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  • 07/27/2011 at 3:08 am #1732203
    Chznschnapps

      Anyone ever try to use their smart phone to geocache in Europe (yes, we are still smart phone cachers, give us a break!). We are going to Amsterdam next week…maybe pop in to Germany. Besides the language barriers we’ll encounter on the cache descriptions, it just occurred to me that maybe our smartphones won’t work!

      We are planning on placing our first cache soon (in Madison, if we can ever get the city to respond to our permission request), and both of us had our phones out trying to get a good reading on the GZ (Schnapps has a Droid and Chz has an iPhone) – the reading were so different from each other, we weren’t sure what to think. Maybe it is time to bite the bullet and purchase a GPS!

      Any advice on this, or just advice on caching in Europe, in general?

      07/27/2011 at 4:33 am #1950539
      conductorBrian

        Chances are your smart phone won’t work at all over there. If your phone operates on a GSM style network (AT&T uses GSM) it may work and if it does you will probably wish it didn’t as internation roaming charges can quickly add up to a small forechange.

        You may be able to buy a pre-paid phone SIM card for your phone once overseas to make it affordable but chances are that your phone from home purchased through your cell provider is locked down to prevent you from doing this.

        07/27/2011 at 5:17 am #1950540
        hack1of2
        Participant

          When I traveled out of the country I called AT&T and asked about roaming charges on my iPhone. They basically communicated that I would likely spend several hundred extra dollars for that week, so I kept it powered OFF the whole time. In hindsight I did not check into switching to an alternate plan (“international plan?”) for that month, so my suggestion would be to call AT&T or Verizon, whoever your carrier is, and ask for advice there.

          08/02/2011 at 6:32 pm #1950541
          Ashen15

            Thankfully we didn’t encounter surcharges in Puerto Rico since its part of the national Sprint plan and we had a strong signal in San Juan (and we also had both our phones and GPS) but as far as the language barrier goes…most of the caches we ran into had Spanish and English translations in the descriptions. We did have to stop and ask a local to translate one for us. I would find a small travel dictionary if you aren’t already planning to carry one and/or Google and translate certain geocaching related words beforehand.

            All of the logs placed on my European TB have been in English.

            08/02/2011 at 7:37 pm #1950542
            CodeJunkie

              I would recommend the following for placing a cache:

              1) A real GPS. Phone’s are not very accurate and may actually be way off from the real coordinates.
              2) Verify the location of the coordinates by using google or bing maps. These aren’t good for placing either but at least they’ll confirm you’re in the right area.

              Smartphones / map only is OK for finding caches, but neither are good for placing the caches.

              08/03/2011 at 12:38 pm #1950543
              Team Deejay

                @CodeJunkie wrote:

                I would recommend the following for placing a cache:

                1) A real GPS. Phone’s are not very accurate and may actually be way off from the real coordinates.
                2) Verify the location of the coordinates by using google or bing maps. These aren’t good for placing either but at least they’ll confirm you’re in the right area.

                Smartphones / map only is OK for finding caches, but neither are good for placing the caches.

                +1,000,000,000,000!

                08/11/2011 at 3:30 pm #1950544
                Chznschnapps

                  Well, we bought a Dakota 20 and practiced with it before heading over the pond. Worked great in Madtown, but over here in Europe it won’t acquire a satellite! Pretty frustrating. On the other hand, our smartphones have worked fine…as long as they are connected to a wireless network (in airplane mode, so independent of phone service). So, we can look up caches while in the hotel, but once in the field, it is back to maps and geosense! We Keep missing TBs in caches by hours, so looks like we will be returning empty handed. Boo.

                  Interesting to note that the majority of caches that we have seen around here are puzzle or multi caches. We have enough trouble with the ones at home in English! And the multis here are typically at least 10 stages long! They’re serious about their geocaching over the pond!

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