The Visit Ozarks Guide

01. The situation

This one is mine. I live in Van Buren, in the middle of some of the best river country in Missouri, and there was no single guide that covered the area's springs, shut-ins, trails, and small towns the way a visitor actually needs: what it is, where it is, and how to plan a day around it.

So I built it, from zero: no existing site, no existing audience, no content to start with.

02. What I did

Every place on the guide was researched and verified one at a time: what it is, where it actually is, and which town its directions really run from. Each listing carries its own page with a legally sourced photo, a map, and directions.

I designed and built the whole system: place pages, collections, town hubs that collect every place within fifteen miles, and ready-made day itineraries. The look is a custom design system (deep river navy, teal, and star gold) built for this project.

Coverage grows ring by ring outward from Van Buren, so each new area opens complete instead of half covered.

03. What happened

The guide is live with 64 places and 4 ready-made itineraries, and it keeps growing on a regular publishing schedule. Every place is verified before its page goes live, and no page goes up half finished. That is the same standard your site gets: checked facts, a finished page, and a site that keeps growing instead of going stale.