Vacation, travel and caching

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Since I’m getting nothing done today, thought I’d ask a question……

When you’re traveling, not for the sole purpose of geocaching. how do you plan any caching you might want to do? Lots of roadside grabs along the way? Looking for favorite types (ECs, puzzles, whatever) or choosing a few based on where they’ll bring you?

I took the last approach when I went to Hawaii in the summer, and my non-caching friend really enjoyed the places and things we saw. I know if I’d tried to rack up numbers, she’d have found this to be the dumbest pursuit ever, LOL. I’m going to be heading to St. Johns Newfoundland to present and attend a storytelling conference next summer. I asked on the Canada forums for ideas, and got a really great list of things that I can find that will take me on a great walking tour of the harbor there, as well as to a lighthouse at the furthest easternmost point on the continent. Might be less than a dozen or so, but sounds like they will all be as memorable as the 20 I found on Oahu in a week’s time.

So, what about you?

[Lostby7]

@Trekkin’ and Birdin’ wrote:

When you’re traveling, not for the sole purpose of geocaching.

Wait, you can do that?

[Sagasu]

Great question! Life beyond geocaching. I have found the need to pick and choose more wisely when traveling with or without the family has resulted in far better than average cache experiences. Bypassing definite “done those, been there” kinds of hides for ones that I think are special or the family can enjoy sharing has allowed us to experience something special about the areas we visit, whether geographical features, historic locations, or exciting challenges. Cream of the crop finds. I have friends who are increasingly approaching their cache selections in the same manner and they are having the same good luck and great experiences with their finds.

[geolivestrong]

This certainly won’t answer the question, but if you have never been to St. John’s it really doesn’t matter in my opinion. The worst cache I have ever seen would automatically become a top ten cache just by being associated with Newfoundland. Beautiful province with very special people.

[gkrone]

When we went to Maui we were only going to stay on that island so it was easy to load up the GPS with all of the caches. After that I went through them all to pick the ones that I knew I wanted to do. We were still using paper at that time so I had the pages printed out and took them along. The rest of them were nice to haves. I ended up getting my first FTF on the virtual TerraCache A Contemptlative Stroll.

Last year when we went out to Zion I did pretty much the same thing but included caches along the route from Las Vegas to Zion as well as several along the strip. Since all of them would not fit into the GPS, I picked ones to load and had the rest loaded onto the Palm so I could do a search by coordinates and then load them as needed. This has been my best week so far with 30 finds.

On our more frequent trips to Springfield I usually load up the GPS with caches along the route and within a 5-10 mile radius of Grandma’s Bed and Breakfast. If I have time to grab a few I will, but it’s always nice to be prepared.

I always have more caches loaded than really needed on trips.[/url]

[uws22]

we (brother and fiancee both cache as well) went to bristol, tn last spring for the nascar race… i had everything within 20 miles downloaded as a just in case we ended up at one, but found more than enough just by the track and downtown where we went out to eat each night. it seemed to work, because i got one of my friends on the trip hooked on it too.

less than a month until bme22 and i head to Belize and Guatemala for our honeymoon… there’s about 20 total in the 3 places we’ll be staying. probably won’t get all of them… but to find caches and virtuals at Tikal and Ambergris Caye will definitely be an experience.

[kc9gbo]

Went with my neighbor to the far east side of Michigan to pick up a snowmobile back in Sept. When planning the trip and route I used Google Earth to plot the route and then followed it noting caches that were at rest areas, park & grabs or truckstops. Didn’t load all of them, but had the laptop along so I could dump them into the gps if needed.
We ended up doing two, one in Michigan just before our final stop and one in Indiana on the way back just before Chicago where we changed spots and gave us a chance to stretch.

[zuma]

@uws22 wrote:

we (brother and fiancee both cache as well) went to bristol, tn last spring for the nascar race… i had everything within 20 miles downloaded as a just in case we ended up at one, but found more than enough just by the track and downtown where we went out to eat each night. it seemed to work, because i got one of my friends on the trip hooked on it too.

less than a month until bme22 and i head to Belize and Guatemala for our honeymoon… there’s about 20 total in the 3 places we’ll be staying. probably won’t get all of them… but to find caches and virtuals at Tikal and Ambergris Caye will definitely be an experience.

