Caching Burnout?

[sandlanders]

I was checking out some of the stuff on the Geocacher University web site, and I ran across this article about caching burnout.

We probably all know someone who has left the game for one reason or another, but this gave me some insight into things. I haven’t been experiencing burn-out or “bored-out”, and I’m not about to quit geocaching, but I’m feeling a bit “unsettled” about this game/activity/sport. I haven’t been able to put a finger on it, and I still can’t, but this article has enlightened me a bit.

[RSplash40]

Welcome to the club. Jackets are in design

[rtrezrsnhvn]

looks like an insightful article… I skimmed it for now, but would like to read it further later!

[Northwoods Tom]

Good article! It makes some points that really hit close to home for me. The numbers thing seems to be valid in many ways. I find myself driving by some of the same old caches because they didn’t pique my interest when I checked them out online. I then instead will end up walking or driving to some remote area for just a few hides because of what the cache page told me. Sure I will grab a few of those easy ones in the area, but I may ignore others. Living on Washington Island makes me take breaks from caching for periods of time and I think that helps keep it fresher for me. I find more time to search out on line what I think may be those gems that I want to discover. The puzzles (if you’re a puzzle person) give you a way to solve the location of a cache (although it can often be a magnetic guardrail cache), yet claim a difficult cache when you aren’t in the field. The joy here is the solve, not necessarily the cache.

[JBase]

I have been going to college for most of my caching time, so in the winter I take a break. I miss out on some fun, but it has not gotten boring. I started caching because it connects the things I love most. The outdoors, hiking, biking and technology. I also solve puzzles for a living, always have. So caching is a win, win.

When I started there where not so many caches in town and they were full of information and fun. Now it seems there is a cache on every street corner with no history lesson or reason to exist except another 😀 . Don’t get me wrong, I like having a big day of numbers, but quality is better than quantity to me.

I’ll plan a trip to a cache that someone recommended, spend most of the day after that one, if I have time left I’ll go to the local town and clean up the rest of the caches if there is time. I always learn something or find a place in town that I didn’t know about. The reason I cache is to have fun.

Cache on!

[labrat_wr]

I haven’t burned out but have set a few priorities ahead of caching lately. I haven’t read the article but one thing that is a bit concerning to me is the lack of insight given on the cache pages for the large number of 1.5/1.5 caches published lately.
most are p&g caches that seem to be placed just because there is space to add them. The page write-up is as minimal as “P&G BYOP” and this is supposed to get someone excited? Yay, another little ventured, little gained cache effort…

Come on people, grab a little imagination, make up some kind of story or reasoning in placing these. Tell me why I should burn my gasoline to seek these out.

I have stopped for several of these P&Gs in the past week to get my fix but really, not my sense of adventure.

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[gotta run]

Stupid advice in that article…geocaching is a game so if it’s not fun for you any more than just stop for Pete’s sake! (sorry Pete!) Don’t waste your time going through all these convoluted machinations to try to find out what used to be fun about it for you. Just go do something else.

When I or our family loses interest, we stop playing until such time that it sounds interesting again. Absence makes the heart grow fonder as they say.

Now caches hidden, that’s another matter because that is an obligation you take on when you hide a cache. Maintenance can be a burnout and there is no solution other than reducing your amount of maintenance thorough adoption, archival, or asking the community, but never abandonment.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[RSplash40]

One of the observations I’ve made is that a few people who have stopped caching were in part (or whole) upset about something said on these forums.

The forums are great but with all the personalities, tone and non-verbal cues behind their statements taken out of the posts it can lead to a lot of misunderstanding.

The point is if you are upset about something here, you don’t need to stop caching. It could actually be quite helpful.

And yes, I have been there and done that, it was quite nice to just get out and go.

[zuma]

I agree it is a good article Pat. Thanks for pointing it out. Quality, fun caches are still out there. You just have to figure out how to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

The funny thing is that if I created a series of PNG caches called “Chaff 1” thru “Chaff 99” they would get hit more than my caches that are long walks or take any kind of effort.

zuma

[Trekkin and Birdin]

I’m kind of with gotta run on this one…..if it’s not fun, do something else. You can quit forever, or you can take a break, or you can reassess. No one has said, “You must geocache!” We hit a rather public point of burnout this past winter, and while I’d still happily do only the kind of caching I chose to do on my eastward bound trip, we will sometimes break things up with some “just because” caches.

I don’t like to fault anyone for the way they choose to play the game. Our preference has been and always will be the long hikes or crazy challenges, but that hasn’t stopped us from getting plenty of P/Gs on the way to those. For others, they just enjoy watching the numbers pile up and the big series serve that purpose. We keep slowing down, and seeking more balance with other things in life, and doing that has helped keep this fun for us. (If anyone wants to argue the point that we’ve slowed down, I can show you our GSAK charts that demonstrate an ever downward spiral in our monthly find counts since 2008!) For us, it’s been a good way to get out and enjoy exploring together and at times, escaping the problems of the day for a little while.

[Thraxman]

Over nearly 10 years of caching (I think my first find 10th anniversary will be on the 25th of this month), I have found just 310 caches. I hit 300 a little over a week ago. I never really burned out, and if you look at my number of finds, you will see why. I cache only when I think it will be fun. And in recent years, I hit mostly caches I think I will enjoy. This means I tend to make my caching “adventures” quests to heavily wooded areas where I can get a couple miles of hiking in, weather it is for one find or a cluster of 6 or 7.

