It’s been a fun week as I’ve enjoyed watching everyone discover my site for the first time thanks to this article in Smithsonian Magazine, which resulted from the my interview in National Parks Traveler. I loved seeing all the tweets and Facebook shares from those of you who finally found me. To put it into perspective, in the last four days, I received as many page views as I did in the first 15 months of my site existing! It’s great to see my work being used. Thanks to your shares and visits, this is what the Most Popular sidebar on Smithsonian looked like the following day:

Yep; I didn’t fall off the list until today – four days after the article was first published. While small potatoes to some people, this was a pretty big deal for me as a part-time, “work on it whenever I have time” webmaster.

The Smithsonian article was especially interested in what my most popular pages were, as it linked to my earlier blog post proclaiming Bryce Canyon Maps as my most popular page. So now, I present the results to you from a new experiment; what pages were most popular to those who found my site from Smithsonian?

Most popular maps among Smithsonian visitors

1. Bryce Canyon maps
2. Yosemite maps 
3. Grand Canyon maps
4. Yellowstone maps
5. Glacier maps
6. Big Bend maps
7. Zion maps
8. Acadia maps
9. Great Smoky Mountains maps
10. Canyonlands maps

Any surprises there? I’m not surprised that Bryce was first, as it was specifically mentioned in Smithsonian. Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone all sound like logical top choices, too. But Canyonlands?! I’m shocked to see it that high, especially ahead of Arches. I’ve always considered it an underrated park, but apparently it’s starting to get the respect it deserves.

What’s next for the site? Maps. Lots and lots more maps. I’ve only just gotten started!