Traveling cache-free

[sandlanders]

BUMP!

We’ve been back about a week from our first big vacation since we started caching. I found that for the most part, caching interfered with the trip. That being said, I was the only one in the group with much interest in caching. My husband does not care to cache as much as I do, and we had our eight-year-old great-nephew along with us.

My caching partner had suggested limiting our caching to where we were staying each night, but by then he was too tired from driving and the nephew wanted to be in the pool, so not much got done after we got off the road. The only place we stayed for any length of time was three days at the Grand Canyon, and we did three easy virtuals there.

As for the remainder of our caching, I had researched some neat-sounding caches along our route, some at rest stops, some in places we were traveling near. It was OK to stop for the first cache or two, but then the eye rolls started. We were able to find caches in all the states we visited, but I took way more photos than we found caches, and I would cross off two of every three caches on our list as we ended up driving right by most of them. I couldn’t even get either guy to leave the warmth in the building at the top of Pikes Peak to help me find the traditional in the huge boulder field there, so I staggered around at 14,110′ in 27-degree wind chill by myself to get the smiley.

With all that behind us, I’m still logging our finds and trying to upload photos with the site being down for that quite frequently. I don’t see how anyone can travel and make any kind of dent in the caching numbers. It seems that you have to have everyone in the car on board with the caching thing. You can’t make much travel headway if you do lots of geocaches, and you need to be flexible on your time frame. You also need to have that laptop/WiFi thing going for you to keep current on caches as you go, and to keep up with the logging on the road.

We found some neat caches and some neat spots on our trip, but one of the better experiences we had was staying in one of the lodge rooms in the heart of Mesa Verde NP, no caches for miles, balcony looking south, no TV in the room, no computers. We looked at the moon go in and out of the clouds, watched the lights go on in the city on the side of the hills far to our south, saw the lightning in the mountains near that same city, listened to the silence, and had two huge mule deer come close to our balcony as we sat there in the dark.

I have no urge to get back to caching anytime soon, and I have survived our first trip as cachers. We’re not numbers people, so I think I know our limits for the next big travel trip we might take. For those of you who make caching trips frequently, I can see the appeal it may have for you, but I think we’ll make travel for travel and caching for caching. (Wisconsin doesn’t count, because we want to get to all parts of the state, and we DO travel for caching here.)

[DGDK]

When doing road trips, I plan caches along the route, and factor in some extra time. If I’m on/ahead of schedule, I do more caches, if I fall behind schedule, I skip them.

For longer trips, I will plan in 1/2 or full days of caching, with optional activites for the Mrs. if she doesn’t want to go. I’ll also look for caches in places I’m apt to visit anyway, such as state parks, places of historical interest, or road oddities.

When I went to Hawaii, the caching was the absolute best, taking me to non-touristy places, as well as forgotten about coves, waterfalls, and other beautiful areas.

On a trip to Alaska, rather than take the train from Anchorage to Fairbanks, we opted to drive instead, just to allow us to cache along the route.

The key to caching on vacation I’ve found is planning ahead of time, and being flexible enough to change the plan.

Happy hunting!

[Grandma & Grandpa]

Since this thread originally began, we have done two caching-specific trips within Wisconsin. Both were for 4 days, and we did about 20 each time. Nothing excessive, and we still had time to do other things. But like others, our routes and caches were carefully chosen.

We don’t feel much pressure to be constantly caching, we typically average about 100 finds per year. We’re a little ahead of that for 2010, but this is unusual.

Caching and trips are a great combination for us, as long as the caching is kept in moderation.

[hunter-killer]

When we travel, We cache mainly the Superior Wisc. and Duluth Mn. area and always try to do at least 15 per day while traveling. We do prefer park and grabs and other high number, quick finds along the highway, but once in a City we do some of the longer hikes.