Ohhhhhh, sounds ike a great trip…..I was in Belize a couple of years ago, and would love to go back.

z

[NYSandy23]

We try and pick up a few in all the places we go. We love to cache but the sightseeing is the main reason we amble about. It’s never about the numbers when we travel but the experience.

When we cruise, we try and find a few in each port, preferably near the places of interest any tourist would love.

When we drive, we try to find some in small towns, cemeteries, monuments or places of interest along the way. Gives us a chance to stretch and breaks up the drive.

When we are staying in another city we love to walk the downtown areas to see the sights and people. We were in DC this past weekend and picked up some virtuals we hadn’t already mastered, and looked for Whereigo’s or special puzzle or multis. We also look at the state geocaching website (if they have one) and see if they have any special contests or series they are promoting.

We try and interest our friends and new friends in joining us along the way. Sometimes we are successful, other times we just strike out on our own. Either way it is a fun part of traveling.

[gotta run]

If we’re traveling NOT for the sole purpose of geocaching, we will tend to only hunt caches that are right on the way or fill in a new spot on the map, particularly when cruising. Again, this is for the stated question of a vacation that is not planned for caching, so we stay focused on the objective of the vacation.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[Team Vaughan]

Last spring I took my oldest son to Gettysburg and we cached along the way. We found a cache in all six states we traveled through. The problem with caching on a trip like that even with wayside caches it still added a lot of time to a very long drive. Not to mention we dipped south and hit West Virginia just for the sake of caching in a new state. I think we added 4 hours and never left sight of the interstate.

But once we arrived at the battlefield the only caches we found were quality and I ignored all the guardrails. The beauty of caching in an area like that was the things you can see that a regular visitor probably would have never seen.

I personally always plan caching around trips.

[Mister Greenthumb]

Any of the traveling that we have done since we started geocaching has been in Wisconsin. Our idea of vacation traveling often involves visiting small towns. Most of the trips we take revolve about 50% around geocaching. Historic places and natural features with caches would be at the top of our list. State and county parks would also be right up there. We check out virtuals and EC’s, but skip them if the are involved and time consuming. Being that we are both semi retired now we take at least one trip like this each month year round. Bed and Breakfasts and camping are our most frequent overnight accomodations.

[kc9gbo]

I should add my wife is going to Puerto Rico in January to visit her cousin, we have been discussing her doing at least one cache while down there. Not to steal the thread, but anyone have experience traveling like that with a gps?

[sandlanders]

Most of our travel around Wisconsin recently has been mainly for geocaching purposes, with other things thrown in as we find them. And our out-of-state travel has been to visit family, so we’ve tried to do some caching at our destinations and as we travel to and from them.

We only pick out a relative handful to go for and don’t look for numbers in any area. We look for what sounds interesting or is near interesting places, closeness to our route (but not just PNGs along the interstate), some variety, something that might highlight the area–we like multi “tour” caches of a city– and we check for cache names and descriptions that “speak” to us, saying “Find me”.

On our past long (pre-caching) trips, in addition to scenic and historical places, we would take photos at signs, and we would swing into another state if it was close. Same thing with caching. Found one at the OH-PA border this past summer, plus one just into MI, and another one right next to OH-MI-IN all in one spot. Made sure to look for some of the Indiana SQ caches.

We always pick out way too many caches for the time we have, but with places we revisit, we always can try some more, plus clean up a DNF or two. Works the same way here, except it’s a lot closer. Don’t mind traveling all over Wisconsin–no bad spots to cache here!

[Trekkin and Birdin]

I took mine along to Hawaii, which has to be at least that far, if not farther. The biggest thing is to re-calibrate upon arrival, although mine was foolproof enough to tell me to do that, anyway.

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