I’ve heard countless folks say Critiki is where they turn first when it’s time to make travel plans. With that in mind, I’ve just made some changes to the Critiki location page that I think you’re going to like. The biggest change: the “action” bar at the top of the location page is now split into two sections:

“I want to go!”

Actions related to planning your future travels. This section is new!

“I have been!”

Actions for when you come back to share your thoughts and pictures with Critiki. This section has no changes, it’s the same ol’ actions you’re used to.

Save Locations

This has been a frequent request, so I’m particularly happy to roll this one out. As you’re doing your exploring, perhaps planning for your future travel, you can simply save locations by clicking the bookmark icon. You can see all of your saved locations on the new Saved Locations page, accessible from the menu on the upper right (your profile picture). I hope this will make your trip planning (or trip daydreaming) easier and more fun.

Add an Upcoming Visit

This isn’t new, and is still accessible in the “Upcoming Visits” section of the page, but it made sense to put it here with the main actions, too. I think most everyone knows about this feature by now, but in case you’re new: you can let fellow Critiki members know when you’ll be visiting a tiki location, and folks who live locally will be notified so they can come greet you. If you’d like to be notified when folks are coming to your town, just choose “Follow Visits” in the Upcoming Visits section of your local tiki spots.

Get There

This action will show you everything you need to know for physically getting yourself to the location: driving directions, how to park, how to spot the darn place (some of these locations are pretty hidden!), and a picture gallery of what you’re looking for.

Driving directions have been requested by several of you. Granted! There is now a link to driving directions via Google Maps. On the desktop, it links to the Google Maps website, and on a mobile phone (iPhone and Android, at least), it will launch the Google Maps app. I’m up for considering arguments for including additional popular mapping tools beyond Google Maps.

I’ve also moved “Parking,” “How to find it,” and the gallery of “Street view” pictures to live inside the “Get There” section (they used to be way down the page, below the location description).

This section is present even for locations that have closed—sometimes they’re still worth exploring to see what remains.

Share

When you’re doing trip planning, of course you’re going to want to rope in a road buddy. I’ve added links to make it easy to send a link to a location in Critiki to a friend. You can share a location link via Facebook (including via a private message), Twitter, email, and even SMS. Let me know if there’s another way you’d like to be able to share location links.

Comments have been moved

Now that the “how to get there” stuff is no longer underneath the description, I’ve moved location comments onto the main part of the location page. It’s a much better place than the sidebar, they have more breathing room, they’re easier to read, and harder to miss. On the mobile version, comments are no longer hidden under a link, the most recent three comments are shown.

Please try out the new features, and let me know what you think!