JustFindingOurWay

It's interesting to me that in this whole thread no one mentioned Wherigo. Wherigo, built by HQ and then abandoned as an infant is essentially the same as AL except that you get just one "find" when you sign the log at the end of the completed WIG cartridge. In my humble opinion, HQ blew it when they concocted AL with the inflated find count instead of investing more effort into WIG.

I got nosey and did a quick check using my premium account and a non-premium account. They showed the same number of caches in a 10 mile radius of your town - a VERY different result that I get from doing the same comparison around here.

I almost always log my DNFs. I have some strong expectations of COs since I'm a CO myself so I don't let CHS dissuade me. In fact, sometimes I'll add the cache to my watch list. I'm rather surprised at how slowly some reviewers react to poor cache health or NM/NA logs. I've yet to see a cache that I've DNF'd get disabled with any reference to CHS. On the other hand, I've seen several that the reviewer has posted a warning note and up to a year later there's still no action. It seems more likely that a visitor will "help" by replacing the missing ammo can with a pill bottle.

The Help system isn't always the easiest place to find things, but it does contain lots of helpful information. Third word of the last sentence is the curve ball. 3.5. Can I hold a geocaching event while on vacation? It depends on the region An Event Cache is a gathering of geocachers, focusing on the social aspect of geocaching. In some situations an event while traveling is a great way to meet the local geocachers. In regions that don’t have a local geocaching population however, vacation events often don’t see any attendance except for the geocachers holding the event. Therefore, reviewers may (my emphasis) limit the number of Events during a vacation to ensure the social aspect of geocaching is met.

I think that this is commonly true and the result is often a regional style. I know that it isn't an option for everyone, but travel WILL hone your geo-senses because you'll run into new hide or camo techniques in different areas. If we're fortunate enough to spend a week geocaching in a new region, we'll usually find the first day to be the most difficult until we catch on to the local "style." Some regions read & comprehend the guidelines differently, holes drilled in public property, buried caches, etc which, once found, will impact your search techniques.

I"m aware of two different definitions for Birthday Cache, resulting in two very different challenges. The simple one is what was most recently described by GrateBear - find ANY cache on the anniversary of it's posted placement date. The other is to find a cache with a posted placement date matching YOUR geocaching birthday but commonly this challenge does not add the limitation of the date it must be found. Confused yet?? As with lots of geocaching subjects, there are commonly more than one correct answer.

I was just getting ready to say the same thing! 5200 would be my "go-to" for the very rare occasion that I use a plastic container.

I've had zero success getting permission from property management companies, but I've had great success with churches, some fire departments, and some law enforcement offices. All my gadgets in the past three years have been placed in public locations after having gadgets muggled on state land.

In our local area, we've had issues with non-premium caches being vandalized. Yes, vandalized - not muggled. The issue would come in waves but was always limited to non-premium caches so when I started placing caches I made them PMO on the advice of other local COs. There's just a small chance that with some experience you'll find there are good reasons for PMO caches.

Favorite Point notification, edited log notification, and photo added notification are all available to Project GC paid members. They're not automatically sent unless you request them.

I usually don't pay any attention to numeric milestones (unless I need them for a challenge,) but I hit a different one today. I got lucky and filled the last cell for my Challenge Cache Fizzy Grid this morning. I'd never taken notice of this grid until a couple months ago when I realized I only had two open cells. Now I can go back to ignoring it!

You'll have to take that up with HQ. For some reason, they seem to include lab caches (including adventures) in your total geocache count and include them in the Cache Types I've Found summary in your stats. Sure seems like they think they're a form of geocache even if you don't.

Not quite. It excludes all lab caches including adventure labs.

I've seen a lot of caches that shrunk over time. This is the first time I've seen a cache listed as a small but actually a large.

Sorry for highlighting part of your response, but it's the piece that caught my eye. Actually, no, you don't have to track challenges manually nor do you have to track the signed but not yet qualifieds manually. Both of these are nicely tracked on Project-GC for paying members. If you're serious about challenges then the Project-GC tools for challenges are essential.

As a CO with over a couple hundred active hides, I too read every log as they come in, with any DNFs being added to a "2 Check" file on my phone. Since this won't sort those recent DNFs to the top, the dashboard currently falls in the "pretty, but doesn't help" category for me. Meanwhile, the "Reviewer Note, Published" is shouts "wolf" rather than highlighting issues. Those two notes are recently published caches. To the best of my recollection, I've never had a Wake Up notification from a reviewer so that filter would be totally ignored by me unless color is incorporated to differentiate good reviewer from bad reviewer notes.

As the builder of gadget caches, I really don''t appreciate Vloggers who decide to publish spoilers without asking. Those that have asked have been told no. I want the cacher to experience that "ah hah" moment. In most cases I'd be open to video of the outside of the cache, but NOT the opening of the cache. In my opinion, if you're going to publish video of geocaches on social media, you owe it to the cache owner to ASK PERMISSION FIRST.

I was pleased to see this "Do you guys want a fun geocache to find this memorial day weekend? Find this one. I guarantee you, you won’t be disappointed…" posted to a statewide Facebook group. What irked me was the same geocacher then posted full on video spoilers to Tiktok. ? Why bother to spend hours building field puzzles?

No offense, but nothing says you have to get them all. Just skip them if you don't like them.

25 miles to Phoenix, Arizona but my preference is to head the other direction, wandering the desert.

I would suggest finding some puzzle caches before deciding to place a series. Puzzles often vary by community and you'll learn a lot by solving and finding puzzles around your area.

While that may be true in your area, it's certainly not the case in mine! None of the 57 letterbox hybrids I've placed are at the posted coordinates although one is close. That's true for the other two most prolific LBH COs in this state as well.

I appreciate your willingness to sing the Geooh GO tune BUT I get the very same results using Geooh GO that I got using Whereyougo. It really would be nice if your solution was the magic solution, but it didn't work for me. :-(

IF you're thinking of a saguaro, I would NOT recommend it. They're protected (at least in Arizona.)

The new map is not trustworthy. As others have noted, it doesn't show all the caches. What's strange to me is the inconsistency between zoom levels - at least in my test case, it gets WORSE when you zoom in. Changing from the GS map to Google Roads changes the display of the geocaches, i.e. it shows the ones I own, but it does change which caches are shown. Obviously, my example is using an area with a lot of corrected coords showing, or so you'd think. In fact, in EVERY case, the cache shown as corrected coords (and has corrected coords on the individual cache page) is depicted at the PUBLISHED coords location. Using my wife's account (since she was smart enough to no opt into the new map), all of the current caches show, and her corrected coords caches show at their corrected coords rather than their published coords. (But I'm not going to show you those!) Map 1 is significantly cropped so that approximately the same land area shows in each screen shot. Map 1 is the most zoomed out, and shows all 13 of the question mark caches. Map 2 loses three of the caches, while map 3 (GS) has lost seven of the caches even though it is the most zoomed in - where you'd expect to have the MOST detail. Switching to Google Roads (or Satellite) shows the same caches, but now indicates which ones I own. Meanwhile, the old map shows all of the active caches in the depicted area no matter the zoom level. I don't want to whine, but I do wish that GS improvements would be tested by active, involved geocachers who are experienced testers, and submitted to usability reviews BEFORE they're rolled out. Map 1 Map 2 Map 3 Google Roads Map 3 New GS map Old Map, zoomed in.