EveryTrail Blog

After we launched our new GPS Slideshow Flash Widgets last month we are happy to announce a couple of new features at EveryTrail: The EveryTrail Forums and EveryTrail RSS Feeds (if you are not familiar with RSS feeds, see for example the RSS article on Wikipedia (or discuss it in our forums ….)

The forum speaks for itself: this is the new place where you can connect with other EveryTrail team members to ask questions, discuss anything EveryTrail related, and just have fun discussions. Check it out and start participating! The forums are already pretty active after we launched them a couple of days ago.

The RSS feeds are set-up in such a way that they are easy to customize & personalize. Every browse page has a link to the RSS feed of that particular selection (for example: all new mountain biking trips in Spain or all new hiking trips in California). Just click the orange RSS logo, and add the feed to your favorite feed reader or your blog / website.

We look forward to connecting with you in the forums!

We are proud to present the latest EveryTrail feature:

Maui North Shore Scooter Expedition - Widget powered by: EveryTrail

The slideshow has been a much requested feature, and we have been quietly working on this for a while. Each trip has a prominent orange link to the slideshow, and its extremely easy to embed slideshows in your own site or blog. Just copy the embed code on the lower right of each trip page.

As an aside, the number of new trips and geotagged photos continues to explode! Keep geotagging!

Note: If you have feedback and suggestions, as always, please email us at: team *at* everytrail *dot* com.

We just launched improved versions of the Windows Mobile GPS logger application for EveryTrail. One is specifically voor Pocket PC devices and the other one for Smart Phone devices. You can download both versions here.

These versions fix the issues that existed in the previous version. Thanks for all your feedback!

Now it’s even easier to upload to upload GPS data from you mobile device, plot your tracks on a Google Map and add / geotag your photos.

We look forward to all your new trips.

While we at EveryTrail have been staying active launching more and more new features and improvements the last couple of weeks (GPS tracks on Google Terrain, a new Windows Mobile GPS uploader, improved process to create trips and GPS geotag photos, and many more), we didn’t really expect many new trips this time of the year.

But much to our positive surprise the contrary has been true! Apparently EveryTrail members don’t need a wintersleep

So we figured it would be time for a new homepage that does a better job of showcasing all the daily fresh content that is being uploaded by our truly global user base. You can now see the latest trips, cool photos and members right at the homepage. As always we’ll be refining this further over the next couple of weeks and beyond.

Daily new trip postings are at an all time high, and the number of photos being added every day continues to accelerate. It took us about 10 months to get to 10,000 photos, and then only less than 3 months to get to the next 10,000 photos!

Here is geotagged photo number 20,000 which was taken just off the coast of Brazil as part of a trip from SANTARÉM to RIO :

Some of the many other cool recent trips from all over the world include:

Mexico:
Bootsfahrt auf dem Sumidero Canyon

Besuch der Ruinenstätte Teotihuacan

Lots of cool trips from Taiwan:

Mountain biking in Shan-chiao

136 country highway trip

Mountain biking in Li-yü-t’an

United States:

Florida Trail - Juniper St Park to FR10

Titlow to Gig Harbor paddle to lunch

Elk Mountain - Wichita Mountains

Portugal:
Maratona do Canha

From Santo Amaro de Oeiras Beach to Cascais Marina by the Estoril Coast

…. and many, many more!

Please keep all these cool trips coming so we can continue to build this awesome global community around active people, cool trips and great geotagged photos!

Feedback, ideas and suggestions are always welcome at team[at]everytrail[dot]com.

Google just launched a very cool new map layer in their maps: Google terrain. Is this the first step of getting a true Google Earth 3D experience inside the browser? We certainly hope so!

Of course we were quick to add this to EveryTrail. Now you can set the map layer of any trip to Google Terrain to get yet another perspective on your trip! To view trips in Google Terrain View just look for the “Google Terrain” option in the drop down box of the top right of any map. You can also set your new trips to Google Terrain by default.

The screenshot below shows the famous Half Dome hike in Yosemite National Park. The red line indicates the exact route recorded by a GPS device. With the new terrain map layer, in addition to GPS data and geotagged photos, the viewing the trip at EveryTrail becomes an even more immersive experience!

We are excited to announce a new version of the EveryTrail Windows Mobile app. It is easy to set-up, and you can download it here for free.

With the EveryTrail Windows Mobile app you can upload your GPS data directly to EveryTrail, in order to create cool interactive trip reports, geotag your photos and share your experiences with friends and the EveryTrail community.

Highlights of the app include:

• Windows Mobile 5 & 6 support
• Work with built in and Bluetooth GPS devices.
• Upload GPS tracks to EveryTrail with 1 click. Requires internet connection (Wifi, GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, etc)
• Email tracks to your friends in KML (Google Earth) and GPX format directly from your phone

We look forward to more of your cool trips!

GPS Geotagging is at the core of what we do at EveryTrail.

Every now and then we stumble on a breathtaking geotagged setting that we just can’t resist to share. Check out this photo of a sand dune in Namibia, which is part of a 4×4 roadtrip. Look at how nicely the satellite image lines up with the photo!

