Every organization we link to: local tourism offices, the state and federal agencies that manage the land, the nonprofits and clubs that keep access open, and the universities doing the research.
West Virginia has roughly 1.5 million acres of public land and a handful of places that carry almost all of the attention. The consequence is that a great deal of very good ground sits nearly empty, usually for one of three reasons: nobody has heard of it, the road in is gated or rough, or it is undeveloped and has nothing to advertise. Those are the places below — of them across regions.
Privacy policy
What we collect, what we do not, how it is used and disclosed, how long it is kept, and the rights you have over it.
Last updated 25 August 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Appalachian Heritage Media ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses and discloses information in connection with westvirginiaoutside.com and its subdomains (the "Service"). It forms part of our Terms of Use. We have written it to describe what this Service actually does; where an industry-standard practice does not apply to us, we say so rather than reserving the right by default.
1. Scope
1.1 This Policy applies to the Service only. It does not apply to any third-party website, platform or service you reach from the Service, each of which is governed by its own policy.
1.2 The Service has no accounts, logins, subscriptions or paywalls. Every page can be read without providing personal information.
2. Information we collect
2.1 Information you provide. If you email us, or submit a correction, trip report or photograph, we receive the information in that communication — typically your name, email address and the contents of your message, together with anything you choose to attach.
2.2 The business listing form. If you submit the form at List your business, we receive the business name, website, town, the type of business, the regions and activities you serve, the headline and description you want published, your name, your email address, and your telephone number if you supply one, along with any notes you add. That submission is delivered to us by email through a transactional email provider and is not stored in a database on the Service. We use it to reply to you and to set up a listing if you go ahead. We do not add the address to a mailing list and we do not pass it to anyone else.
2.3 Server logs. Our hosting and content-delivery provider records standard server and security logs for each request, comprising the requesting IP address, the resource requested, date and time, the referring URL, and the browser user-agent string. This is inherent to how web servers operate and is used for delivery, security and diagnostics.
2.4 Analytics. With your permission, we use Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which guides are read, which is how we decide what to write next. When you allow it, Google Analytics sets cookies in your browser and sends Google the page you are on, the page you came from, your approximate location derived from your IP address, and technical details of your device and browser. Google acts as our processor for this and is described in Section 5.1. We have switched off the advertising features: Google Signals is not enabled, we do not use Google Analytics data for advertising or remarketing, and the advertising consent categories stay denied whatever you choose. Nothing is loaded and no request reaches Google unless you have said yes — see Section 3.
2.5 Information stored on your device. Certain pages save minor interface preferences — a selected filter, a collapsed panel — using your browser's local storage. Your answer to the analytics question is stored the same way, so that you are asked once. That information remains on your device, is not transmitted to us, and is not accessible to us.
2.6 Geolocation. The trip planner offers an optional feature that ranks West Virginia's nine regions by distance from you. It runs only if you activate it, and your browser will request your permission first. If granted, your approximate coordinates are compared within your browser against nine published region coordinates and then discarded. Your location is not transmitted to us, to our hosting provider, or to any third party, and is not stored. Declining affects nothing else on the Service.
2.7 Information from third parties. We do not purchase, licence or receive personal information about you from data brokers, advertising networks or other third-party sources.
2.8 Sensitive information. We do not collect Social Security numbers, government identifiers, financial account details, precise persistent geolocation, biometric data, health information, or information about racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or union membership.
3. Cookies, analytics and your choice
3.1 The only cookies the Service sets are the Google Analytics cookies described in Section 2.4, and only if you allow them. We do not set advertising, targeting or profiling cookies, and we do not run tag managers, session-recording tools, heat-mapping tools or advertising pixels.
3.2 Analytics is off until you turn it on. Analytics consent starts in a denied state on every visit, using Google's Consent Mode. If you have not answered, no Google script is fetched, no cookie is written and no request is made to Google. A banner asks once; whichever button you press is remembered on your device so you are not asked again.
3.3 Declining changes nothing about how the Service works. There is no feature you lose and nothing is withheld.
3.4 Changing your mind. Clearing your browser's site data for this domain will make the question reappear. You can also change your answer at any time from the footer link on this page, or by writing to us at hello@westvirginiaoutside.com.
3.5 The other browser storage described in Section 2.5 is functional only, is confined to your device, and is not used to identify you.
3.6 If we introduce advertising technologies in future, we will update this Policy and provide any notice and choice mechanism the law requires before doing so.
4. How we use information
4.1 We use the information described above to: (a) deliver, operate and maintain the Service; (b) respond to your enquiries, corrections and submissions; (c) publish Submissions in accordance with our Terms of Use; (d) send editorial updates to people who have asked to receive them; (e) monitor and protect the security, integrity and availability of the Service and investigate misuse; (f) understand aggregate usage patterns, where you have permitted analytics, in order to diagnose faults and decide what to publish next; and (g) comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms.
4.2 We do not use your information to build advertising or behavioural profiles, and we do not make automated decisions about you that produce legal or similarly significant effects.
