I recently developed my first earthcache and got it approved by the MN Dept. of Natural Resources. (I live in Florida.) The approval process took well-over a month. I just received the approval in the mail this past week. However, when I went to geocaching.com to submit it for final approval, I was surprised to find the system is not currently accepting new earthcaches pending implementation of a new system. Given the time I spent on development and obtaining land management approval, I was outraged!
I am a parttime RVer who spends 3-4 months out of each year traveling around North America. I know that there are other full- and parttime RVers who also enjoy geocaching during their travels, because I have met some of them. I maintain geocaches near my permanent residence, but am not always around when problems arise. Fortunately, the local geocaching community is good about letting me know of problems with my caches and sometimes even takes care of fixing them. If a serious problem arises with a cache, then I have to decide whether to temporarily disable or even archive it. I do have internet access on the road and can take these actions from afar.
It seems to me that by putting in place new distance rules, you are, in effect, marginalizing the RVing geocaching community. I have read through the previous posts on this subject, but have not seen any that present the point of view of us “gypsies.” I hope you will take this viewpoint into consideration when you institute the new earthcache system.
