One of the things I love about working at HubPages is the amazing community of smart, innovative Hubbers. While the forums can sometimes be overshadowed by personal drama and political conflict, they’re also a great source of teamwork and ingenuity. Case in point: the HubTrails project, conceived by user Ohma, which has gained momentum at an astonishing rate!
Ohma herself was inspired by another Hubber’s pet project – sunforged’s 60DC. She had a few stray Hubs about little-known attractions in Pennsylvania that weren’t getting much traffic, to the point where she was so discouraged that she even considered deleting them. Following the progress of the 60-Day Challenge, she came up with the idea of an interlinking web of location-based travel Hubs. After posting an initial feeler thread in the forums, she found the response to be overwhelming. sunforged himself jumped on board to promote, Cagsil helped with organization, habee and Sufidreamer stared recruiting more participants, Marisa Wright purchased a domain name, and Urbane Chaos started a HubTrails wiki.
I think of HubTrails as sort of a “tree” of Hubs about various locations all over the world, starting with higher-tier Hubs about a large region, which then link to “branches” (Hubs about smaller portions of those regions), which in turn link to Hubs about even smaller subdivisions of those regions. Using the “hubtrails” tag and including the feed for that tag on your Hub ensures you’ll get a share of the love, and pass that love on to your fellow participants. For full instructions, see Ohma’s new Official HubTrails Hub.
It’s been amazing to witness all the positive energy and collaboration that has gone into making HubTrails a rollicking success. Ohma is very modest about the whole project, but there’s no denying the achievement. She has personally received emails from many Hubbers saying they have never felt closer to the community. It’s a perfect example of how one person’s idea can blossom into a full-blown phenomenon with the help of a group of great writers like we have on HubPages. You too can get in on all the link-juice and community spirit. Check out Ohma’s hub, and the HubTrails thread on the forums!
Happy HubTrails to all!
Note from Jason: OK, got the map embedded here. As you can see, there are only a few blue pointers for those that have been added. If you want to add your Hubtrails destinations (they need a specific address, not at the city/country level), email me and I can add you as a collaborator on the Google Map. Email me at Jason (dot) Menayan (at) [this domain]
Update: As you can see, the number of pointers has multiplied! Impressive work!!!
HubPages Blog 
Wow Maddie you are way too kind. This is outstanding and I appreciate the great support we have received with this project!
Too true. This is an amazing concept. Kudos to Ohma and to the hubpages team for the input.
Thank you for the great post, Maddie! I think the idea of the HubTrail is awesome. Ohma is great! 🙂
Folks!
Don’t leave out the tags. Ohma explains it neatly in her hub. For full backlink support the required tags are written in upper case letters:
HUBTRAIL
+ (depending on the location) HUBTRAIL-AMERICAS or HUBTRAIL-EUROPE or HUBTRAIL-AUSTRALIA or HUBTRAIL-AFRICA or HUBTRAIL-OCEANIA or HUBTRAIL-ASIA & MIDDLE EAST
+ HUBTRAIL-COUNTRY for example HUBTRAIL-FRANCE
+ (optional) HUBTRAIL-CITY for example HUBTRAIL-PARIS
Thanks Ohma, for a great idea and thanks to the rest of you that have joined in to make it possible. I just published my first capstone hub on Texas with links to all my Texas-related hubs in it. Good luck to all of us!
Great Idea. I just can’t seem to find any description as to what classifies as a hubtrail hub.
Hi Ohma, I posted a hub about Philippines, it is a capstone hub and I put in my tag hubtrail-Asia, hubtrail-Philippines, is that correct? http://hubpages.com/hub/Hubtrail-Visit-and-Travel-to-the-Beautiful-Tropic-Island-Philippines?done
I also have other hubs about other places i visited like australia, Malta, I put hubtrail and hubtrail-continent and hubtrail-country, am I doing it right?
Plus I need to put rss the hot feed in all the hubs?
Thanks so much Ohma
Maita, prettydarkhorse
Oh I wrote a message to OHMA and it is also addressed to you Mam Maddie, Thank you!
Thanks so much, Maddie for this great article! …and thanks Ohma, Marisa, sunforged, Cags et al for looking after us so well, and letting us all take part.
I have set up a Canada capstone and almost all the provinces and territories are in place. If anyone wants to join up with travel hubs about Canada, I will be happy to send the tags so you can hook up with a specific province.
Great work you guys!!!
You will have to keep us updated on how this pays off, it certainly seems like a fantastic idea!
I have been reading many of these. Now I want to join. I have a hub about Wisconsin. Not published yet. Where do I post it? I will publish it soon, even if I don’t get any answers. Thank.
Thanks Ohma, for a great idea and thanks to the rest of you that have joined in to make it possible. I just published my first capstone hub on Texas with links to all my Texas-related hubs in it. Good luck to all of us!