Trekopedia is a community-driven project. While we do extensive first-hand research ourselves, it is the amazing feedback we get from others in the hiking and cycling community that enables us to expand and improve the content of our trail datasets.
You can make a huge difference simply by providing feedback and helping with research while you are on the trail.
Any of the following would help immensely:
Verify coordinates for locations – You can easily do this by taking a geo-located photo while you are at that location. If you are using a smartphone app / GPS receiver with our GPS tracks and/or waypoints, you can also compare your current position against our GPS data. If you are recording your own hike, add a waypoint for the location and then send us your GPS data after your hike. We store all submitted GPS data in a master database as each datapoint helps refine the accuracy of our data (reducing the inherent GPS error margin).
Send us coordinates for new locations – If we don’t have something in our trail dataset that you think should be there, let us know about it using the same approach as outlined above for verifying coordinates. Geo-located photos are especially helpful for new locations. Describe the location if possible and send us an email. We are interested in bridges, stiles, gates, hazards, areas that might be confusing, and so on, as well as attractions, accommodations, services, and other ‘obvious’ things. The more details you can provide, the better!
Send geo-located photos – If you are taking photos with your smartphone, enable geo-location in your photos and then send us as many photos as you can. We can use the geo-location information in the photos to help us refine the information on the route. To enable geo-location on an iPhone go into the Settings app, tap on Privacy and then on Location Services. Make sure Location Services is enabled and then enable it specifically for the Camera app. Now all your photos will be geo-located! On Android, enable geo-location inside your camera app’s Settings screen (you are looking for the “Save location” option). Important: you have to enable geo-location before taking the photos! If possible, please send some notes / descriptions / captions to help give context to the photos. Feel free to send photos via email during your hike or we can arrange a bulk transfer using Google Drive / Dropbox after your hike. Tip: We’ll happily accept photos for any long-distance trails, even if we don’t currently cover it.
Send us your GPS tracks – If you recorded your own walk using GPS software, send us the GPS track. We will add it to our database of ‘reference tracks’. We use these to help us spot potential problem areas along the trail that we might need to address in our own tracks. It also helps us refine our own tracks – GPS has inherent errors and one of the best ways of minimizing those errors is by ‘averaging’ multiple tracks.
Share tips & suggestions – Send us any tips / suggestions that you think would be useful for others doing the trail. This includes both tips about the trail itself as well as suggestions about good online resources, trip reports, planning tools, and so on.
Write trail-related articles – If you have first-hand experience with the trail or locations / points-of-interest along it and are interested in writing articles to share with the community, let us know. We’re interested in everything from trail overviews to historical background on attractions to planning the trip to collections of insider tips.
Recommend and/or help research new trails – If you know of a great trail that you think we should cover within Trekopedia, please let us know. Requests from the Trekopedia community are a key factor in which trails we prioritize for researching. If you are interested in helping us research a trail and creating a trail dataset for it, contact us and we will happily put you to work! 🙂
Tip: When sending us feedback emails while on the trail, you don’t have to enable your data connection. Instead, simply create and ‘send’ the email like you would when you have a connection. Your email app will hold the email until you have an Internet connection and then send it at that time (typically when you have WiFi at your accommodation or at a café). That way, you can write notes whenever it is convenient and while information is fresh in your mind.
Note: We will often quote your feedback and give attribution for it when we incorporate that feedback in our datasets. For example, we often include an attribution like “Thanks to Carol Smith for helping update this item.” If you don’t want us to quote you or include any attribution, please say so in your feedback email. Also, if you have a blog or website, we’ll try to include a link back to that site – just send us the link.
Thanks for helping!
You can make a huge difference simply by providing feedback and helping with research while you are on the trail.
Any of the following would help immensely:
Verify coordinates for locations – You can easily do this by taking a geo-located photo while you are at that location. If you are using a smartphone app / GPS receiver with our GPS tracks and/or waypoints, you can also compare your current position against our GPS data. If you are recording your own hike, add a waypoint for the location and then send us your GPS data after your hike. We store all submitted GPS data in a master database as each datapoint helps refine the accuracy of our data (reducing the inherent GPS error margin).
Send us coordinates for new locations – If we don’t have something in our trail dataset that you think should be there, let us know about it using the same approach as outlined above for verifying coordinates. Geo-located photos are especially helpful for new locations. Describe the location if possible and send us an email. We are interested in bridges, stiles, gates, hazards, areas that might be confusing, and so on, as well as attractions, accommodations, services, and other ‘obvious’ things. The more details you can provide, the better!
Send geo-located photos – If you are taking photos with your smartphone, enable geo-location in your photos and then send us as many photos as you can. We can use the geo-location information in the photos to help us refine the information on the route. To enable geo-location on an iPhone go into the Settings app, tap on Privacy and then on Location Services. Make sure Location Services is enabled and then enable it specifically for the Camera app. Now all your photos will be geo-located! On Android, enable geo-location inside your camera app’s Settings screen (you are looking for the “Save location” option). Important: you have to enable geo-location before taking the photos! If possible, please send some notes / descriptions / captions to help give context to the photos. Feel free to send photos via email during your hike or we can arrange a bulk transfer using Google Drive / Dropbox after your hike. Tip: We’ll happily accept photos for any long-distance trails, even if we don’t currently cover it.
Send us your GPS tracks – If you recorded your own walk using GPS software, send us the GPS track. We will add it to our database of ‘reference tracks’. We use these to help us spot potential problem areas along the trail that we might need to address in our own tracks. It also helps us refine our own tracks – GPS has inherent errors and one of the best ways of minimizing those errors is by ‘averaging’ multiple tracks.
Share tips & suggestions – Send us any tips / suggestions that you think would be useful for others doing the trail. This includes both tips about the trail itself as well as suggestions about good online resources, trip reports, planning tools, and so on.
Write trail-related articles – If you have first-hand experience with the trail or locations / points-of-interest along it and are interested in writing articles to share with the community, let us know. We’re interested in everything from trail overviews to historical background on attractions to planning the trip to collections of insider tips.
Recommend and/or help research new trails – If you know of a great trail that you think we should cover within Trekopedia, please let us know. Requests from the Trekopedia community are a key factor in which trails we prioritize for researching. If you are interested in helping us research a trail and creating a trail dataset for it, contact us and we will happily put you to work! 🙂
Tip: When sending us feedback emails while on the trail, you don’t have to enable your data connection. Instead, simply create and ‘send’ the email like you would when you have a connection. Your email app will hold the email until you have an Internet connection and then send it at that time (typically when you have WiFi at your accommodation or at a café). That way, you can write notes whenever it is convenient and while information is fresh in your mind.
Note: We will often quote your feedback and give attribution for it when we incorporate that feedback in our datasets. For example, we often include an attribution like “Thanks to Carol Smith for helping update this item.” If you don’t want us to quote you or include any attribution, please say so in your feedback email. Also, if you have a blog or website, we’ll try to include a link back to that site – just send us the link.
Thanks for helping!