Influencer II
My wife and I just started. Have two finds so far.
Geocaching
- Thread starter Mad Garden Gnome
- Start date
Member III
you have to start somewhere. we really enjoy it. I wish I'd taken it up when I was in the Navy as I could have spent many an hour out of the bars and saved myself a fortune
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I think that I have found just over 200 finds this year but just two in the last month. A wetter than normal winter in California causing many of the locals parks to close combined with some sickness in the family have curtailed my geocaching adventures this year. I hope to resume my geocaching in the next month or so. I have lots of plans for high desert overlanding/geocaching!
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Member III
do you use Geocaching.com or other site? what's your sum total of finds to date so far? have you had the opportunity to travel overseas to make any finds?
Yes, I use Geocaching.com for running pocket queries, planning geocaching/overlanding adventures, etc. I also use the Cachly app on my Iphone if I find myself somewhere unplanned and just want to find a cache or ten....
My geocaching name is KM6AQT, which is also my Ham callsign. I started geocaching in May 2009 and remained as a basic member for a few months before finally taking the plunge and upgrading to a premium membership. I wanted to give it a go for a while and see if I would like it. I did! So far, I have found 17,718 finds and have geocached in five countries: United States, Canada, Ireland, Iceland and the United Kingdom. I also wish that I had discovered the sport a lot earlier than I did as I visited quite a few countries in 2005 and 2006 as part of a round the world backpacking adventure. My favorite type of cache at the moment is an event cache. It's nice to meet up with fellow geocachers, catch up on news and plan future roadtrips together. You should be able to view my profile, statistics and maps here.
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Member III
Very impressive. I joined Geocaching.com back in 2004 but I never really did anything about it. It was only a couple of years ago that I actually started to go out and find caches. We have no where near as many finds as yourself but we're enjoying going out whenever we have a spare moment. I'm not sure we'll become Premium members as it seems am extra cost for no actual gain. It's not as if we will run out of caches to find.Yes, I use Geocaching.com for running pocket queries, planning geocaching/overlanding adventures, etc. I also use the Cachly app on my Iphone if I find myself somewhere unplanned and just want to find a cache or ten....
We're yet to set up our own cache but we want to make it a good one. Here in the UK there are far too many unimaginative hides.
We've got a little trip to Switzerland booked soon and I already have a whole list of caches to find. We're looking forward to it.
Member III
Hey all. I just wondered was people use as their device of choice for Geocaching. Do you use a specific hand held GPS or GPS compatible handset like a mobile phone? I don't want this to get into an argument like one in another forum. I am purely interested to find out what other Geocachers use as their device of choice. I'd be interested if there is a make / model which is more commonly used
Best of luck with your trip to Switzerland. I can certainly sympathize with your thoughts on becoming a Premium member. Initially, I became a Premium member to financially support the operating costs of the Geocaching.com website, contribute to the community and sport of geocaching in addition to being able to utilize more advanced web-based tools to run pocket queries, find higher difficulty caches, publish caches of my own, log premium caches, etc. Over the years, my friends (who are also premium members) and I have debated the ongoing logic of this. The direction of the management of Groundspeak, the company who run Geocaching.com have changed over the years as the sport has grown in popularity. That is undeniable. Every time that Groundspeak comes out with a new set of rules to further regulate the sport, it really just seems to take away some enjoyment from the game without really adding to it. Despite the veracity of their PR spin machine, they rarely seek our input anymore and just seem to act unilaterally in their autocratic-style of decision making. Now, there are perhaps too many rules and future growth of the game is somewhat limited. Has Groundspeak grown too large and become disconnected from its grass roots members? Perhaps... I am still undecided. Some well-seasoned geocachers who I am friends with are now no longer active geocachers or have minimized their geocaching activities in recent years due to rule changes or bad interactions with Groundspeak, which is a pity. They published some really awesome and challenging caches over the years. Their volunteer work in the early 2000's paved the way for the development of the sport. Personally, I think that I will always geocache in one form or another and remain as a Premium member as it is still the only viable geocaching website out there. It has opened up the world to me in many amazing ways. I have made so many new friends because of it and have shared countless adventures with them. Groundspeak, as far as I am concerned is just another internet-based company, whose only real mission is to collect annual membership fees. I have decided to stay out of the politics and negativity of the sport and just enjoy myself in my many mis-adventures!
