This post is the main part of the advice I gave in my earlier post. I decided to place it in it's own post and add to it as I have time. The purpose of this information is to help you find and photograph more entries for the http://www.naherp.com database. Many people contribute to the database on a sporadic level, either due to lack of time or a lack of ideas for finding more herps to enter. It is my hope to help some of those people discover new ways to accomplish more, as well as to understand all the benefits the database has to offer the individual contributor.
1st, whether you travel or not, you can still fill in a lot of gaps in the database. The trick is to NOT go to the same places over and over. Go to different places, even if it's just to voucher tons of fence lizards. However, once you've photographed every fence lizard or every slender salamander at a site, don't go there again. Here's an example from a few alleys here in Tempe. These are tree lizards:
I have not been back to those alleys since I recorded those lizards. They weren't all the lizards I saw, but enough to establish that there are a lot of them in the alleys.
2nd, Use google earth to map out places to search. Place the yellow pins at ponds, creek crossings, board spots, etc. and hit them in an organized way. If you don't know how to place a pin, look at the top of the google earth screen and find the pin.
Here's an example of an area in CA where I've marked and labled pond and creek crossings to look for pond turtles. I kept the image out of focus to keep the area unrecognizable:
If you want to record turtles and garter snakes, just do this and go to each place systematically. If you don't see anything on the first try, go again on a different day or at a different time. This method works really well in the Midwest where counties are small and ponds are numerous. Almost every pond in the Midwest will have painted turtles, bullfrogs, leopard frogs and cricket frogs. They might also have snapping turtles, water snakes, garter snakes, and soft-shelled turtles. These are the EASY pickens. It's really no mystery why I have 1,188 county records. Use Binoculars to see the animals before they see you, DON'T just go blundering down to the water or you'll scare 90% of them away immediately. Be stealthy.
Here's a typical pond in Nebraska and where the critters usually hang out:
If you live in an area of North America where many counties are still un-recorded, mark those counties on a road map of your state or province and systematically go to them and look for ponds. Fundad showed me that trick and I've now visited 176 new counties and recorded stuff from each. In the Midwest, I search google earth for 4 or 5 ponds in each county and then look for the big 4 - painted turtles, bullfrogs, leopard frogs and cricket frogs. Anything else in that county is gravy. I usually find the big 4 at the first pond, but sometimes I have to try 3 or 4 before getting them all. There is one county in Nebraska where I still haven't seen a painted turtle after 3 visits. I want to find that damn turtle because it would be an official county record for Herp Review. I need to mark more ponds there.
The point of all this is MAPPING. Map your target areas and record the species all over the place, not just the cool species or the ones you like. Photograph everything you see wherever you go. Digital film is free. Systematically target species and habitat in your own county and when you finish that move to the surrounding counties. You will have thousands of records before you even get out of your own county. Don't overlook urban areas. Lot's of lizards live in front yards in housing tracts. Now, having said all that, don't think that you are limited to my strategic approach. Herping should be fun, so do what you want if this system doesn't appeal to you.
3rd, Snakes. Watch for DORs everywhere you go. Stop and take a picture. Enter it.
If you have board sites, photograph every snake you see at them. Keep a separate file of pics of the snakes you see (not ring-necks or sharp-tails-only record them on the first visit because you can't tell them apart). Each time you visit the site, photo all the snakes again and compare the pics to see if you found anything new. Enter the new snakes in new entries, and put the new photo of the old snakes in the original entry with a note of when it was seen again. See record #96123 for an example of how to do this:
http://www.naherp.com/viewrecord.php?r_id=96123
I have made lists of band counts for the kingsnakes I see at several of my sites. This one is #14 out of 47 kings at this field. It's count is 5-Y-11-1. It usually only takes 4 groups of bands from the head to separate any king from another.
If you search rocks, follow the same plan for rosys and rubers and anything else. Just about any snake can be differentiated from others if you take good photos. the rule for lizards also applies to board and rock sites...only record them once on the first visit because you can't tell them apart. However, juveniles (YOY) can be recorded every year at the same places.
As you begin to amass a lot of records, you can load them into your google earth from the database (My records in google earth function) and see where you've been. Mine looked like this as of Nov 2014:
Any questions so far?
haha but seriously I am gonna try to find new spots for slender salamanders, and ensatinas in the places no one else is looking for them apparently 
I'm tired of being at the top all by myself. 
I need competition to motivate me to outdo myself.
Some of us have to work 5 days a week 40+ hours a week for a living Mr Hubbs. 