When

The weekend of 18th – 20th May

Where

The general feeling when I asked for ideas a week or so ago was somewhere in the Peak District – I am still open for suggestions, but one good option would be Monsal Head (where @terrybnd held the outdoor blogger’s meet last year) as there is a range of accommodation options (nearby campsite, hotel and probably some BnBs) and a pub.

What

This depends a lot on who is coming, but in very basic terms socialising in the evenings and outdoor activities during the day – I will set up a Google Plus post for people coming along so we can discuss options!

Who

Anyone is welcome – whilst it will be a great chance to chat to other Social Hikers on how to get the best out of the site (and to me on what features you want adding), it is more about meeting fellow Social Hikers and other people who share the same interests and spending some time together in the outdoors!

How

If you would like to come along, then get in touch by email, on Twitter or via Facebook and Google Plus, and we can take it from there.

Another Long Walk

The decision was made after a long post-walk discussion with Zoe Watham, who I walked a big chunk of the 365-mile South West Coast Path with last year and in the knowledge that the coast path was due to open in 2012. It seemed like a logical objective.

The original idea was just to walk it for myself, but then one day I had the bright idea of doing something for a good cause at the same time, so I thought why not raise money towards my School’s (St David’s College) PTA who wanted funds to help build a new classroom for the Outdoor Education department.

A Good, Outdoor Cause

We had talked about wanting a new classroom for some time of having an Eco classroom, which would be energy efficient and ecologically sound, and to provide a more simulating classroom to help teach our pupils.

Our outdoor Education department provides huge range of activities to all the pupils in the school from Year 6 to upper 6th form, and many of our pupils that don’t do well in the classroom excel in outdoor education. I love to see my pupils getting enthused about being outdoors and seeing not only their personal skills, but also their skills as working as part of team and helping them discover new and challenging adventures in the outdoors that will give them memories that will last them a lifetime, which in itself is motivation to do this walk.

I’ve been lucky enough to have had a lot of kit donated for the walk including, Osprey, Rab, Viewranger, Thermarest, Ribzwear, Targetdry, Planet Fear, Joe Browns, Cotswold Outdoors, Arriva Trains Wales, Sawyer Water Filters, Sea to Summit & Oookworks. Further details of my kit can be found on my blog.

Sharing My Adventure

On this amazing adventure I’ll be using the Viewranger App and this will be linked to the Social Hiking website. I had the pleasure of meeting Phil at an OS Opendata day and his talk on the Social Hiking website was great. Social Hiking will allow friends, family, parents & anyone else to be able to follow me and see my position on my map, along with being able to see my photos, videos and audio blogs which will show up on my map.

I am hoping to take at least a photo every mile along the walk, giving viewers a real sense of the wide range of landscapes that I’ll be passing through on the 870 mile trip.  Once I get home I want to turn the 870 photos in to a video short film too oh and have arranged to meet Mike Parker of Map Addict Fame, when I get up towards mid wales

Social Hiking has a great new Just Giving  plugin on the site which allows viewers of my online map to be able to donate to my Just Giving page which means people who don’t know about my walk to be able to give too.

For this walk I’ll be using my new Samsung Galaxy Note phone on the Three network. It’s a huge phone with a great size screen which will be great for blogging and using Viewranger with.  The Note has great battery life, despite having such a large screen. I did a section of the Anglesey coast path a few weeks ago, and I still had 65% battery left, even with Viewranger and GPS running. My old iPhone would have run out of battery after a few hours.

Get In Touch

Anyone that would be interested in sponsoring my walk or would like to offer any kind of support can find details below:-

Email: swebb@stdavidscollege.co.uk
Twitter: @dragonwalk2012
Justgiving: www.justgiving.com/Dragonwalk2012
Share My Adventure: http://www.shareyouradventure.com/map/os/DragonWalk2012/Dragonwalk-2012

Getting Crowded Out There…

Finally, having spoken to others, I’ve found a fair few people planning on doing the path; these include Arry Beresford-Webb who I believe is the 1st person to do the WCP running 1027 miles around the Coast path and Offa’s Dyke. This is an attempt to raise £25,000 for the Velindre Cancer Centre Stepping Stones appeal and Gozo CCU Foundation. Details can be found here dragonrun1027.wordpress.com.

