Fife is a Scottish region best known as the home of golf. But Sean Makin’s project aims to uncover another side to this special area: its beautiful hiking trails.
With the help of CM Routes Manager, Sean is showing them to his local and global community of nature lovers and outdoor enthusiasts.
Sean Makin describes himself as a “keen hillwalker” who has “often searched for routes online through hillwalking websites and online communities.”
Looking across the farmland of North East Fife to the distant Lomond Hills/ Credit: Creative Commons
He loves traveling to the Highlands of Scotland to hike, but in the summer of 2016 was unable to do so due to work commitments. Staying indoors was not an option, so the search for good trails closer to home began.
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Creating a Hub For Hikers
“I noticed that there were very few references to walking routes in my home county of Fife, which surprised me as there are many amazing places to walk in the region,” the hiker explains.
Makin then spoke with friends about creating a free website for walkers where they could share information about their favorite trails.
“That is how Walk Fife was born,” he says.
One of the 100+ routes on the website. The view includes route information, share buttons, the map, and the elevation graph
The Challenge: Easily Shareable Maps
Even with the support of friends, the task was not easy. In order to be a user-friendly hub for hikers, the WordPress website required significant visual and functional enhancements.
“We needed a plugin that could allow routes to be plotted online while also allowing for GPX files to be uploaded and then displaying these on a map. We also wanted users to be able to download the GPX files so they could use them on their own devices,” Makin explains.
The Index Map allows filtering to find specific routes
The Plan: Look For a Routes Manager Plugin
Searching for this solution involved time and effort: “I tried the many different plugins over the course of three months prior to launching the website.”
Makin was finally able to relax after settling on CM Map Routes Manager. As he recounts:
“It ticked all the boxes and it had a number of excellent extra features as well. The plugin manages each of these tasks with ease and more such as search listings, filtering of categories and much more.”
“The CM Map Routes Manager was the perfect fit when it came to sharing walking routes,” he sums up.
Route map with Satellite View. The maps also have buttons for sharing the route or downloading it as GPX or KML, as highlighted
The Result: “A Great Experience” With CM Routes Manager
“A great experience!” is how Makin describes using the plugin on Walk Fife and the potential it has given his project. “CM Map Routes Manager has allowed many people to share their walking routes from across Fife with others and we have begun to build a community of walkers throughout Scotland.”
The feedback has been consistent, as many people using the website have commented that they like how easy it is to access routes, “Which is precisely what we were looking to provide,” he says.
As for Makin, he is happy to see the website and the community grow. And also, the plugin: “Having used the plugin over the past year and seeing it grow in functionality and how it has improved with each update, I am really looking forward to see how CM further develops the plugin.”
This is just one case of using our wordpress plugins for travel website, however this solution can improve many more kinds of websites.
To see CM Routes Manager in action, visit Walk Fife.
More Previews of Walk Fife
Routes List on the website, showing thumbnail, name, distance and duration
This full route view shows map, elevation graph, route information, and description
