Hey all - I was just wondering if anyone posts walks up on walking websites like walkhighlands and what they get out of it? it must take a long time! would maybe like to do something like it myself but wouldn't know where to start really!
I've never posted on Walk Highlands but I suppose it offers people a ready made template to post their trip reports without having to worry about setting up or maintaining a blog/website. And there seems to be a community of regular posters who know and interact with each other (a bit like here).
There are some really entertaining and interesting trip reports on WH and it's a useful resource. Same with the Happy Hiker and Walking Englishman sites, I think. I do plot my own routes and that's part of the fun for me but there are always things that a map (or even an aerial image) can't tell you so it's handy to have access to the kind of "on the ground" info that they provide. And if you don't want to plot your own walk then obviously they are a great resource for finding complete routes to follow.
I started out writing trip reports before I decided to have a blog. I like the latter because:
1) Everything's collected together in one place.
2) Like BuzyG, it provides me with a "journal" through which I can re-visit walks I've done.
3) The act of writing keeps my brain ticking over and makes me think - though I do find it hard work sometimes. I guess I have to be in the right frame of mind to do it but it is worthwhile and satisfying.
4) I hope it can be useful to other people - although I don't provide routes as such, I do try to provide any useful info from my own experiences for people who might be walking in a particular area. Thinking of walk I did where I was looking for images and details about a "bad step"beforehand and I couldn't find anything, I tried to give as much detail as possible about that when I wrote it up afterwards for anyone else doing the same route.