As the summer season draws near, boating enthusiasts are gearing up and readying themselves with travel plans to destinations on the water. Options for planning your next trip have never been easier thanks to www.PortsByBoat.com (PBB). The port-focused website is the first to truly mix user-generated content with local business and marine service information making those arduous nights of planning a snap. While paper charts and GPS are required for any boating excursion, the site provides you with things to do, marinas, waterfront events, points of interest, food and much more to make your travel plans complete. Over 1200 ports, 1800 marinas, 500 marine services and hundreds of venetian festivals and waterfront events are literally at your fingerstips.
Audiences include boaters traveling from port to port, charter captains providing an exciting itinerary to their clients, city residents enjoying a weekend of local entertainment and business owners sharing their offerings in a free venue.
Jacqueline, manager of PortsbyBoat, notes, “The truly unique feature about the site is that local contributors have a say in how they want to present their community.” Most of the content can be added for free including general port information, local businesses, waterfront events and Venetian festivals to free mooring, swimming holes, snorkel sites, shopping docks and points of interest. A public forum connects visitors to local residents, and PBB users can rate and review all community offerings.
When creating a trip itinerary, the site’s popular trip planner is helpful in deciding what ports to visit; distance measuring tools identify what destinations are in reach and a trip itinerary can be printed listing all the offerings for each travel destination along with the estimated nautical miles. From a mobile device, the online trip can be accessed and updated along the way generating a trip log. A cruiser can update their current GPS coordinates thereby retreiving current weather conditions and nearby ports, services and other PBB members. Yacht clubs, sailing schools and charters can publish their group trips and flotillas to gain additional members and providing their clients a trip itinerary before the trip begins.
According to Jacqueline, basic business listings are free and have been designed to produce optimal search engine impressions with references to the business name or event on multiple pages and a url link from anchor text. Paid advertising has additional benefits; a clickable logo on relevant pages throughout the site and room for additional advertising content and photos.
PortsbyBoat.com is interactively supported by the users around the globe from boaters and sailors to captains and marine business owners. All information entered is screened daily to ensure its relevance to the marine industry and appropriateness for families. All countries and ports are welcome though the website is currently only in English.
There are many features and mobile applications forth-coming. For more information on membership or upcoming events, visit www.PortsByBoat.com.
Jackie Weller, Sails and charters sailboats in the British Virgin Islands and Lake Michigan. She volunteers with the Bay Shore Organization Wednesday night sailboat racing league on Lake Macatawa, port of Holland, Michigan. She is also ASA certified with coastal cruising.
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