A better name for travel bug motels?

[gotta run]

I’ve noticed over time that many travel bug hotels work a lot like roach hotels…bugs check in, but they don’t check out. Or more specifically, they get five-fingered from the cache but never logged and seldom to be seen again. Many such black holes are located in scenic areas like parking lots, rest stops, and other places that are easy for cachers to get to, particularly new cachers who are curious about what these shiny things with tag are, or to the general public who find readily accessible boxes of goodies.

The latest hotel to devour one of our coins is GC20B1F, just the last in a long line.

So I think we need a new name for these…any suggestions?

On the Left Side of the Road...

[grandpa_r]

I think this might be the only way around this problem – see GC2M0QD – lock them up…

[labrat_wr]

That bites GR. I hate it when trackables go missing.

looking at the past inventory on that one it doesn’t look like it is necessarily a deathtrap with roughly less than 10% of visitors going missing. sounds like it was just bad timing for the visit.

I do agree that placing these motels in easy access spaces do allow for alot of non-cachers and new cachers to be able to get their hands on TB/coins.
It really needs to be the cacher that places trackables in these caches to do a bit of homework to help predict the likelyhood of the trackable to go missing.

Locking ’em up is a fair option though this may allow someone to think there is something of greater value inside and either snatch the entire thing or break their way in. they still need to be hidden well. (IMHO)

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[gotta run]

Yah, I really didn’t look into the specifics of this one, I just find that if I’m marking bugs missing, more often than not they are supposedly in the inventory of an empty TB hotel somewhere.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Trekkin and Birdin]

I generally don’t drop trackables in most TB hotels for this reason. I did place one when I was on my trip east in a TB Hotel. It was accessible from the interstate, but not easily so. I walked from my motel, but the suggested approach was to park at the back of a big cemetery. You had to creek hop a couple times and go right through thorns to get to it in a wooded patch.

Next log after mine claims there weren’t any trackables. The one I dropped was one of those little cachekins, so maybe they overlooked it. I hope. It didn’t appear to be a kids’ fort or party spot, so not sure what might have happened. We try to drop travellers in harder caches or remote locations, but sometimes people aren’t happy with that, either. Almost all of our released trackables have gone missing. We don’t care how long one sits, as long as it does. Of about a dozen released, only two are not marked missing now. One sat in a cache near the Arctic Circle forever, but I knew where it was! Ones with a lock are probably a good idea.

[CodeJunkie]

It’s definately a challenge. I typically try to do like T&B and put them in caches that aren’t labeled as Motels and ARE off the beaten path. This isn’t easy however and sometimes I end up holding them longer than I intended. I had one owner give me a hard time because I was holding it and they didn’t care for my “I’m trying to find a safe spot” explanation.

BakRdz and I have discussed this a number of times over coffee as well. That it would be nice to have some way of securing these that the public didn’t have access to. So far we haven’t come up with anything.

One thing that I think (personal opinion) helps is making the cache “Member Only”. The standard membership allows any high school kid to sign up and start looting the goods, but this same kid has learned to pray on the weak and won’t fork out money for the premium membership.

[-cheeto-]

Sorta related but not really…

I placed a new cache at Hartman Creek for the campout called KFC – Bug Motel. It was not designed to be a “TB Motel”. Actually it is really a Bug Motel. Swag items were all bugs to follow the theme of the container.

I laughed when one of the logs came across that it was devoid of any travel bugs.

Now I get to watch and see how many others complain that it is lacking in travel bugs and if anyone stocks it with travel bugs.

Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion…

[kungfuhippie]

I always try to drop bugs in more difficult caches or less frequented caches; multis, puzzles, LCG candidates. Of course, not all TB owners are happy about that. I had one put their bug up on TB rescue because it hadn’t moved in a month. Can’t please everyone, but at least that way I don’t feel guilty when a bug or coin goes AWOL right after I drop it.

[hack1of2]

@Trekkin and Birdin wrote:

Almost all of our released trackables have gone missing.

Wow, we have released 25 trackables so far and none have gone missing. At least net yet. There’s a few that haven’t had any activity since January, but nobody has visited those caches since then. We tend to put them in caches that are for premium memberships, event caches, series finals, or hard-to-find caches. However, we have passed along many trackables that we’ve put in TB hotels. I don’t know if they survived or not in most cases. My feeling is I hope trackables keep moving, and although it’s disappointing if they go missing, it’s a risk we’re willing to take and we’ll just hope for the best. We’ll just keep putting them out there (yeah, I know, famous last words…).

[gotta run]

The problem of missing TBs is the larger issue–unsolvable issue, it’s the nature of putting sparkly stuff in the wild.

I have just really soured on TB hotels. I pretty much write off any TB that wanders into one. Yeah it can happen anywhere but when you put a large box in an easy-to-access area, the chances seem to be much greater of things disappearing.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Walkingadventure]

@-cheeto- wrote:

Sorta related but not really…

I placed a new cache at Hartman Creek for the campout called KFC – Bug Motel. It was not designed to be a “TB Motel”. Actually it is really a Bug Motel. Swag items were all bugs to follow the theme of the container.

I laughed when one of the logs came across that it was devoid of any travel bugs.

Now I get to watch and see how many others complain that it is lacking in travel bugs and if anyone stocks it with travel bugs.

Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion…

Walkingadventure said:”After a busy weekend, this Bug Motel is pretty empty. Thanks -cheeto- for a trip out into the woods. Tick count for me was only 5 today.”

Some of us are just a little slower…

Following the signals from space.

[-cheeto-]

“No TB’s today. Oh well. “
“Awesome cache! No TBs, signed log.”

[BigJim]

@CodeJunkie wrote:

I had one owner give me a hard time because I was holding it and they didn’t care for my “I’m trying to find a safe spot” explanation.

I had a TB owner give me a hard time about holding their bug too long, so I stuck it in a cache that rarely gets visited 😆

All opinions, comments, and useless drivel I post are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of the WGA BOD.

[CodeJunkie]

@BigJim60 wrote:

@CodeJunkie wrote:

I had one owner give me a hard time because I was holding it and they didn’t care for my “I’m trying to find a safe spot” explanation.

I had a TB owner give me a hard time about holding their bug too long, so I stuck it in a cache that rarely gets visited 😆

Now that’s funny. I’ll remember this one for the next time.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

I just checked on the TB hotel in New York where I left a TB and then had the following finders comment there were none there. They missed it. Another cacher came along and retrieved the one I dropped. Whew!

[Author]

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