Where the F.A.Q. did that Menu Go?!

Looking for the F.A.Q. button on the navigation bar? Fear not, dear reader. It has not been eliminated, only relocated (to under the 'About' menu). We want a neat and tidy navigation bar, and we needed to clear some room for our brand new "Interview" button. See it up there?! Right between 'Hiking 101' and 'Reviews'. The interview with Susan Charkes is the sole resident of that area. For now.

You may have noticed a new bar at the bottom of the screen. It's small, it's slight...and, it can be hidden if you so desire (by clicking on the small "down arrows" at the far right of the bar). It is an experiment, nothing more. Another way for you to share any of the articles on this website that you (hopefully) deem share-worthy. 

As always, thank you for reading! Have a great day/night/week/month!

Hiking Mike

Submission Manager Now Open

Hiking with Impunity has added a submission manager that can be found in the "Submissions" menu. This will take you to a website in which you will be able to create an account and upload your articles and photographs for submission. 

We have begun to receive submissions, and will give each and every article the time and attention that they deserve. If you do not receive a reply right away, please be patient. 

Happy Trails!

Submissions Wanted

We're looking for contributors for the Hiking with Impunity website. While Hiking Mike has tied himself to his laptop to bring you riveting content (c'mon, the article about reading a map was riveting! Wait til you see part 2 later this week!), we're pretty sure that our readers would love to hear a different voice on the page. 

Visit our Submissions area here for submission guidelines and a form that you can use to send us your submission.

Hiking with Impunity is looking to publish the following types of articles:

• Reviews of gear and books
• Presentations of hikes from across the country
• Articles regarding planning hikes, using equipment, etc.
• Creative fiction (i.e. poetry and short fiction) related to hiking and/or nature

We're also interested in your pictures as well!

If we like your style and you're a good fit for our website, maybe you'll be the next person featured on our contributor's page!

Happy Trails!

Hiking Mike

Hiking by Category

You may have noticed a slight change in the navigation bar under the masthead. 'Hikes' has been renamed 'Recent Hikes.' Pretty simple, straightforward yet very necessary change. As we partake in more hikes, the original 'Hikes' menu could have become very large and unwieldy indeed. Thus, 'Recent Hikes.' For navigating purposes, we will keep the number of hikes listed under this menu to five, or six, or maybe eight. We still haven't decided!

Oh, but what of our other hikes and future other hikes which will continue to be stored on our shiny, new website? "What of them?" I hear you cry. Fear not! There is another addition to the website you may have noticed at the top of the side-bar called 'Hikes by State.' All the hikes done will remain on the website easily accessible via this break-out menu. Right now, we have two, very close in proximity states listed. Maybe we'll have three by the end of the week, or the end of the month. Surely, by the end of the year! (Have we mentioned that we're accepting submissions?) Regardless, as the number of hikes presented on this website grows, this break-out menu will provide you with a way to view our archived hikes.

We hope you don't mind these minor changes as they will hopefully allow us to serve, inform and entertain you better! Let us know what you think!

Happy trails!

Hiking Mike

P.S. By the way.... Did you notice "In the News?"

Blogging with Impunity #3 - "Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr...Oh My! (aka How Not to Annoy Your Readers)"

When Hiking with Impunity first started, we were just beginning to learn how to tap into the potential of social media - specifically how best to keep our readers informed of updates to the main website of Hiking with Impunity. Admittedly, we probably installed one to many API's (Application Programming Interface) which allowed all of these social media networks to communicate with the main website and vice versa. What exactly does this mean? Anytime we use one social media network, it could potentially flood the other with updates, updates, and more updates.

Each reader accesses the main website for different reasons: some may enjoy the Hike presentations, while others are looking for health and safety tips. Maybe you came to the site looking specifically for reviews. Or, perhaps you just want to see our pictures. Whatever the reason you may be coming to our website, we thank you! But if you're a "fan" on facebook, do you really want to read every tweet of a hike we're on? Probably not!

So, I give you the separation of our social media networks from each other, and what to expect as far as updates from now on:

FaceBook: Readers who "Become a Fan" on FaceBook (and you can visit our facebook page here to become a fan) will now only receive updates regarding newly published articles to the main website, information on articles that we've found that may interest our hiking fans, and broad updates to Hiking with Impunity. No longer will our Twitter feed Facebook (your quite welcome...I'm looking forward to it myself!) - which means our FaceBook fans will no longer be subjected to a flood of tweets from our hikes.

Twitter: If you enjoy finding out not only about our new articles on the website, but also enjoy 'following' us while we are hiking (and seeing all of our fuzzy photos in realtime), you will need to do so on Twitter (which you can do by clicking here). This will be the only way - other than viewing our twitter feed on the main website - of getting real-time updates on our hikes.

Flickr: If you enjoy viewing our photos, you can look at our new photo gallery right here on the main website, or visit our photostream on Flickr here where you can subscribe to our Photography newsfeed at the bottom of the page.

You may come across our other social media network sites (Squidoo or Ning), but rest assured - our main social media networks are Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, and these where all of our major updates will be published. 

Thank you for your patience! We appreciate your support as we come closer to our one month anniversary. We still have more surprises waiting in the wings over the next few weeks. Stay with us! We won't disappoint you!