ColwynMagpie

I think that's called a squircle

I decided to set up a personal Instagram caching account. Now I can share my experiences without spamming muggle friends on my main! My username's tkos_caching. I'll follow back any good caching accounts.

Or a good end, maybe! I like it.

They're just 'personal challenges' you can undertake - alone or amongst friends - for a bit of extra fun. Not an official part of the game. I like the sound of them though.

Thanks very much! The cache is an adaptation of my town's heritage trail, so the people it'll appeal to won't mind a bit of reading.

Good idea, thanks!

I'm not particularly bothered about how many people find it. The cache will appeal to those who are in it for the experience, not the numbers. For those using a smartphone it'll be no problem to read the info - otherwise, if people find it hard to read the description on a GPSr, they can easily print it out.

www.geocaching.com/map. 'Nuff said. It's worth bookmarking in your browser.

I'm planning to hide my first multi-cache ("offset") during the summer. Since my idea is to guide the cacher along a trail, the cache description might get a bit long. What's the maximum possible description length? I've found some comments on here saying it's 5,000 characters but they're very old threads and could be outdated. Some people also mention posting the description in HTML. What's the deal with that? I'm know (basically) how HTML works but is its usage compulsory or just an option? And would using it affect your character limit?

Ich spreche kein Deutsch (sorry!), aber... 1. Besuchen die Website 'chrome://flags/' 2. Finden 'NPAPI' 3. Wählen 'enable'(ermöglichen?)

Next weekend is the 15th anniversary of geocaching. How will you mark the occasion?

I agree with you. I like to move around on the map in order to print an overview of what caches are available in an area. Or as you said I also like to drag the map around to see what is available. The 30 mile circle needs to go away! If you want to see all caches in an area, then click on the orange "CLEAR SEARCH FILTERS" box in the upper-left corner of the results map. That will remove the circle and restore the left panel that let's you apply some cache-type filtering. I keep geocaching.com/map bookmarked in my browser. I've never even used the search function - the map and pocket queries are all I need.

I started caching only days before the new message system was added. I have to say I prefer the original. It's so much more convenient being able to see messages in your email inbox, especially on mobile devices. I wouldn't necessarily get rid of the new message center but I certainly won't be using it.

Agreed. Some of the cache descriptions I've seen look like a 13-year-old's Myspace account. Same for profile bios.

Exactly this. Number one rule of the internet - don't feed the trolls. Whatever the aim of these vandals - to "help the environment", to keep people away from property, or just to annoy cachers - they all have one goal in common: to provoke a response. Any response, positive or negative. Just post a maintenance log to the cache, fix it up, and carry on as normal. No outrage, no complaining. Don't even mention the reason. Nobody's going to pursue a long campaign of cache-vandalism if they don't get the acknowledgment they crave. This is just my view as a very new cacher, but it seems to me that the occasional vandalised cache is simply one of the vicissitudes of the hobby, and so we shouldn't let it detract from our enjoyment. Personally I enjoy discovering new places and spending time outdoors more than finding the cache itself anyway.

I'd love to experience a bit more variety. I'm in a French city right now and my God, you wouldn't believe the number of nanos dotted around. Sometimes even for a very tricky mystery cache! Understandable, given the setting, but I can't wait to get back to the UK and do a bit of rural caching.

+1. Use AdBlock, folks. It's free, it takes mere seconds to activate and it works tremendously well. And to those people suggesting members pay more to hide ads, I would rather suggest using AdBlock and making a small donation to them instead.

As an urban cacher (for now) I only take a few trade items, a pen and my Swiss Army knife which includes tweezers. The latter two I carry around daily anyway.

For added fun you could deliberately skip a number in the series.

Any groups for North Wales? Particularly in Conwy or Denbighshire? I've tried geocachingwales.com but it's pretty dead and I'm mainly looking for groups/societies.

I would leave the original even if it means there's no room for a replacement. The CO will usually be grateful to you for adding a clean log, but the original log is their property and isn't yours to take. Just submit a Needs Maintenance log so they can deal with it. EDIT: Also carrying spare logs is a good idea - I'll take up the habit in future!

Good point, never thought of that!

So if it's "any [single] geocache" you can do it on either the 2nd or the 3rd. But the "2nd and 3rd" may mean you have to find a single geocache on both days. "2nd or 3rd" would have been unambiguous. I took the "May 2nd and 3rd" to be attached to "Celebrate 15 Years of Geocaching" rather than "by finding any geocache". But yeah they could certainly have been clearer!

The blog post says: So if it's "any [single] geocache" you can do it on either the 2nd or the 3rd.

Probably shouldn't be advocating this but you could try the AdBlock extension if you're on Chrome.