I just want to have fun and enjoy the comradery of this rather unique worldwide game. I am quite fortunate though. As my enthusiasm for geocaching has wained, I have now discovered the awesome community of overlanding and look forward to outfitting and exploring whilst finding a few geocaches along the way!!!I use a Garmin Montana 680T as my primary GPS and use the brilliant Cachly app on my Iphone for the occasional, unplanned find. I am very impressed with both.
Member III
Personally I use a Garmin GPS Map 62s. I bought it to replace my Garmin GPS Map 60 which became very temperamental with the use of its buttons and some of the features (including the compass)
I feel the updated model isn't quite as user friendly as my earlier GPS but that is purely my opinion. I hope no-one is offended by me making this comment.
A feature of Geocaching. Com which I used to enjoy but is no longer available was the "Challenges". Unfortunately it seems these weren't financially profitable for Groundspeak which concurs with the previous comment. They were therefore taken off the Geocaching. Com site.
I feel the updated model isn't quite as user friendly as my earlier GPS but that is purely my opinion. I hope no-one is offended by me making this comment.
A feature of Geocaching. Com which I used to enjoy but is no longer available was the "Challenges". Unfortunately it seems these weren't financially profitable for Groundspeak which concurs with the previous comment. They were therefore taken off the Geocaching. Com site.
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Enthusiast III
Member III
T
Its my biggest qualm about geocaching. I'm sick of being lead to dodgy alleyways or the back of disused industrial estates to find a cache. Bring back caches with a purpose. An awsome view, a historic place or somewhere of educational purpose. Come on geocachers let's have some imagination and a sense of purpose
Same here! Now people are making graffiti by placing 200 caches in the middle of a lake that spell out their name. Or placing 30 caches along one trail. Now people want to not only have the most finds, but the most caches hidden. Then they don't get maintained. Just have to wade through the crap to figure out the good ones.
Sent from my iPhone using OB Talk
Member III
I've noticed the increase in stupid pictures drawn up by caches in formation. In addition I've discovered so many caches where a little bit of tlc wouldn't go amiss. I mentioned it once to a cache owner who gave me grief in return for not being a responsible cache and doing something about it. I laughed at them.
Member III
yay we have recently topped the 1000 geocaches find total. woo hoo
Influencer II
I also geocache when I can
Always have a quick look to see if there is anything in the area I'm going to
It's handy that my Garmin 64s has preloaded some caches
Girlfriend and me at Fort Barrington on Antigua 2015
Sent from Mobile App
Always have a quick look to see if there is anything in the area I'm going to
It's handy that my Garmin 64s has preloaded some caches
Girlfriend and me at Fort Barrington on Antigua 2015
Sent from Mobile App
Cool photo! Finding a geocache or two while on vacation is always an aim of mine, especially if I am on vacation in a new country. I recently brought a new Garmin Montana 680T and found that it also had preloaded geocaches in it. I did find though that since the preloaded geocaches file was created a couple of years ago, some of the geocaches in my area had since been archived or many were now at new locations near by. Much of the information and recent log information were stale. I eventually just deleted the massive .GGZ file from the memory and now just run fresh pocket queries, which reflect up-to-date information about the caches that I might be looking for while out geocaching.
http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=321029
Best of luck with your geocaching this summer!
Member III
I was trying to figure out if there was a way of deleting the preloaded caches from my device that u have already founderway. It seems I am not able unless I delete each one individually.
Hi Keith, Yes, there is a way to delete all the preloaded caches from the memory of the GPS in one quick step. Originally, it was a great idea by Garmin to preload the newer GPS's with these caches to give people a good starting point but as time progresses, the information becomes stale and out-of-date. Also, having so many geocaches on the devices can effect boot-up times.
http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=321029
The link above will take you to a thread on how to delete these caches. Post #34 (Posted 16 February 2017 - 07:55 PM) deletes exactly what to do in order to successfully remove these caches. I recommend that you copy any files you plan to delete and place a copy on your computer somewhere in case you want to place them back on the GPS one day.
Member III
I think I was a little unclear with what I meant.
I'd like to delete the caches that I have already found from the preloaded ones in my device. If I could sychronise the device with Geocaching.com it would the delete any "dead" caches and hide the ones I have already found.
