Help Keep Us Free!

Become a "Hero" – Support Offroading Home

Heading toward publishing near a thousand off road maps has been, and is, no small feat! The average time it takes to program and publish a trail is around 20 minutes… you do the math. And because of our fetish for accuracy and completeness, each trail cannot be "automatized" like on other sites. Additionally, the vision is, as it always has been, to provide offroaders the ability to view these maps on Google Earth FREE of charge!

From its beginning four years ago, both the Offroading Home blog and web site have steadily grown in viewers, in spite of the fact that publishing maps for FREE doesn't leave anything to pay Google for sponsored link placement that would drive up page views. Providing the quality of maps that we do, with attention to accuracy, has increased weekly viewers to many hundred from all over the world… Yes, world. The last six months alone has seen a 300% increase in visitors and quadruple the numbers of map downloads.

However, We NEED Your Help!

There, I said it. Providing free maps isn't "scaling up" so easily for Offroading Home as visitors increase. We have needed to sign up for a paid server and URL addresses, which has meant that we've nearly needed to close down a couple of times in this last year for lack of funding! Not a good thing, and it wears quite thin after awhile.

To keep our prices the same as they have been for four years –FREE– we've instituted a new program to recognize and thank benefactors who have become Offroading Home Hero's with their sustaining donations. They are offroaders who "discovered" our maps, recognized their accuracy compared with any others they've paid for, and contacted me with a sustaining donation to costs. Offroading Home will begin saying thanks by letting viewers of every blog post and visitor to the web know who is keeping their maps FREE.

1- Be a Yearly or Monthly Paid Link Supporter

If you have the ability to donate $250 or more you will not only be able to access every map we make; but, additionally receive a "thank you" avatar link on every post and every index page for a year. We are also in the process of reprogramming the web site to include the links there as well. [Quarterly and monthly avatar links are available as well.]

With some limitations, the link can be to any web page you own or Offroading Home can even supply you with a page on our server. Additionally, if you desire we can set you up with an email address which can receive "thank yous" from grateful downloaders.

Contact me for more particulars, and to make arrangements, with an email to: Tell me about an avatar link donation. Other viewers can show their gratitude for these "hero's" support by clicking on the avatar to see who they are; and, sending them an email of thanks.

2- Make Individual Donations

Of course, the mainstay of our support comes from individual riders who are grateful for particularly useful maps and trail logs. Several times a week we receive emails from people who are disgusted with paying for unverified and poor quality GPS tracks and have stumbled upon Offroading Home.

Many show their gratefulness by clicking on the "Donate" link and sending in what they were used to paying on previous web sites. If you have been one of them, know that we are very grateful for your support; for, as a group, you have kept our servers afloat – literally.

It's really easy to do and very secure and private. If you already have what is known as a "Paypal" account you can use that; or, you can use your standard Visa, MasterCard, Discovery or other bankcard.  PayPal


3- Be an "In Kind" Donor

Offroading Home maps require a substantial amount of on-line research and trail publications – most of which are NOT free. Many maps are, in fact, digitized from paper maps and books.

Not unexpectedly, there are some books which I have been lusting over for some time – to turn into whole files of master maps. Interested offroaders can see which books we could use by visiting our "Amazon wish list" to donate "in kind" a needed book, map or supply.

Additionally, some visitors have even sent in one of their own trail books which they would love to see digitized into a downloadable map. This can either be a donation or a loan and needs to be discussed by contacting me for verification of need and mailing address in an email: Lets talk about donating a book or map.

4- Be a GPS Trail Submitter

There are some weeks in which we don't receive a submitted trail and others where we receive two or three. Fortunately, lately, the latter has been happening more frequently now that the number of visitors has substantially increased.

For many of you, this may be the best way to show your gratitude. Offroading Home can accept GPS tracks from units made by nearly every manufacturer. Use either the software that came with your unit, or one of the free programs available, to extract your trail from your hand-held into your computer then attach it to an email – easy peasy! Just tell me in the email where the trail is, who rode it, when you rode it and on what vehicle.

I'll get back to you for more complete information if it turns out we can program it into one of our maps. You should be aware that we have (almost) never have met a map that we didn't like! And, please, there are a lot of trails on our existing master maps which need verification from a
recent rider.

5- Be an Offroading Home Link Referrer

And last, but not least by any means, I cannot adequately express how important it is, and how much difference it makes, for YOU to: 1) simply click on a link on any of the sponsors in the side bar - or send them a thank you email; 2) send our link to any ATV or offroad clubs, or offroading friends you know of; or 3) put a link to our site in a comment you make on any other offroading site! Especially number three - will make horrendous difference for us - based upon the way Google calculates its page rankings for its search results.

Merely cut and paste any of these links into an email or comment: www.offroadinghome.com ; http://offroadinghome.blogspot.com ; or, http://offroadinghome.djmed.net and help Google find us better.

There you have it – a way and means for every one of you to help with this endeavor! We really could use it.

Many, Many Thanks!
DJ @ Offroading Home