TrailPhone.net is a free web service for long distance Appalachian Trail hikers. It allows hikers to call a toll free number from any plain old telephone, punch in what mile mark they're at, and record an audio entry. Family and friends (and stranger too) can see a map of each hiker's progress and listen to each hiker's audio entries (and even download an audio podcast to their iPods). Until the site launches, here is a screenshot to give you an idea of what's coming:
3 comments:
That's so awesome!! I've just realized the Trail culture recently. It's amazing. There was this dude at High Point State Park in NJ on the phone, and he was spending his valuable quarters talking about, of all things, other legs of the trail. I'd b calling home to chat about them.
I'd hate to be that guy who brings up another idea right before the site goes live, but what content do you have for the hikers? I heard that half the fun of hiking is reading log books left at spots and such. Just a thought. Good times!
I'm glad to hear your idea is coming together, you never told me you'd even started work on it! eagleapex has an interesting idea too, what if hikers each had their own # on trailphone and other hikers could call it to find out where their friends were. Like when you thought I'd fallen off the edge of the earth, you could've called my trailphone and found out I was still truckin. Just a thought, now get back to work! :)
-Rooney Tunes
Thanks for the ideas. Hikers will be able to listen to each other's entries over the phone too. I'm not sure if TP will launch with that feature, but it will have it eventually... so you'll be able to punch in your friend's hiker ID (or a mile mark value) and it'll play the relevant entries.
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