With the new layout of the photo pages (which has been live since EveryTrail version 2), you can easily see each photo in its geographical context, with 2 maps showing its exact position: 1 zoomed in hybrid view, and 1 zoomed out map view. This way you can immediately get a feel for the geographical context in which the photo was taken. Nearby photos are also shown, and a link to the trip(s) the photo belongs to.

We are continually working on making the process to geotag pictures easier and more fun. After our major site upgrade in September we launched some smaller improvements last weekend, and the number of daily posted photos is skyrocketing. This chart shows the 7-day moving average of daily uploaded geotagged photos.

We’ll soon post an overview of 3 ways to geotag photos at EveryTrail. In the meantime keep these cool trips and photos coming!

EveryTrail enables you to share your trips like never before, using a combination of GPS tracks and geotagged photos.

Because a photo says more than a thousand words, and a geotagged photo says more than one million words, we have made it extremely easy to add geotagged pictures to your trips (we’ll write another post describing three easy ways to geotag your pictures).

There are 3 ways to add photos your trip:

Upload photos from your computer
You can upload photos directly from your computer. Just use the simple upload form that you’ll see on step 2 of the trip creation process.

Import your photos from Flickr
Many of you store your photos on Flickr, and to simplify your lives, it’s an easy process to import your photos from Flickr. In case your photos are already geotagged the geotags (GPS coordinates) will carry over to EveryTrail, and if not you can easily geotag your photos immediately after importing them. Just follow the easy steps after clicking the Flickr import link on step 2 of the trip creation process.

Add geotagged photos from other users
If you didn’t take any pictures, you can easily illustrate your trip with pictures from other users. Based on the exact GPS coordinates of your trip, EveryTrail shows you the best pictures of Panoramio, Flickr, and by other EveryTrail users. You can simply check the boxes next to the pictures you like and they will appear on the map. Of course we respect copyright and therefore we link back to the original picture, the page of the user who took the picture and the main page of the site that hosts the picture.

Here are some examples of trips with many, cool geotagged photos:

San Francisco walk

Bike Ride from Eureka to Gualala

Bikeride through Taipei, Taiwan

Siclista Mt. Diablo Ride

Grand Island Hike, MI

(please not that some of these trips have so many photos that they may take a little while to load )

Since we upgraded EveryTrail to version 2 in September, the trip creation process became much easier. It has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of newly posted trips, even though we are in the slow season. This promises lots of new trips this coming Spring!

There are 3 ways to create trips at EveryTrail:

Upload a GPX file (or many other types of GPS files)
On the “create trip” page you can directly upload GPX files or other types of GPS files. Just use the simple upload form, and you will be taken through the next steps (adding pictures and adding a description).

Thanks to our partnership with GPSVisualizer.com we support many different GPS files including but not limited to: GPX, Sony CS1-GPS, GlobalSat DG100, OziExplorer, Geocaching.com (.loc), IGC sailplane logs, Garmin Forerunner (.xml/.hst/.tcx), Timex Trainer (v1.3+), Cetus GPS, PathAway, cotoGPS, CompeGPS, TomTom (.pgl), IGN Rando (.rdn), Emtac Trine, Suunto X9/X9i (.sdf), NetStumbler/WiFiFoFum, GPSManager.

Upload directly from your device using the EveryTrail GPS Connector
You can use the EveryTrail GPS Connector, a lightweight downloadable desktop application (currently windows only and Garmin only), to upload your GPS logs directly into your EveryTrail account. To use the Connector, simply download the app (it should only take a couple of seconds, since it’s only 465 kb, download it here), type your EveryTrail username and password in the “upload preferences” section, then connect your GPS device and click “Upload data”. By default all your GPS data will then be sent into your EveryTrail account. If you want to choose specific waypoints and tracks to be sent into your account, you can hit the “cancel full upload ” link before the upload starts and then select which data to upload. Once the upload is complete, go to “Create Trip” at the EveryTrail website and select the track(s) that make up your trip, and then click “Continue”.

Draw on the map
Don’t have GPS data? Don’t worry. You can draw your route on the map. Just hit “Continue” on the first step of “Create trip” and you can draw your route on a Google Map.

Yesterday we launched keyword search. There are now 3 ways to search trips created by other EveryTrail members:

Trip directory
Access the directory by clicking browse trips, or by clicking on a city, state/province, country or activity on any view trip page. Trips are by default ordered by “popularity” (number of votes and number of page views), but you can also order by trip creation date by selecting “sort by recent”. You can find the trips of your choice by selecting locations, and/or activities. The directory is structured as a “facet search” system, meaning that you can select trip attributes in the order of your choice. For example, you can first select a location, and then an activity, or the other way around. This makes it easy and fun to find the trips that interest you.

The world map
The EveryTrail world map enables you to browse all public trips on a map interface. You can zoom and pan the map to locate the area of your choice or use the search function to instantly zoom in to the location of your choice. The map always shows the most popular trips within the current mao view. Just zoom in to see more trips.

Keyword search
The third way to search is by using the newly added keyword search function. Simply type in one or more keywords in the search box and you’ll get a list of trips that include the keyword of your choice.