Then there’s Dave Quarrell who could be the 2nd person to do the WCP is setting off on his 1027 mile adventure around the same route on the 5th May from Cardiff.  Dave hopes to raise at least £20,000 for Cancer Research Wales, in memory of his father, Gerry, who died this year from stomach cancer. Dave’s father Gerry Quarrell was a key figure in the creation of the WCP. Details of Dave’s walk can be found here www.walkwales1027.com

All being well Zoe Watham will be hot on the heels playing catch with me on the Wales Coast Path, Zoe’s website is www.wathwalk.com – she is walking for Julia’s House Children’s Hospice, Woofability Assistance Dogs and Parkstone Grammar School Design & Technology Department.

When you add (or edit) a track map, there is now a new option, under ‘Other Settings’, for you to add the url of your JustGiving page:

When a map has a JustGiving web address, Social Hiking will add a ‘Charity’ tab to your media browser automatically – this tab will give details of the charity you are fundraising for, a button linking to your JustGiving page, details of your fundraising to date and the last few donations. A JustGiving icon will also appear on your map summary (on the homepage, track listing page and your user page), so visitors can see at a glance that you are raising money for charity.

What is the TGO Challenge?

The TGO Challenge is an annual self-supported walking event across the Highlands of Scotland, west coast to east coast. The Challenge is held every May and is sponsored by TGO, the walkers’ magazine, in partnership with Rab, the outdoor equipment specialist. You can find out more on the TGO Challenge website and the TGO website.

(Please note Social Hiking is not endorsed or certified by the organisers of the TGO Challenge nor their partners or sponsors. We are providing unofficial support at the request of our users.)

How Social Hiking can help you share your adventure?

Social Hiking let’s you:

a) create a live updating map of your journey including tweets, photos, videos and audio uploaded live

b) create a record of your trip (or update your live map) by uploading gpx tracks, photos taken using your camera and recorded videos and audio when you have a wifi signal (or when you get home)

c) include your map on a group map, so visitors can view all the maps challengers are sharing on Social Hiking live on a single map (last year’s group map can be viewed at http://www.shareyouradventure.com/map/os/socialhiking/TGO-Challenge-2011).

Getting Setup

The following is a quick guide to getting setup on Social Hiking – if you need any further help, please do not hesitate to email support@shareyouradventure.com, post a comment on this post, or get in touch on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Login & Register

If you are not already registered on Social Hiking, visit shareyouradventure.com and click the ‘Sign in with Twitter’ button on the top right (currently a Twitter account is required to register, but is not otherwise a requirement to use the site).

Complete the registration form – only your username (which defaults to your Twitter screen name, your name and your email address are required fields, the rest can be left as the default values although we would recommend you choose to follow SocialHiking on Twitter and sign up to our occasional newsletter).

Location Sources

If you wish to have a live updating map, you need to add a location source. The following options can be accessed from the ‘Location Sources’ tab on Social Hiking:

