This week’s gallery features websites which do a great job of promoting or focusing on outdoor activities including adventure, hiking, biking, camping, fishing, hunting, gardening, natural wonders, anything to do with open-air interests and pursuits. These sites were selected for their ability to inspire other web developers who might work on sites with similar functionality, and for anyone looking to expand their web development skills. A quick look under the hood (using Google Developer Tools for instance) reveals many techniques that might motivate you to learn new methods in your web development.

My picks

(You can also browse through the slides below in the associated gallery here.)

What are the seven natural wonders of the world? Find out when you check out The Seven Natural Wonders web site. Powered by WordPress and utilizing the Sandbox theme.

Figure A

Quench your thirst for learning more about how Drupal gets implemented on the Great Outdoors website, besides several individual .js files the scripts also utilizes: JQuery and a DivX plus web player.

Figure B

It would be fitting to include an organization that has been inspiring people to care about the planet since 1888; National Geographic employs a custom CMS with thirty-seven sub-domains; this website is a massive undertaking utilizing over ten stylesheets and over thirty .js script files.

Figure C

Get your ride on as you get inspiration from Bicycling magazine. Under the hood, it sports thirty-one style sheets, and forty-two scripts including several for Ajax, Coremetrics, Drupal, Google DoubleClick, and JQuery.

Figure D

Looking for more adventure in your scripting? REI Adventures utilizes Ajax, and includes many scripts written within the <head> of the xmlns document, including REI analytics, II3 Rules, and findOutSlider.

Figure E

Need to add some more script tackle to your web tool box? Take Me Fishing features a geo-location with select-a-state option, and local weather conditions by zip code, using several scripts.

Figure F

Dive into even more scripts with PADI, The Way the World Learns to DiveTM, which runs with Microsoft ASP.

Figure G

Another WordPress implementation, The Mountaineering Training School showcases creativity with implementation of the Blocco theme.

Figure H

Flash struts a bounty of creative design use in Bill Nye’s Climate Lab for this interactive website.

Figure I

My final inspiration comes from We Choose The Moon, which utilizes Ajax, Flash, and JQuery in creating this interactive website as part of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. While space travel is not quite ready for public transport, Apollo 11 was the first mission to get a man on the moon. One small step!

Figure J