Big web sites for outdoors activities.

May 5, 2011 11:28 AM

What are the most popular online destinations/forums/communities for gardening, hiking, backpacking, and other outdoor activities?

I am thinking of starting a web business that would appeal to people who do these activities, and I would need to advertise at the places where they congregate online. I would like to know what the big online destinations are so that I can investigate their ad rates.

Thanks!

posted by bagadonuts to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (8 answers total)

Response by poster: BTW, yes, I'm Googling these subjects myself to find out what I can. But while that will certainly lead me to the biggest commercial sites, I know that there can be forums etc. with very strong followings that are not optimized to come up first in a Google search. Any leads on good, well-regarded online destinations would be appreciated. Thanks.
posted by bagadonuts at 11:32 AM on May 5, 2011

Gardenweb for gardening.
posted by leigh1 at 11:55 AM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

geocaching.com for, uh, geocachers.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:26 PM on May 5, 2011

For hiking and climbing:
summitpost.org
mountainproject.com
posted by betterton at 1:17 PM on May 5, 2011

mtbr.com is pretty popular amongst online mountain bikers.

bikeforums.net is (or was, when I was still frequenting there) a pretty bustling forum for all things cycling related.
posted by zen_spider at 2:01 PM on May 5, 2011

Are you limiting yourself to summer outdoor activities? If not, there is Epic Ski and Teton Gravity Research for the sliding on snow sports. Epic seems to be more friendly and TGR is more hardcore.
posted by mmascolino at 2:05 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Groundspeak is the mother site for geocaching.com (mentioned above), as well as a fre of other, outdoor-related forums.
posted by misterioso at 5:11 PM on May 5, 2011

Gardenweb is packed with subforums, which vary in hospitality. (Antique Roses is for the very strong and very knowledgeable.) I'd say the readership skews 40+ but these are people who know everything about gardening, soil, pruning, etc.
posted by Ideefixe at 7:16 PM on May 5, 2011