• SPOT – to add a SPOT device you first need to create a public shared page on the SPOT portal and take a note of the web address of this page. In Social Hiking, select the ‘SPOT’ tab and then click ‘Setup SPOT’. Enter the web address of your SPOT public shared page. If you have a SPOT tracker, you can choose to ‘use only the track beacons (so your check in messages are not shared) to create your map (if you are manually sending beacons, please do not select this option).
• ViewRanger (available on Symbian, Android and iPhone) – Social Hiking supports ViewRanger’s BuddyBeacon feature. Once you have setup BuddyBeacon (for help visit http://www.viewranger.com/support),  return to Social Hiking, select the ‘ViewRanger BuddyBeacon’ tab and click ‘Setup ViewRanger BuddyBeacon’ button. Enter your ViewRanger BuddyBeacon username (this can also be an email address) and pin. As mobile signal is likely to be intermittent, you are recommended to ensure ‘Send Old Positions’ is switched on in your ViewRanger phone settings, and ‘Record Multiple Locations’ is enabled on ViewRanger’s portal – this allows beacons to be stored when you are out of signal (although please note that these are lost if the app closes or crashes).
• InstaMapper (available on most mobile phones) – For more information on InstaMapper please visit http://www.instamapper.com/. Once you have installed the app, you need to create an account on the InstaMapper website, connect your device to your account and then enable API access – this will give you an API key. In Social Hiking, select the ‘InstaMapper’ tab and then click ‘Setup InstaMapper’. Enter your API key from the InstaMapper website.
• Media - You can also use Twitter to create points on your map (please see ‘Linked Accounts’ below)

Linked Accounts

Linking media accounts allows you to add easily add tweets, photos, video, audio and other media to your maps.

• Twitter -  to link a Twitter account (and related accounts), select ‘Twitter’ from the drop down menu and select ‘Link a new account’.  Enter your Twitter username. If you wish you can choose a hashtag (for example #sh) to limit the tweets that appear on your map. If you wish you can also choose to use Twitter to create points on your map by selecting Use Geotags? Finally you can choose to also link other accounts related to your Twitter account including Twitter photos, Twitpics and (if it is your own Twitter account) your Twitter mentions (to create threaded conversations).
• Camera Photos - if you want to include photos from your camera, then you need to link either a Flickr or Picasa account. When you upload your photos to either of these services, Social Hiking will link them to the correct location of your map based on the time taken (so you need to make sure your camera has the correct time).
• Other Media – to make a multi-media map you can also include other services like Instagram (photos), Audioboo (for small podcasts) and Bambuser (for videos).

Go for a test

With everything setup, you have done the hard part! Now head outdoors to do a test. With everything setup correctly, you just need to switch on your chosen location source and begin sharing media – Social Hiking will automatically create a map using the data collected.

Final TGO Setup and Joining the Group Map

Assuming your test worked (if not just get in touch so we can check everything for you) – the final setup needed is to create your map ready for your challenge.

• Login to Social Hiking and click ‘Your Maps’, then select ‘Setup Track’
• Enter a title, and choose a start and end date for your map (this can be approximate, you can always change it when you get back)
• If you wish enter a description
• If you would like others to view your map, to embed your map in your website, or to join the group map, you need to choose ‘Public’ as the privacy setting
• Save the map
• To add your map to the TGO 2012 (unofficial) group map, visit http://www.shareyouradventure.com/map/os/socialhiking/TGO-Challenge-2012-unofficial, and in the ‘Maps’ tab select ‘Add a map’ and choose your TGO Challenge map you created above (and a colour).

That’s it – you are all setup and ready to share your adventure!

Other Stuff

Here are a few advanced features you might want to take a look at:

• Embed your map in your website or blog
• Use @advbot to add context to your tweets during the challenge
• Add your full route as a layer to your live map
• Add comments to your map
• Link media accounts for your hiking companions

Whether you are sharing your challenge on Social Hiking or not, I would like to wish you the best of luck!

Social Hiking treats each media account linked to the site as a separate entity – your twitter feed is separate to your twitter photos for example. This has two clear advantages:

Firstly it gives you massive flexibility – you can link multiple accounts of the same type, so for example you can link your twitter account (with your hashtag) and the twitter account of your friends or partner who you regularly walk with (with their hashtags), you can include your twitpic photos without including the related tweet (by not including your hashtag in the description), or you could include some twitter photos without also including the tweet (by using different hashtags).

