About this journal
Why lovetheoutdoors.com.au was rebuilt, how it treats the archive, and what it will not invent.
Blank map of the Kimberley region of Western Australia by Djanga, CC BY-SA 3.0. Source on Wikimedia Commons. Self-hosted locally. See the full image credits.
Love the Outdoors is an Australian family outdoor journal. The domain once held a personal Squarespace site — adventureblog-blog, outdoor family notes, a few road tests — written from a life that included a Big Lap, Kimberley tracks, the Red Centre and Christmas Island. That archive is evidence of topic, not a manuscript to copy.
This rebuild writes new guides. It keeps clean heritage paths such as /adventure-blog/ and sends messy old URLs to the nearest honest page through one exact 301 each. Unknown addresses 404 with the site footer. That is deliberate. Catch-all redirects hide broken information architecture.
What we publish
We publish planning essays and place essays: how to think about a Big Lap, how to treat the Gibb River Road with kids, how to camp without a shopping spiral. We answer common questions first. We link related guides. We credit every Creative Commons image on the page and on image credits.
We do not invent campsite averages, permit fees, opening hours, operator praise, awards, event dates, statistics or quotations. We do not republish named people’s words from the archive. Road and track conditions belong to Main Roads WA, Parks Australia, NT Parks and Explore Parks WA.
Guest posts
Family travel and camping notes are a fit. If a piece is paid or placed, it is flagged sponsored and outbound links pick up rel="sponsored". Pitch via contact. Do not send a first-person rewrite of someone else’s old trip.
Contact and corrections
If a park rule has changed and a sentence here lags, tell the desk. The contact form uses FormSubmit. Corrections should cite the primary page.
The journal is general information, not advice. You remain responsible for the vehicle, the children, the weather and the permit. That sentence also lives in the footer of every page, because it should.
Who this is for
Parents planning a first booked campground. Households staring at a fridge map of Australia. Teachers and relatives who want a sane page to send people. Guest writers with a family-travel note that does not invent a ranking.
It is not for people hunting a copied diary, a permit-fee table, or a personality to impersonate. The original blogger’s life remains theirs.
How the rebuild treats old URLs
Heritage paths in the IA stay live. Messy Squarespace addresses — adventureblog-blog posts, tag queries, month archives, outdoor-family diaries, road tests — receive one exact 301 each, listed in docs/URL_MAP.md and src/lib/archive-redirects.json. There is no wildcard. If you invent a path, you get a 404 with a footer and a link to the HTML sitemap.
Images and voice
Photographs are the brief’s Creative Commons set, self-hosted, credited on the page and on image credits. The palette is eucalypt, ochre, sky and canvas — not the reference lighthouse’s colours. The voice is editorial second person and first-person-plural desk, never a borrowed memoir.
If you want to write with us, use contact. If you want to read, start at the homepage or the adventure journal.
Pitch a family travel note
This journal welcomes considered guest posts on family camping and Australian road travel. Editorial citations stay followed; paid placements are marked sponsored.
Contact the desk about a guest post · Browse the adventure journal