====== How to Use this Site ====== **CasualTourist.com is a Guidebook** CasualTourist.com is an on-line guidebook dedicated to helping the helpless bus passenger make his or her way across America. Here you'll find hundreds of guidebook entries covering every major city, town and village across the United States. We include all of the standard tourist information but we're not just another guidebook. Each entry describes local bus stations and the surrounding neighborhood, transit systems and connections, as well as affordable accommodations, food, and activities. Our goal is to provide readers with all of the practical information needed to survive, if not enjoy, an intercity bus trip. **CasualTourist.com is a Wiki** Casualtourist.com uses wiki publishing software to create an interactive, on-line guidebook. Just like wikipedia.org and countless other sites, any reader can create or edit information on this site just by clicking the Edit button. As a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki|wiki]] this site is a work-in-progress. Are you a local expert? We encourage users to edit entries, update information, and help build the best on-line bus travel resource. ====== How to Use a Wiki Guidebook ===== Yes. That means you can read it, print it, write it, or edit it, whichever you like. CasualTourist.com is a wiki and all of the pages here remain in a constant state of upgrading. We began by posting a template to hundreds of pages on this site and we continued by writing entries, filling in missing information, and posting photos. As you read CasualTourist.com you will find pages that are barely more than long-winded templates with sections begging for more information: Describe this, tell us about that, etc. Don't get upset; it simply means that neither we nor our readers have had a chance to complete that page or section, yet. Travel information, including hours, addresses, names, and contact information, changes constantly. That's why we chose to use wiki publishing software; so YOU and all of our readers can update the website as information changes. We encourage readers to build this site by writing, editing, updating and correcting information. See below for more information. * **Read** To make the most of your trip, search our site for each city that you're visiting, including your departure point. If you've already purchased a ticket check the itinerary for a list of (many) cities on your route. Read and print the entries you might need. If you're not sure where you want to go you can browse the site. To view an Index of this site from any page just click the **INDEX** button in the toolbar. * **Print** We use some decent code to make the pages on this site print in a usable fashion. Just click on your browsers Print Preview button to see how the site will look on the printed page. Note that images don't print and hyperlinks are underlined. Sorry if some of the tables or sections break across pages; that seems to be a limitation of browser print functions. You did nothing wrong. * **Write** There is only one secret to being a great travel writer: Be an objective participant. For more details please read [[how-to-write-a-guidebook|this page]]. * **Edit** We've loaded casualtourist.com with more than 1,200 guidebook entries. We're excited that readers have started to edit the site yet many pages still need help. If you see anything that's missing, vague, wrong or in any way needs help, please: - Click the **Edit** button of the section that needs help - Edit or add information using your best objective and experienced voice - Click the **Save** button in the edit window |Tip: Not sure which edit button to hit? Just hover your cursor over the edit button and the section name will pop up on the screen.|| ====== Still Confused? ====== Don't worry; like all good things, editing a wiki like CasualTourist.com takes a bit of thought, but just a bit. First, decide which page you want to edit. View the page, read the sections you want to edit. If the sections are new and unedited then all you'll see are some questions and a few ideas about what to write. For example, if you want to write about Fort Collins, Colorado, go to [[colorado:fort-collins|the Fort Collins page]] and look around. If you know something about post offices in Fort Collins click on 'POST OFFICES' in the Table of Contents or just scroll down to that section. You'll see this: **POST OFFICES** Where do we mail our postcards or just buy stamps? In some cities there's a post office on every corner, but in other places you have to drive into the woods to find one. Tell us where to go. Consider a chart like this one: ^BRANCH ^ ADDRESS ^ HOURS ^^ ^LaFayette Station (Chinatown)| 7 Avenue de Lafayette | Monday - Friday 7:30AM - 6:00PM Saturday 7:30AM - 1:00PM Sunday Closed|| If you just want to write a sentence or two about post offices in Fort Collins in general just click on the Edit button on the right side of that section. Not sure which edit button to use? Hover your cursor over the Edit button and a little message window will open saying 'POST OFFICES'. If it says anything else then you are about to click the wrong edit button. If you know a post office near the bus station in Fort Collins, one that //bus travelers// might use, then you can add a listing. All you need to know is the name, address, and hours. This part is very simple. The edit window will open and you can type anything you like just like using Microsoft Word or a similar program. You //don't// need to be an egghead to contribute to casualtourist.com; any ol' writing will do. Your edit might not look 'right', but don't fret. In a day or two one of our regular readers will spot your update and edit it to look fancy using simple Dokuwiki syntax. Or, if you're a little adventurous, you can view this [[http://www.dokuwiki.org/syntax|page]] and learn to write using Dokuwiki syntax. It can be confusing and certainly takes practice to make things look sharp with italics, bolding, section headings, line breaks, links, tables and the like. Just click that edit key and give it a try. Don't judge yourself so harshly that you never even try. ====== Wiki Etiquette ===== We encourage users to edit each page to meet their needs. Add, change or delete content to meet your needs but please remember that other users can read what you write. If you delete sections or make massive edits for your personal use please revert the page to an older version when you're done. Simply select Old Revisions and you'll see a list of older revisions of the current document. To revert to an old revision, select it from the list, click Edit this page and save it. We appreciate your help in maintaining this site.