The second advantage is that each media type is nicely classified – Twitter photos are treated in the same way as other photo accounts (for example Flickr, Picasa etc), whereas the same tweet, added via your linked Twitter account, is treated in a different way (as a tweet, with the potential to have threaded conversations displayed).

The disadvantage is that it is more complicated – for Twitter in particular, you need to add a linked account separately for tweets, your mentions, twitter photos and twitpics. This is also probably not what a user would expect – surely if you link a Twitter account, you should also get the mentions and photos without more steps?!

Having flexibility is important and classifying media has some great uses that you will see in future updates, however I have just rolled out a modification that should make the process of linking accounts related to Twitter much easier.

From now on, when you add a new Twitter account to link (or edit an existing one), you will have the option to also create linked accounts for related media like threaded conversations (if the Twitter account is your own), Twitter photos, Twitpic and Twitgoo – simply select the accounts you want to add and the site will automatically create the necessary accounts.

Social Hiking is all about you: our users and supporters – I cannot tell you how amazed I have been by your enthusiasm and support,  the initiative ways you are using the site (pushing the boundaries of what it can do), and how you are creating a community around it. You are all awesome!

Until now, the features on the site have grown organically based on some amazing suggestions and feedback (like the peak bagging feature, combi maps, better media support, improved map loading speeds and showing planned routes on live tracks) and selfishly for my own use (like @advbot). This organic growth has meant that some features are still a bit rough around the edges and there is still no user guide – so apologies for the learning curve required to get to grips with the site and some of the features (and thank you to everyone who has been providing adhoc support).

Over the last few months I have been watching how you have been using the site, reading your suggestions and mulling over the future direction for Social Hiking and putting together a short and long term development road map for changes and new features. This plan will not be published, but it includes features suggested by users and a few of my own including some innovative features I know you are going to love!

The aims of Social Hiking remains the same:

• To help you share your adventure, big or small, with your online world and beyond
• To make it as easy for you as possible to share out in the field
• To respect your media content
• To support the software and services you already use
• To help foster an online community
• To help inspire people to head outdoors on their own adventures

Social Hiking is a project I work on in my free time. Other than a case of beer and some generous donations from users for a charity walk last year, there is no funding supporting the site. Costs are still relatively low (it costs around £50-£75 per month to keep the site running) but the biggest limiting factor is time – juggling paid-work, my own outdoor adventures and a home life means there is precious little time available for updates and support. As such the road map does include several means for future revenue to allow me to commit more time to it – however I want to reassure you though that I am completely committed to ensuring that the vast majority of features (both existing and new) are available to individuals free of charge and that any revenue source is not at odds with the aims of Social Hiking.

How you can help

Your enthusiasm is awesome – seeing you spreading the word about Social Hiking, offering to help out other users, and interacting with each other both on Social Hiking and beyond is really rewarding and helps motivate me to drive the site forward.

Although the road map for the future will be dynamic and will change as time progresses, it would be really helpful to hear your ideas and suggestions. If you visit our Customer Services Community you can flick through some of the ideas other users have had. If you like one please vote for it – the more votes something has the more likely it is to be included into the plan and implemented. Please also add your own ideas and suggestions – no matter how crazy, obvious or ‘out of the box’ you think they might be!

Finally I am also starting to put together a much needed help wiki to explain the features of Social Hiking, how they work and how to make the most of them. I would really appreciate the help of some volunteers to help me with the writing process (and in translation).

You can get in touch on Twitter, Facebook or by email.

Thank you everyone for your support and for sharing your adventures!

I would especially like to take the opportunity to thank: Karen, Sam, Phil, Tim, Chris, Jilly, Richard, Tookie, Gareth, Mike, Dave, Andrew, Martin, Dean, Karen, Colin, Andy, Basti, Jens and Steven for their ongoing support of and passion for Social Hiking (really sorry if there is anyone I have missed!)

