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myscenicdrives.com adds California!

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

We are happy to announce that we have added California to our site!

California’s rocky coast, mountain ranges, National Forests, and dry deserts – no other State offers such diverse terrain and we are excited to get onto the open road and explore. We hope this inspires you as well.

Our newest drives are:

Of course there’s more to come. If you have a personal favorite, we’d love to hear from you!

We’re getting revved up for the summer season and are continuously adding more scenic drives to California, Oregon and Washington. And keep checking back as we expand in other states!

Tags: california, scenic drives
Posted in Development, Scenic Drives | 1 Comment »

The 2010 Best Northwest Escapes

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

It seems that all we blog about lately is the North Cascade Loop, but we’re not the only ones who find this one breathtaking stretch of road – it just won KING5’s Best Scenic Drive in the 2010 Best of the Northwest Escapes category!

myscenicdrives.com features these drives for the Cascade Loop:

North Cascades Highway: Travels from Sedro Woolley, through Washington Pass and Rainy Pass to Twisp.
Winthrop to Wenatchee: Drive along the Pateros and Entiat Lakes to Chelan and Wenatchee.
Stevens Pass Greenway: From Wenatchee, travel to Leavenworth, through the Tumwater Canyon and Stevens Pass to Monroe.
Whidbey Island: From Monroe, take the ferry to Whidbey Island and drive through the countryside to Deception Pass.

myscenicdrives.com features these drives for KING5’s Best Scenic Drive runner-ups:

Chuckanut Drive: Hugging the cliffs over Chuckanut and Samish Bay, this original Pacific Highway drive travels from Burlington to Bellingham.
San Juan Island Scenic Byway: Our drive focuses on Orcas Island. Drive to the top of Mount Constitution for spectacular views of the San Juan Islands.
The Whidbey Island Scenic Byway: Take the ferry to Whidbey Island and drive through the countryside to Deception Pass.
Hurricane Ridge Road is part of our Olympic Peninsula Loop. Drive in the splendor of the Olympic Mountains.

And this news jives well with our latest feature: rating the drives and places of interests. In the overview of each scenic drive and in most places of interests, we now have a 5 star rating system which gives you a quick and easy opportunity to share your point of view.

Wondering what the places of interests are? While reading our scenic driving guides, you may have noticed the “(H1)” links (each code featuring hikes, water access, food, services, etc.). By clicking these links, the place of interest will be highlighted on the map. After reading, you can reference the map and remember all the stops that had interested you. A few additional places of interests may be found here that are not in the text.

The places of interest are also useful in another way. Say that you want to visit the Cashmere Pioneer Village and Museum. Come to myscenicdrives.com and we’ll show you some scenic routes to get there and other interesting stops nearby.

We hope that you enjoy our new features. If there is anything that would make your scenic adventures simpler, please let us know!

Our newest scenic drive: The Hood Canal Loop: The perfect day trip from Seattle. Head over to the Edmonds/Kingston Ferry, stop in Port Gamble and Port Townsend, and follow the shorelines of the Hood Canal on your way back to Bremerton.

Tags: news, places of interests, rating
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Find scenic drives on the go…

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Have you had a chance to try myscenicdrives.com on your phone or other mobile device? We’ve taken a little extra time to make your mobile experience as special as our desktop experience no matter which phone you use.

Getting started

Start up your browser and go to www.myscenicdrives.com. Our servers will automatically provide you with our mobile experience.

Using our mobile version is just like using our desktop version. You start by telling us where you are. If you are on an Android or IPhone, there’s one more feature that will make your experience even better…

Use your GPS

On Android and IPhone devices, there’s no need to type in your location. We can use your phone’s GPS. From our home page, click the Use GPS button and once you approve that you’re okay with sharing your location with us, we’ll present you with the scenic drives near you. This is a great feature for those times when you are exploring a new area and want to find a scenic route home.

Selecting a drive

Scroll through the list and pick a scenic drive. Each of our drives features a table of contents at the top, allowing you to easily zoom to the features you are most interested in and formatted to minimize scrolling.

Note: Some devices may not display our maps. We are aware of this and are working on a solution.

Heading on the road with your GPS

Whether you are on your desktop or on the road, all of our drives feature GPS directions in the Tools section. While our desktop version supports many formats, our mobile version currently only provides Google Maps Directions (KML) as it is widely available on most phones.

To use these directions, head down to the Tools section of the drive and copy the Google Maps KML link.

Next open Google Maps (or Maps on the IPhone). In the Search field, paste in the link and click Search. Your phone will then provide you the map and directions you need to get going!

Got a suggestion or a problem?

If you have a suggestion or a problem using our mobile site or regular site, please let us know! We’re always trying to make improvements that will help you focus on scenic driving.

Our newest scenic drive: Drive to Oregon’s Mount Hood from Gresham to Hood River and enjoy the 1 million acres of the Mount Hood National Forest.

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Finding scenic drives just got easier!

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

It is my pleasure to announce the launch of myscenicdrives.com! Whether your interest is a Sunday outing, weekend getaway, or summer vacation, myscenicdrives.com will help you find spectacular destinations to explore. Focusing initially in the Pacific Northwest, each scenic drive features an overview, interactive map, recommended stops, weather forecast, and GPS directions.

myscenicdrives.com provides both a rich, user-friendly web interface for personal computers and a light-weight mobile web version, ideal for smartphones. Once your drive is selected, phones with GPS capabilities and software will let you hit the road with ease.

The website currently features over 30 scenic drives in Washington and Oregon, and more States are coming soon. New drives are constantly being added and you will always find the perfect scenic drive on myscenicdrives.com.

While refining our site, your feedback is very valuable to us! Please let us know us how we are doing and how we can make your scenic drives simpler and more enjoyable so you can send less time planning and more time exploring!

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Have you ever looked for a great scenic drive?

Monday, October 12th, 2009

During this past summer, I wanted to go out on new scenic drives near my home and I started searching for the perfect drive for a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Finding the perfect drive was hard because the majority of the web sites are geared toward different goals.

One group of web sites attempt to solve the problem of how to get from point A to point B. These web sites are great at finding your way when you know where you are going, but when your starting point and your destination are the same place, they provide very little advice as to where to go.

The second group of web sites tell you about all the great places there are to drive to and the breathtaking scenery that you will enjoy. These web sites are useful in helping you choose where to drive, but I encountered one big problem: it was difficult to know whether a drive was going to fit into an afternoon or not. Most of these sites present you with a list of drives and for all you know, the starting point might be hours away.

While searching for my perfect drives, I had to calculate which ones took an afternoon, an entire day, or longer. While I did find some great drives this summer, it was not as pain-free and easy as I would have liked.

myscenicdrives.com aims to make this seamless. You begin by telling us where you are starting from and how long of a drive you want, and we will tell you about the awesome drives that are within your reach…

But nt yet, because we are still building our vision. Until our site is ready, we will keep you posted of our development and, of course, some great scenic drives.

Update: We are now launched in the Pacific Northwest. Starting finding your drives in Oregon and Washington!