FAQ - Research Destinations

How do I research my destination?

Who and What

The basis of Unearthed Outdoors is publicly available outdoor information. We think it should stay that way too. This means there is no registration required to view parks and other features.

Here I'll tell you how to find a park in the south central Wisconsin area, and research it. If you are looking for a lake or a campground, you can follow along here.

Find the park

What are you looking for?

First, you need to select the category that you are interested in from the navigation side bar. Because we are looking for parks, we are clicking on the "Parks" link.

You can also do a search if you look a little lower in the sidebar. You will need to select what category you are searching in. Lucky for you, parks are already selected.
Where is it?

All of the available parks show up as red dots on the map. Click on the map to zoom in on the region around where you clicked or click the sides of the map to move your view (Up or Down, Left or Right).

We are interested in visiting southern Wisconsin, so we'll click on the map there.
Could you be more specific?

Here's a list of the parks in the area where you clicked, sorted with the closest ones at the top. If we have it, it should be here. If it isn't, you could create it.

There are options underneath the list that allow you to sort and view the data. For example, if you want the highest rated parks at the top of the list, you can choose to sort by "Overall Score" in "Descending" order and click the "Change View" button. Or, if you wanted to view which parks allowed pets, you could check the checkbox next to "Pets" and click "Change View".

Keep in mind that our information may be incomplete. If you know something that we don't, you are free to make a change.

Found the park

There it is!

When you find what you are looking for in the list, click on its name. Here we are viewing Lake Kegonsa State Park. It's a great place for geese. If you look just below the name of the park, you will see several "tabs" available for you to browse.

By default, you are viewing the "General" tab. You can view things like the address of the park, its latitude and longitude, and any amenities. We also display things like detailed maps and weather reports here.

I've put most of the information that would be useful to print under the General tab. A "printer friendly" version of the page should be generated automatically by your web browser when you print.
- Road Map
  
  If available, a road map will be displayed under the "General" tab. This road map shows the park and the surrounding area. If you want to change the view, want driving directions, or want more detailed information, you can click on the on the map. Some of the surrounding features will also appear on the detailed map.
- Weather
  
  Towards the bottom of the park's page is the current weather, and the forecast if it's available. The basic weather is provided through the METAR system. METAR is a system used by pilots, which is why each METAR observation has an accompanying airfield. When available, a more detailed weather report and forecast is provided by Weather.com.
- What are we missing?
  
  At the bottom of the General page are links for editing this park, and for submitting a new pages. For example, if you found another site on the internet that has some useful information about this park, you can click "edit", add a the link, and it will appear under the "Resources" tab. Or, if you have a photo of the park, you can click the "Submit new photo" link here to add it to the site.
Resources

The resources tab contains other sources of information that you could use to learn about this park. This includes a list of other relevant web pages. These are links that are recommended by users like you, so if something is missing, you can edit it.

There are links here to aerial photography and maps. Unfortunately, many of these are not yet available outside of the US. We have a link to a Wikipedia page with a large collection of maps from all over the world.

There may also be books listed here. People can recommend books, and we will search Amazon.com find some books. No books are found for Lake Kegonsa State Park, but Yellowstone National Park returns quite a few. If you know of a good book, please add it to the list.
Reviews

Users can vote and write reviews. Those will appear here. If you've been to this park, please take some time to write a review and rate the park by clicking the "Submit a new review" and "Click to vote" buttons. Use our review tutorial for further information.

A "TrackBack" is a link to another website, often a weblog, where someone has made an entry related to this park. Feel free to add your own TrackBacks with the "Ping URL", and people can follow the link to your weblog. Please consult your weblog software for information on how to use the Ping URL.
Photos

We allow people to share (and rate) pictures, and you can find them under the "Photos" tab. If you wish to add your own photo to the park, there is a link at the bottom of the page that will allow you to do so. You must be logged in to share photos.
Trails & Campgrounds

A park can have things associated with it, like trails and campgrounds. You can find a list of campgrounds under the "Campgrounds" tab and a list of trails under the "Trails" tab. If the tabs are missing, then so are the campgrounds and trails. For each item, like a campground, you can click on it and add scores, reviews, and photos, just like the park.
Nearby

Find a list of other interests under the "Nearby" tab. This might be a neighboring lake, other parks, campgrounds, and attractions in the area. For each of these, you can view, edit, review, and score, like the park.

If available, there will also be traffic reports, Wikipedia pages, and other nearby websites listed here.