Never do we download puzzle or multi caches while traveling, although we have done some in Duluth, just because we are there once a month and have done most of the traditional caches. But for the most part, we never go after puzzle caches and multis while traveling. Just not conducive to high numbers. 😉

I think if we did take a trip to Clearwater Florida, it would take us about 6 years to get there because we would want to do every traditional cache that is 15 feet off the highway. It is just a fun way to to anticipate the next stop and search while traveling.

[Smashing Ground]

I usually just stop at roadside attraction or gas station hides while on the road,and when in the area I try for a few bigger caches (so i can drop trackables)then hit up earth caches or virtuals (Because they are usually scenic and informational).

[peach107]

we just did a utah loop earlier this summer. zig zagged the whole state. it was mainly a national park tour but we also did some prospecting/mineral/gem hunting all over the state. we collected hundreds of trilobite fossils, amethyst, petrified wood, garnet, oolitic sand and other gems and minerals. along the way we did quite a few earthcaches in the parks as long as we were there and a few roadside ones also. mainly ec’s or virtuals with some historic theme make our list. we lay out our route with hudreds of caches and as we drive by we hit the ones at places we need to stretch for a minute or two. we pick and choose at the moment we are driving by, skipping most of the rest. always load 3 times more than you plan on doing. we always incorporate geocaching wherever we go but we don’t let it rule us. geocaching (ec’s) is what got me interested in geology in the first place. a couple years ago we did a yellowstone loop. if it wasn’t for ec’s, we would have never left the main road and missed a lot of the beauty of the park.

[Timberline Echoes]

Having made 4 very long cross country trips US and Cancada, I would say our style is to first pick a destination. The first year was to visit my bro in AZ and see the Grand Canyon, next year was to go to Mt. Rushmore, 3rd to see friends on the East Coast and this year a friend in Washington State. We load the GPSr and Palm with route info and whenever we want to take a break we look to see if a cache is coming up. At that point we look at the details. Then we get out and stretch, find a cache and get on our way. Doing this enhances our travels greatly. It also breaks up the miles so it does not seem like we are in the vehicle very long. We usually don’t find more than 10 a day. WE keep a journal and log at night if we have interet access.
TE

[BakRdz]

Interesting Topic seeing our family just got back from a trip.

We LOVE to travel (Travel = trips outside of WI). For the past number of years we’ve taken at least trip somewhere. In some years (like this year) it’s been 2. Only within the last 16 months has there been caches in our travels. The very first trip we took as cachers instead of muggles was to Utah and Colorado. I was very green with caching at that time (my 7th ever cache was in UT) and only took the info for a few caches along (before paperless). I didn’t even understand virtual or ECs at that time. The caches we did were just one that I knew I could quickly sneak in along the way.

This year we went to KY & TN in June. I programmed potential P&G caches for the drive which I only did a small percentage that were either at waysides or at the gas station. I did vary our route slightly so we could pick a few up in a couple of states that we might not have gone through if not for caching. At our destinations, we only did the caches that were in the areas that we were going to visit anyway. There was only one case where a cache took us to somewhere that we hadn’t planned to go (Mingo Falls) but it ended up being one of the best hikes and sights of the trip.

Today we got back from Disney. I loaded the VCs for the parks before leaving. In this case, I found the caching got in the way. We were having so much fun I kept having to remind myself “at sometime, you need to power up the GPS). Glad I did them because it gave me a nice forum to reminisce over the memories, but I found it interfered in a way.

Looking back, I only wish I would have converted from muggle to cacher sooner because in retrospect there are many of my favorite places we’ve traveled that had caches I could have integrated. The top two are Angel’s Landing in Utah and Hanakapiai Falls along the Na Pali Coast on Kauai. These are two of my most favorite spots I’ve ever hiked. I would have loved to have added the caches to my “collection” to help memorialize the moment.

I guess in a nutshell… while traveling I’ve come to choose caches that ADD to the JOURNEY, not ones that ARE the DESTINATION.

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