some tweaks like using tables to "sectionalize" the page. Bad thing is the pages don't work well on mobile devices or small-screen netbook/laptops. Easy to use, though. www.RidingWV.com My Personal Website - Click Here .
I just setup a blog for an upcoming trip using blogger. I have some web design experience, but chose this method because: #1. It was dead simple to setup #2. Secure #3. Android app makes posting and adding pictures on the go very simple #4. Free I even found an app (Real Time GPS Tracker) that let me embed a map of my current, real time location on the blog. Here it is although there is very little content so far: http://2guyson2wheels.blogspot.com/
I checked out different blog sites before my trip started...I wasn't actually sure if I was going to have a blog, as I had little idea about the commitment required to maintain one while on the road, so I wanted something I could set up quickly and not feel so bad about if I abandoned it mid-trip (I didn't, but it felt like 'homework' at times). One thing I knew for sure is that it would mainly be for photos, and I would be doing minimal writing. So my solution may not be the best for a text-heavy adventure. I settled on using tumblr. It's free, and after spending a few days learning the basics of CSS I was able to make my own 'theme'. I felt I didn't have to compromise on the layout in any way; I was able to create what I wanted (embedded spotwalla, static sidebars for links and stuff). Perhaps the main downside of tumblr is that there is no native comments system...you can use Disqus, but I haven't tried setting it up. One thing I learned early on was to have a system of how you'll 'tag' photos and posts, BEFORE you set off, so that you can easily organize things later on. All my posts have the country (and city, if applicable) tagged on them, so I can go back to a specific country very quickly (although I haven't put any links for it on the blog itself...for example I just add a '/tagged/bolivia', to the main url to get all my Bolivia posts). My blog is here: http://roadtriprambling.tumblr.com/ All that said, rodr is probably bang-on...your biggest audiences will be on advrider and HU, so if sharing is your goal, start a RR here. If it's a more personal thing, then I think you have more control by using a dedicated blog-site. Hope that helps, -Nick
