February and early March have been busy for Trip Hopping. It's feeling more like the go-to travel app I've always envisioned.

Earlier this month I added "Places" and Travel Partners and posted about that, so give that a read or just check out how you can add favorite places and find someone to travel with.

Since then...

- The Android app is public! You can search "Trip Hopping" in the Play Store (or click the link in this post) to download the app. Besides being a bit faster and more convenient, the app allows you to get notifications, import your phone contacts to see them on the map, as well as see thousands of rated hitchhiking spots around the world.

- Also, email notifications work better now, so app or not, you shouldn't miss a message or comment on your trips and notes

- Profiles are cleaner and you can see people's trips on the map

- Shares/posts are more prominent and easy to add (this is one!), even from the map (long press or right click anywhere to add something cool). Defined categories like "Travel Work," "Creative," "Discussions," and more.

- Active users can apply to be an ambassador or pollinator, if you're excited about organizing events with travelers and expanding the community.

- The GO tab now has more rideshare results in the US and Canada, ferries, the most relevant hitchwiki articles, and more ways to add your own tips (like a lesser know local bus/shuttle site)

- Big design and map updates. On desktop the site now looks AWESOME, with the map exposed at all times showing all your friends, public notes, search related markers and all kinds of goodness. You'll discover your favorite feature just by poking around. Long press anywhere on the map for a menu to search there, add a note, add a trip, or see the weather...

- Weather! Simple, but convenient, a three day forecast is now available on the map and on the Explore page. If the icon background is slightly red, it means sometime in the next three days there's wind, rain, or freezing temperatures expected. No background means happy days.

- New hosting options. Besides hosting couch-surfers, you can opt in to accept requests for work-exchange, house/pet-sitting, and short term rentals for those who are less interested in being social and want to pay a few bucks

- Creative content: You can now add more links to your profile for your creative travel content, like a youtube channel, Instagram page or podcast. Members are also encouraged to share creative content links on the "Shared Travel Content" page. It's awesome to see all our members creative stuff in one place!

- You can add trips without dates and decide if it's a "bucket list" future trip, or just somewhere you've been in the past you want to add to your trip map

- Lots of optimizations to code and image handling and other subtle features. Things are getting awesome!

That's the quick rundown, so go ahead and click around and see what you can find. The more you use Trip Hopping, the more you'll discover. Is there a feature missing? Let me know, maybe it'll be the next addition.

Happy travels all!