There is nothing wrong with taking a break. The day you wake up, plan to go on a hunt, and realize there are other things you would rather do is the day you should do something else. Maybe you will enjoy the hunt more the next day. Or maybe the next month. Or maybe the next year. It doesn’t matter. You can stop and start as you please.

I imagine that if I would start playing the “Numbers Game”, I’d burn out pretty quick, and would really start to regret the sport. I could easily hit 30 or 50 caches in a day, but I know from experience that I would quickly tire of chasing down micros in small city parks. To me nothing is more mundane than driving, parking at a curb, walking 15 or 20 feet, unrolling the strip of paper from the micro, signing it, and driving off. How many times in a day can that be fun? Honestly, I do not mind hitting a park’n’grab or two on the way to my main objective. But to hit this sort of hide repeatedly over the course of a day would put me on the path of quitting quite quickly. My point is simple. Concentrate on what YOU find fun. When it isn’t fun, do not do it! You’ll be back for more.

[-cheeto-]

@Thraxman wrote:

The day you wake up, plan to go on a hunt, and realize there are other things you would rather do is the day you should do something else.

Which describes most of my days. I’m not “burnt out”. I just re-realized I like to do other things besides this.

Had a blast kayaking and fishing with my kids this weekend. Wouldn’t trade that experience for any other.

[Barry Butrymowicz]

We have slowed down quite a bit, have been focusing on starting a new series of caches that are placed at fire lookout towers or the remains of them have about 5 of them out now and many more planned.

When we get burnt out of finding guard rails and micros that were placed with a smart phone, I guess we just head out to the gravel roads of the north woods and place caches that you can fit your hands inside not just a finger or tweezers.

[Ashen15]

@RSplash40 wrote:

One of the observations I’ve made is that a few people who have stopped caching were in part (or whole) upset about something said on these forums.

The forums are great but with all the personalities, tone and non-verbal cues behind their statements taken out of the posts it can lead to a lot of misunderstanding.
.

@Thraxman wrote:

Over nearly 10 years of caching (I think my first find 10th anniversary will be on the 25th of this month), I have found just 310 caches. I hit 300 a little over a week ago. I never really burned out, and if you look at my number of finds, you will see why. I cache only when I think it will be fun.

I imagine that if I would start playing the “Numbers Game”, I’d burn out pretty quick, and would really start to regret the sport. I could easily hit 30 or 50 caches in a day, but I know from experience that I would quickly tire of chasing down micros in small city parks. .

This is kind of OT but since both of these replies are posted here I’m going to combine them and comment.

As a member of the “MTV generation”, a prior online gamer, and a member of an over a decade old wife support site for my husband’s profession, and a member of forums for various hobbies I’ve seen what the internet can do to destroy relationships across all types of online and “real life” socialization. I’ve lurked mostly on these forums and I’ve observed some “spats”. Oftentimes on other forums I know those occur between a few strong personalities and/or people that get along with one another and can be viewed differently from a newbie or outsider than the core group. If something hurts your feelings online, get over imo.

At the same time, I see people constantly comment that they don’t play the numbers game yet as soon as a problem cacher or CO is encountered that doesn’t have a large number of finds, it is one of the first criticisms thrown out. What motivation does that give a person to keep going or do maintenance? It was nice to see Thraxman’s post. I’m only a year into caching and we have a 141 finds but we’ve enjoyed every single one and incorporate it into camping trips, drives to see family, etc. I understand I’m still a rookie. I plan to do a series soon based off an interest in a local landmark but wonder if I’ll be torn apart here at some point just for placing caches (I don’t intend them to be PNGs or w/o a purpose). I can see new players avoiding the forums (and events) and the game due to “divas”.

I’ve been fortunate to have some wonderful, helpful people from these forums help me get started, find equipment, etc. I’ve been fortunate not to encounter any issues personally. No one likes to hand hold in anything but maybe less burnout would occur at the veteran level if more tolerance was shown towards newbies and maybe more people would stick caching out with some mentoring of sorts. If you pay for a premium membership you have the ability to sort out things you don’t like on PQ. It isn’t a fail safe to avoid caches not to your taste but for people who do enjoy numbers, people with small kids, people without a lot of time, etc. PNGs and quick caches can make the game for them.

[Thraxman]

@Ashen15 wrote:

I’m only a year into caching and we have a 141 finds but we’ve enjoyed every single one and incorporate it into camping trips, drives to see family, etc. I understand I’m still a rookie. I plan to do a series soon based off an interest in a local landmark but wonder if I’ll be torn apart here at some point just for placing caches (I don’t intend them to be PNGs or w/o a purpose). I can see new players avoiding the forums (and events) and the game due to “divas”.

141 finds and you consider yourself a rookie? 🙂

I look forward to seeing your series when it is ready. Local landmarks are, in my opinion, great things to base a cache on.

And just to be clear, I didn’t intend to rip on PNGs. Some people love them. For me, I like other types. I was just illustrating how *I* could lead myself to burnout by hunting caches that I don’t enjoy as much.

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