I’m in the midst of reorganizing how Florida Hikes subscribers can access GPX and KML file downloads. The first of five pages is now up and ready for use, providing file downloads arranged by city and grouped logically. If you’re a subscriber, log in and follow the new menu option on your right hand menu for Central Florida, or go directly to http;//www.floridahikes.com/gps-central-florida to try it out.

Jump in and look for whatever trail or destination you need to on FloridaHikes.com, and now you’ll find it! The default search was kind of wonky, so I finally replaced it with a custom Google search that not only searches all 1,000+ pages of the main site but grabs content from My Florida Hikes and this blog as well. When you’re looking for a trail, you’ll find it now! Thanks to all those who provided suggestions. I’ll be installing it on this blog and MyFloridaHikes.com as well.

Now that it’s hiking season again, I’m getting a flurry of inquiries about logistics for backpacking the Ocala National Forest. It’s the top destination for backpackers in Florida due to 70 unbroken miles of the Florida Trail leading from Clearwater Lake to Buckman Lock, well-marked, well-maintained, and dating back to the late 1960s, so the footpath is pretty obvious.

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be adding all of the Florida Trail segments on the eastern side of the Ocala National Forest to the Florida Hikes! website, with many of them featured in-depth as the Hike-A-Week for subscribers.  In the meantime, to start the series, I’ve added a new page on the website to assist all backpackers planning their journey on this popular section of the Florida Trail:

Backpacking the Ocala National Forest

A visual and functional overhaul - plus more goodies for subscribers - was part of the reason I was so quiet this past week. I also fit in some hiking, too, but the big news is the new look and functionality of Florida Hikes! Let me run down some of the special features for you….

1) A new look, with easier-to-read text and a text sizing option in the upper right
2) All menu items are now on the top of the page, leaving more room for content on the articles and hikes pages.
3) Login for subscribers is now at the top right of all pages
4) Featured article gallery with four major articles
5) You can order guidebooks directly from the front page, below my welcome message
6) The subscription info includes a Hike-A-Week sample on the front page right sidebar
7) A new Weather module on the front page lets you type (and retain) your town, so you can pick up your weather forecast whenever you visit
8.  Hiking galleries on the front page. Each showcases the five most recent hikes added to a region, with click-through on the photo (or below it) to details. You can collapse or move these modules around, depending on your regional interest
9) Latest video and images from MyFloridaHikes in the right sidebar, along with click-through to MyFloridaHikes and links to great places to get gear
10) Links to specific cities and highways have been moved to the bottom of the page. You can also access them through the top menu: Hikes by City, Hikes by Topic, and Hikes by Place

In addition, subscribers now have access to 630 different GPX and KML files, which I’m slowly organizing and classifying by region. I’ve also added the Hike-A-Week archive for subscribers, by popular request, so if you’re a new subscriber you won’t miss out on what’s already been presented…29 weeks of hiking thus far!

More updates are in the works, but I hope you find this new site easier to navigate and more useful to you. I’m adding in more trail maps little by little - please note that in Internet Explorer, you are not seeing the whole map, and I’m working with the software folks to fix that - and with the help of a friend, will be greatly expanding content for you over the summer months. If you’re not already a subscriber, please dive in! And if you are, or just a fan of the site, I’d appreciate your feedback on what functionality, features, or products I could add in the future to make it more valuable to you. Thanks!

When I moved the new version of Florida Hikes! to a new version of software, I zapped out the hit counters, which started back in September 2007. Some of the pages were climbing up to 10,000 hits, but heck, hand-coding them one by one seemed a little crazy. I did a few and then said, why bother! So I zeroed them all out.

The lists of hikes that come up under the various menu options let you sort by hits so you can see what’s popular. Eventually.