Phil
Founder of Social Hiking

To solve this (and to provide some great new features), I would like to introduce you to @advbot, the Social Hiking Bot (please note this feature is not currently available for users as it is under final testing, however please let me know if you would like to give it a try)

The Social Hiking Bot uses direct messages – as an example if you send a direct message to @advbot saying ‘status’ – you will get a message back giving you a status of your last (or current) track map. For example:

Status: LIVE – hiking – public – 7 beacons – 0 miles – 4 Dec 2011 16:13 Europe/London – comments ON -http://bit.ly/u2sljM

At a glance this lets you see whether your map is live, it’s privacy, how many beacons it includes, current length, the timestamp when a beacon was last received, whether comments are on or off and finally a link to your map.

To give your tweets context, the Social Hiking Bot has a feature called ‘echo’ – send it a direct message with ‘echo’ followed by a message (for example “echo Heading up this huge hill”), and the bot will create a new tweet, link it to your map (if possible), and will then send the tweet on your behalf (using your account) adding your hashtag and a link to the specific location on your map (using the example above, it would tweet something like “Heading up this huge hill http://linktolocationonmap #sh”). When someone clicks on the link, they will be taken to your map, zoomed in to the tweet’s location (and the info window will automatically open).

This feature means that you can give any tweet (including, depending on the app you use, tweets containing photos) context as a part of your entire route!

More information on this feature will follow when it is available to all (please let me know if you would like to test it). The feature will be disabled by default when it launches, so you will need to enable it.

[UPDATE – This feature is now live (as an alpha release). To enable it, go to ‘Your Settings’ – ‘Social Settings’

There are obviously a lot of other uses for @advbot – I have a list, but if you want to add your suggestion then let me know on Twitter, Facebook or on our Customer Support Community.

On Saturday 9th April 2011 at 11.12am Jilly Sherlock set off from Felixstowe on a heavily laden bike ‘heading East’ – on 9th November, 7 months to the day since leaving, she arrived in China having cycled a whopping 9955km with at least 60000m of altitude gain – with every kilometre shared on Social Hiking. Whilst taking a break before the next leg of her journey, I caught up with Jilly for a quick email chat about the adventure so far and what her plans were for the next leg.

Photo left by Lee Hughes (via Jilly)

As the name suggests I originally had quite a limited vision of what Social Hiking could be used for, so it was a bit of a surprise when Jilly got in touch, only a few days before setting out, about using the site for her trip. Jilly has a SPOT Personal Tracker – as well as being able to send regular check in messages and emergency alerts to family and friends, the device allows you to ping your location on a regular basis. Once hooked into Social Hiking, Jilly could combine these locations (SPOT uses satellites direct so does not require a mobile phone network and have a long battery life) with any photos or tweets she was able to send on her phone when in signal.

The end result is a media rich map which her family, friends and supporters can follow live as her adventure progresses.

Personally I have found following Jilly’s remarkable adventure absolutely amazing – as the route unfolds with tweets and photos, it really gives you a chance to share in something few of us would ever attempt ourselves, and has opened up parts of the world to me that previously were just names on a map.

Whilst Jilly has a well earned break before the next leg of her journey, I caught up with her for a quick email chat about the adventure so far and what her plans were for the next leg:

What’s your favourite bit so far?

ok.. favourite bit so far has to be the people I’ve encountered. The hospitality, generosity and warmth I’ve received has been humbling and at times overwhelming.

What’s been the worst bit so far?

Worst bit so far has been the last 2 weeks: trying to sort out the fraudulent use of my bank card with Barclays bank was more exhausting than cycling up a 4655m pass on the Pamir Highway.

What was the Pamir Highway like?

The 1000km route through Tajiikistan along the Pamir Highway was exhilarating, freezing, terrifying and at times exhausting. Due to my short term memory I have thankfully forgotten already how miserable it was camping at 4100m with my visa expiry clock ticking away and pushing my bike thru snow and over unforgiving mountain passes during their worst November snow in 20 years. Fingertips are still numb! Yet what a stunning and remote part of the world and it was an experience that will remain with me for many years to come.