5. How we disclose information
5.1 Service providers. We disclose information to vendors that host and deliver the Service, provide email delivery, and — where you have permitted it — provide analytics. Each acts on our instructions and under contractual confidentiality obligations. The analytics provider is Google (Google Analytics 4), which processes the information described in Section 2.4 under the Google Ads Data Processing Terms.
5.2 Legal and safety. We may disclose information where required by law, subpoena or other legal process, or where we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect rights, safety or property, or to investigate fraud or a security incident.
5.3 Business transfers. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing or sale of assets, information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this Policy or a successor policy providing comparable protection.
5.4 Publication. Submissions you send for publication are published on the Service with attribution where practicable.
5.5 We do not sell or share personal information. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, as those terms are defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act and comparable state laws. We have not done so in the preceding twelve months, including with respect to anyone under 16. We are conscious that using Google Analytics is what usually puts a publisher on the wrong side of that statement, so to be specific: Google Signals is disabled, the advertising consent categories are denied on every visit regardless of what you choose, and we do not create or export audiences for advertising.
6. Third-party content on our pages
6.1 Some pages embed publicly posted material from Instagram accounts operated by park, agency and tourism bodies, and some pages load typefaces from Google Fonts. When such content loads, your browser makes a request directly to that provider, which receives your IP address and user-agent string. That processing is governed by the provider's own privacy policy and is outside our control.
6.2 Outbound links take you to services we neither operate nor control.
7. Editorial updates by email
7.1 The Service has no automated mailing-list facility. The "stay in the loop" control composes a message in your own email application for you to send; nothing is submitted to or stored by the Service itself.
7.2 If you send such a message, we retain your address in order to send occasional editorial updates. We do not add addresses that have not asked to be added, we do not rent, sell or disclose the list, and we remove an address promptly on request.
8. Legal bases for processing (EEA and UK)
8.1 Where the UK GDPR or EU GDPR applies, we rely on: our legitimate interests in operating, securing and improving the Service (Article 6(1)(f)) for the processing in Section 2.2; your consent (Article 6(1)(a)) for analytics in Section 2.4, for the geolocation feature in Section 2.6 and for editorial email in Section 7, which you may withdraw at any time; the necessity of taking steps at your request (Article 6(1)(b)) for responding to your enquiry or setting up a listing you asked for; and compliance with a legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)) where applicable.
9. Retention
9.1 Server and security logs are retained only for as long as they remain useful for delivery, security and diagnostics. Analytics data, where you have permitted it, is retained by Google for the period configured in our Google Analytics property and then deleted by Google; the reports we work from are aggregate. Business listing submissions are retained as correspondence for as long as the enquiry or the listing is live, and deleted on request. Correspondence is retained for as long as it remains relevant to the matter it concerns. Email addresses held for editorial updates are retained until you ask us to remove them. Published Submissions are retained as part of the published archive.
10. Your rights and choices
10.1 Subject to applicable law, you may request access to the personal information we hold about you, a copy of it in portable form, correction of inaccuracies, deletion, restriction of processing, or that we stop processing it, and you may object to processing based on legitimate interests.
10.2 Residents of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia and other states with comprehensive privacy laws have these rights, together with the right not to be discriminated or retaliated against for exercising them. Because we do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising and do not use it for profiling in furtherance of decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects, there is no opt-out for those activities to provide.
10.3 Residents of the EEA, the UK and Switzerland may also lodge a complaint with their supervisory authority.
10.4 We honour requests of this kind regardless of where you live. We will verify a request by corresponding with the address it was made from, and we will respond within the period the applicable law requires. You may use an authorised agent where the law permits.
10.5 If we decline a request, you may ask us to reconsider by replying to our response, and we will review the decision and explain the outcome.
10.6 Send requests to hello@westvirginiaoutside.com.
11. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
11.1 We honour the Global Privacy Control signal and browser "Do Not Track" headers, and we treat either one as a refusal of analytics. If your browser sends either signal, analytics is denied without your being asked, the consent banner does not appear, and a previously stored "allow" on that device is overridden for as long as the signal is being sent.
11.2 We do not track users across sites and do not sell or share personal information, so these signals require no other change in our handling of your information.
12. Children's privacy
12.1 The Service is intended for a general audience and is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16 — and, as stated in Section 5.5, we do not sell or share personal information at all.
13. International transfers
13.1 We are based in the United States, and the Service is delivered through infrastructure with points of presence in multiple countries. The technical information described in Section 2.2 may therefore be processed outside your country of residence, including in the United States. Where you have permitted analytics, the information in Section 2.4 is processed by Google, including in the United States. Where required, transfers from the EEA or the UK rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or another lawful transfer mechanism operated by our providers.
14. Security
14.1 The Service is served exclusively over HTTPS, and we apply administrative and technical measures appropriate to the very limited information we hold. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Our principal safeguard is collecting as little information as the Service can operate on.
15. Changes to this Policy
15.1 We may update this Policy. The "Last updated" date above records the current version, and material changes will be indicated on the Service.
16. Contact
16.1 Privacy enquiries, access requests and deletion requests: hello@westvirginiaoutside.com. Appalachian Heritage Media, West Virginia, United States.