FoundLocally Launches “Phase One” Of Improved Transcanadahighway.com Travel Website

Released on: October 7, 2009, 5:09 am
Author: FoundLocally.com Media Inc
Industry: Travel

Calgary, AB Canada, October 7, 2009 -- FoundLocally.com Media Inc. has just released “Phase One” of a new version of their popular TransCanadaHighway.com website. TranscanadaHighway.com is a nine year old website which documents many details of travel along Canada’s 7,821 km (4,860 mi.) long national highway, which connects St John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador with Victoria, British Columbia.

The new version of the website includes a number of useful innovations:
1) Select itinerary segments using an “iTunes” style Map Chooser interface
2) Itinerary segments include information about their history, underway construction, and bicycle-friendly route and detours, as well as elevation charts.
3) The mapping integration with Google Maps has improved to include segment maps and alternate routes on both cross-country and urban segments.
4) The itineraries have databased over 3500 points --including streets, highways, rivers, lakes, rest stops-- along the highway. Phase One provides details & links for 5,000 features along the western half of the highway (between Victoria, BC and Sault Ste Marie, Ontario). These include hotels, campgrounds, national parks, provincial parks, First Nations, museums, attractions, family amusements, rivers, lakes and mountains.
5) Because of the newly available detail, users can filter for just those features they are interested in, skipping the others. They can also toggle direction of travel, and the units of measurement for distance (km/mi) and elevation ( ft/m) to create personalized custom itineraries.
6) Users (and tourism operators ) can post additional comments to any point along the itinerary, to ensure the site’s detail improves and is kept timely.

These changes make the site even more useful for cross-Canada cyclists, European visitors, families travelling across Canada, and students & teachers researching Social Studies projects.

TransCanadaHighway.com also has added Twitter feeds and launched a Facebook group to further improve interaction with travellers. Both will track construction issues/closures and winter weather alerts and closures.

About FoundLocally.com
FoundLocally.com Media Inc. is a Calgary-based company that has created 30 community information portals across Canada, which now receive about a million monthly visitors. It also runs TransCanadaHighway.com (about travel along the world’s longest highway), and MovingInCanada.com (about relocations & real estate). The company was featured in a 2007 Alberta Venture magazine article “Battle of the Digital Directories”. The FoundLocally web sites are represented nationally by 24/7 Canada, the nation’s largest interactive ad agency.

Contact Details: For more information contact Mark Ruthenberg, FoundLocally’s General Manager at (403) 245-2194 or by email at mark@FoundLocally.com or Tanya Iliakis, Account Executive, 24/7 RealMedia Inc. 416-966-2542 x263 or by e-mail at tanya.iliakis@247Canada.com