Tajikistan at 4300m: struggling with snow and altitude (photo from 360fokbringa.hu via Jilly)

How did it feel to reach China?

Cycling to the Chinese border after being holed up for 2 days on the Kyrgyzstan side due to the border being closed for a week was a delight. When I reached the ornate iron gates I must admit I did have a slight lump in my throat yet this could partially be blamed on trying to swallow an overambitious bite of frozen Snicker bar.

Where next?

ha ha – well of course I’m pedalling East! Leaving tomorrow to head east on the southern silk road towards Hotan. At Xining, (some 3000km from where I am now) I will make my decision whether to head due south or – you never know – I may continue east…

Xmas will be spent in the most desolate and inhospitable landscape: almost got depressed when I looked at the satellite view but I hope to don a red nose on a Bactarian camel, hang my Merino wool stocking outside my tent and tuck into another bowl of instant noodles.

On a final note can I say a huge thanks for all the love and support I’ve received from my dear family and friends; to all the Social Hiking bods and Twitter friends who have egged me on and thanks of course to you Phil for your patience and brilliant work on Social Hiking.

Merry Xmas to you all & tailwinds….

You can find Jilly on Twitter (@jillysherlock), read her blog of her journey (http://sherlocktales.blogspot.com/) and follow her travels live on Social Hiking (http://www.shareyouradventure.com/)

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jilly for her truly remarkable and fantastic journey so far, and for giving us the chance to share her adventure with her. Best of luck for the next leg and happy Christmas Jilly!

Jilly has probably done more for Social Hiking than she realises – her first map crashed as she reached Germany! Since then a lot of the performance upgrades have been added to ensure her maps continue to load as quick as possible – in fact part of the last upgrade included media caching to further speed up the loading times of all her tweets and photos (and all the necessary back-end scheduling to facilitate it) – something all users will benefit from. Jilly is also pioneering new settings and features, like her camp site icons, and has helped me further improve the experience for people following someone on their adventure.

If you want to share your adventure, whether big or small, then sign up for Social Hiking and give it a whirl.

After a suggestion from Hendrik at Hiking in Finland,  keen Social Hiker Pilgrim Chris took on the baton and got in touch with Bambuser, a nifty video app, about possible integration. The team there were really helpful and interested in what Social Hiking does.

Thanks to their easy to use API, I am please to announce that Bambuser integration is now live!!

Like the Qik integration, your Bambuser videos can be viewed in-page by visitors whilst looking at your map – we have added a check for live streaming videos and added an appropriate message to notify visitors that your video is live right now (so they can interact with you direct through Bambuser’s website).

Social Hiking will keep an eye on the status of your last 25 videos, and will automatically update the video status (live or not) and the title (so you can update your title later). There is currently no ‘garbage’ collection (removing deleted or videos set to private after being published) – for now Bambuser displays a suitable notification and this feature will be added at a later date with the media management tools on their way.

The most exciting feature of Bambuser however is that, like Audioboo, Picasa and Flickr, the date used for videos is the date the video was created (not the date uploaded) – this means that you can record your video and upload it later when you are back in signal (or have stopped for the night) and Social Hiking will still link the video to the correct location.

Bambuser videos can also be directly geo-located, and in the future an option will be available to use this information to create a beacon on your map (ideal for those users who do not use ViewRanger, Instamapper or SPOT).

For information on how to sign up and download Bambuser, please have a look at: http://bambuser.com/. To link your Bambuser account to Social Hiking, click ‘Linked Accounts’ and choose Bambuser from the list!

A big thanks to Hendrik, Chris and the team at Bambuser for making this happen so fast!

N.B. The integration has been tested for GMT – it should work for BST and other time zones, but this has not been tested. If you encounter any linking issues, just let me know and I will investigate!